Car Parts - HID Headlights

I’ve been noticing more and more cars on the freeway with odd headlights.  The headlights seem odd to me because they have a bluish tint.  I started noticing these headlights in the late 1990s on expensive cars.

It turns out that the headlights are a newer technology that provides good night visibility.  They are High Intensity Discharge lights and they are usually referred to as HID or Xenon lights.  Their popularity is making them increasingly more common as standard equipment.

HID headlights produce a very bright light that comes from an electric arc inside of a capsule full of Xenon gas.  The halogen headlights are losing popularity.  As with all types of headlights, HID lights need to be checked often for proper operation.

There are ways to retrofit your car’s standard halogen headlights over to HID lights.  It is important to remember, though, that there are laws that vary from state to state about what is legal when it comes to headlights.  In general, using higher wattage bulb than the ones that came from the factory is illegal.

The Department of Transportation marks headlights with the DOT symbol.  It is important to look for the DOT symbol on new bulbs.  There have been rising sales of illegal blue and yellow headlights.  It is not advised that you ever use these illegal products.

I did a little bit of research and found a website that guarantees that their HID headlights are legal everywhere.  They sell conversion kits that can work for almost any make and model of car.  They also sell HID fog lights.