• November 6, 2008
• Category: General
• Written By: Chris
• No Comments

With HID kits becoming cheaper and cheaper, more and more people are buying HID retrofit kits for their OEM headlights. As the HID technology advances there are alot more options for the color of your lights, the intensity, the visibility, and more. However; one of the most greatly overlooked issues is kelvins vs. lumens and what that means for you, your visibility, and oncoming traffic.

When looking at a HID kit you are always going to see them rated in Kelvins, for example: 6000k -or- 6000 Kelvins. What this is referring to is the color of the light that will be emitted. Most OEM HID’s are somewhere around 4000K – 5000K, “JDM” crystal blue (whitish blue) is 6000K – 7000K, deep blue is 8000K – 8500K and violet purple is generally 9000K and up.

Here is where it gets tricky, there is a little known fact about HID’s and does in a way seperate them from halogen bulbs. The higher up the Kelvin chain you go the less usable light you get. When I say usable I am talking about visible light on the road to your eye. Staring at a 4300K OEM HID compared to an 8000K HID the latter is going to seem way brighter, but when driving the visible light on the road is going to be far less than the former. This is because the lumens are far less in an 8000K HID compared to a 4300K HID, and this means your eye sees less viewable light on the road surface.

The catch is that a 8000K HID will be substantially brighter in appearance to an oncoming driver than a 4300K HID which can lead to safety concerns and is why in many states a “blue” headlight is considered illegal. However; a 10000K HID will appear to be even brighter than an 8000K HID but in turn will provide substantially less road visibility.

Does this mean that a yellow 3000K – 3500K HID provide the best road visibility? In some cases yes, the yellow light emitted by a 3000K HID will indeed light up the road better by having more Lumens. However; the distance the light can travel is less. This is a good reason why yellow lights or 3000K HIDs make such great fog lights but not such great headlights.

There is always a method behind the OEM manufacturers madness, and when they give you a 4300K HID they are doing it for a reason, the 4500K is an excellent trade off for usable on road lights (lumens) and easy on the eyes on oncoming traffic. The light will travel far enough to provide the driver with the proper amount of light to drive by and not blind oncoming traffic.

I have personal experience, I had 8000K replacement HIDs in my TSX and it was great on dry summer nights, I could see for miles it seemed. However; on the first rain I could see absolutely nothing, I had might as well been driving with no headlights at all. Not to mention the amount of times I was flashed by oncoming motorists (and no not the good kind of flashing, more of the angry headlights flashing).

Am I recommending that everyone buy 4300K HID’s to make the roads a safer place and get more usable light? No, to each his own, I am just helping you make an educated decision.