Ultimate Headlight Restoration

On this site there are some tips on restoring your headlight lens. However as good as many tips and or so to speak methods there are on the internet ultimately there is no method that can make them brand new in cases. Hence if you want headlights that sparkle that are spotless on the inside as well as the outside, you have no choice but to replace them. Unfortunately this can be very costly for OEM replacements, especially if they are factory HID lights. Fortunately for many manufactures and models of cars and trucks there are options that not only restore that new look but can enhance the appearance and improve the performance at a reasonable cost. With this in mind I was bound and determined to restore & improve the headlights on my wife’s 2004 Lincoln Navigator Ultimate.

 

Since the truck was equipped with HID lights, I first looked at prices of replacement housings and found OEM HID’s costing nearly $750.00 each. Stunned, I started to look at non-HID aka “Halogen” housings averaging in $125.00 for the pair. As much as this was a great price, settling on a set of lamps that don’t have the performance of HID’s was unsettling. For the most part HID’s last tens of thousands of hours, are much brighter and consume very little current. Whereby standard halogen headlamps produce a yellow hue, last only a few thousand hours and draw much more current. Nevertheless one can purchase halogen lamps that are close to the color of pure white in the 4000K color range at a price, and the bulb life drops to around 300 hours. Hence for a daily driver with day lights this becomes very costly option.

The better of two worlds. Many stock OEM lights in recent years were produced with a high output, long life, HID low beams while utilizing a standard halogen bulb for the high beam. This make sense since doing so held the cost down and high beams in normal usage is typically very low making the life of the bulb not of a concern.
Stepping up, since I am a fan of white light (6000K) along with better visibility I looked at options that fitted my needs. The first was to get to better performance than factory without spending hundreds of dollars. Looking at the new trends were LED verses HID. LED offers bright lights beyond factory, extremely long life, at the cost of a retrofit at around $ 100 bucks a pair. HID’s also offer long life, a wide range of color at about 30% less the cost of LED lighting. However not unlike some LED lighting they might need to be indexed, so to speak adjusted for the beam pattern. Nevertheless that installation of a retrofit is not hard if you buy a quality set of lens and lights. I settled out for a few more bucks with “Eagle Eyes” for my lens especially since that in my Navigator’s application they are of a quality manufacture, and a perfect fitting product, backed by a 100% guarantee. Needless to say I was 100% satisfied. Then I settled out on upgrading both the low beams with 55watt LED sets from “Kensun”. Kensun’s in many cases are rated in the top ten many times placing 1st or 2nd in reputable reviews.

 

Overall I wanted to keep the “auto on” feature along with gaining a brighter whiter light. In the straight up stock configuration there was some issues with the “auto on” feature. The light was good especially since I opted for 55 watt units, but I still wanted a sharp focused light in the 6000K range. Working with “Anna” in customer service at Kensun whom convinced me that I needed the relay wiring set along with the resistors to deliver the options I was looking for. Basically the relay option allows for the voltage to be pulled directly from the battery, hence no shortage of amps. The resistor ballast helps with any flickering and other associated issues with loading/dissipation and sensor troubles. For the most part the folks atKensunwas 100% willing to work with me and get the installation to where I wanted it to be. “Anna” at Kensun worked with me over many weeks and trails to arrive at a perfect outcome. I could not be happier. She provided me with the right information, parts, turnaround time to suit all my needs.

 

To date here is how it all faired out:
Upgrades low "9006" beams to Kensun LED's with a 6000K color range (pure white) at 55 watts with Relay & resistor cable for aproximatly $85.00 for the set. For now I changed out the standard high beams with 65 watt Phillips Xtream Vision 3400K for around $ 30.00. For the lens assemblys I obtained “Eagle Eye's” from A1 Auto Parts for arouind $ 130.00 for both the left and right assemblys. Total project $ 245.00 for a better set up at a minimum savings of $ 1100.00.

 

A word to the wise, I spent many hours researching one article after another related to the down fall and dangers with utilizing HID’ s especially aimed at the use of 55 watt ballasts. As in many articles I found for the most part they were all outdated and some were as far back as 2006. Shockingly one from a recent LED manufacture was extremely critical of HID’s. With having an electrical engineering background I find this offensive not to report the facts and if such issues were present at one time such articles should be pulled off since it no longer is an issue. One only has to do is reach out to major manufactures like Sylvania and Phillips that manufacture a complete array of lighting products from incandescent bulbs to LED products for the truth. In any case any new products in any field might at one point or another might have produced undesirable results, especially seen in any low quality products. Keep in mind that these units have been out for a long time, domestically in automotive applications for over 15 years, hence they have a long reputable history behind them. Ironically the articles that spent the most time bashing others products were geared towards selling their own. Any recent articles by major manufactures, automotive blogs and reputable automotive magazines will show just the opposite. Take a look at https://thenextgalaxy.com/difference-between-35w-and-55w-hid/ published in 2016.

 

As in any retro fit it’s always wise to contact the manufacture directly, any reputable one will help answer your questions honestly. Look for those whom have a long history of supplying such products to the industry. A word of warning, never exceed the original wattage rating of any product. Keep wattages like for like, if your unit supports a 55 watt bulb then it’s safe to say it will support a 55 watt HID, but nothing more. A good article covering this subject can be found at http://www.stylingwebben.com/page/view/18 which covers the myth of melting housings. 

 

What are HID lights features? Courtesy of Kensun
HID lights have a glass chamber of gas, replacing the filament of traditional halogen bulbs. The gas is ignited by a 23,000V charge and stays illuminated by a constant 12V source provided by a ballast which is connected directly to your battery. HID lights are able to provide greater light output with much less power consumption. A 55W HID lamp produces 5 times as much light as a 55W halogen bulb. Also, a halogen bulb uses a continuous power draw of 10-15 amps, while the HID system uses 20 amps for ignition, but then drops to a mere 3 amps during operation (i.e. up to 80% less power during use!). Additionally a HID headlight bulb provides longer service life. With no filament to vibrate and fatigue, under normal conditions HID bulbs last roughly 10 times longer than halogen bulbs.

 

What is HID Color Temperature? Courtesy of Kensun
Color temperature (the Kelvin rating) is a characteristic of light that is sometimes mistaken as brightness, when it is more closely related to “cool” and “warm” tones of light. It is hard to describe HID colors accurately since many variables such as voltage, type of ballast and the environment can affect color output. Also, color perception is subjective.
For fog lights we recommend to choose “warm” tones of light (3000-4300K). The “cooler” the temperature is (especially over 8000K) the amazingly COOLER the light becomes!
Source: https://kensunhid.com/