High Intensity Discharge aka H.I.D.

Driving along at night along a dark and deserted strech of highway........miles and miles of emptiness awaits to greet you. You take a peek at your rearview mirror and see the same thing...darkness...nothing but darkness.....

You start to feel a tad uncomfortable, your hand apprehensively reach for the rearview mirror to tilt it ever so slightly downwards as if to reenact the saying "out of sight, out of mind".....before you could do anything your eyes catch a bluish glow coming from the rearview....you look up to see what is making the funny coloured hue.

It gets brighter and brighter by the second...the bluish hue now turns purplish with a mixture of pink...you think to yourself...WTF is this? Before long, the intensity of the lights reduce your eyes to nothing more than a squint....its on your tail now....you press the accelerator to distance yourself but to no avail....its sticking to you like glue! you move left, it moves left...move right and its still there, on your tail....arrrgg! In a panic you throw the steering left and slow down your car...the lights the passes you with a vrroooom..its a bloody EVO 9 with HIDs....you nearly shit in your pants!!

That is HID ( High Intensity Discharge )....the light bulbs of the HIDs utilises gas ( xenon ) as a medium of producing glow instead of the conventional aka old school filament type. It has a very high voltage ballast box with ignitor fitted from the car's power supply prior to the vacuum bulbs. The HID comes in 3000k, 6000k, 8000k and 12,000k ratings. In terms of lumens, HIDs should be producing about 2,800 to 3,500 lumens.



For me the 3k up to the 8k bulbs are quite ok...they produce a white daylight like ( not exact daylight ) glow as opposed to the 12k ones ( bluish purplish hue ). One setback with using HIDs though.....its quite useless in the rain and fog...one practically sees nothing!



I had a set of HIDs ( 8k ) outfitted in my old Protong Jawa...wah lan eh...lansi like hell ma.....couldn't wait to show off its blinding power. Drove up to Genting Highlands with wifey and mum in law in tow. My usual journey up the Highlands normally takes 1 hour but this special show off journey took me 1.30 hours!!

I was practically blinded by the fog quarter way up....everywhere was a blanket of white! It started to rain when I was about to reach the peak....ahhhhh happy at last..was thinking to myself that the rain will drive away the fog. FULAT....learned the hard way that I was out of the frying pan and into the fire! the bloody HIDs deflected like hell in the rain causing my vision of the road to be reduced to about 5 feet. Poor me, my poor eyes and my poor ears ( wifey was laughing her head off ).

The BolehLand's ever efficient JPJ and Police at first allowed the use of HIDs...then they banned it with threats of fines...then they might allowed it cause nothing has been done so far ( bunch of morons )....TNM...why they so like that one ar? can or cannot! make up your stoopid freaking minds la! Why ban it when they allow the importation of HIDs? Apprehend the suppliers and installers la. ( pls read link http://paultan.org/archives/2005/09/10/jpj-makes-hid-illegal-without-approval/ )



For me, the use of HIDs are ok. Its a mean to safer driving ( if used properly ). Safer in the sense that you can see the road and safer in the sense that your vehicle is easily noticed by others ( even in the rain OR fog )....just plain common sense. Visibility is not only for the driver but its also for others to notice you....elementary right?

Most of the well known car marques are already specifiying HIDs as standard factory fittings....BMW, Audi, VW, Merc, Toyota, Honda, etc ( the later two being in the high end range ). Wonder when Protong will follow suit...IF they follow ( a bigger bunch of morons ).

A normal set of off shelf HID will cut you back about RM400 ( plus installation ) and a higher end one from RM 800 to Rm1600. Most of them comes with a 1 year guarantee on ballast and few months on bulbs. The average lifespan of a HID bulb is about 50,000 hours ( manufacturers claim ) which is equivalent to 5 years of switching on your headlights non stop. Generally cost RM120 to RM500 for a pair.

Won't wait for the day when the freaking Bolehland authorities make up their stoooopid mind....will be installing a set on my baby soon ( lantak approved or not approved )....have to start calling up my old kakis...hehehe.

For those of you that are planning to install HIDs, please use bulbs that contain no toxic mercury ( love Mother Earth ok? ).

2 every1 his/her OWN........................