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.

HID Color Guide From Kaixen

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.

They appear to be a bit more “yellow” than the nokya competition. It could be more of a deeper yellow, as far as any improvement in visibility over the nokya bulb would be pure speculation. However; at $39.00 per set they are some of the most expensive replacement bulbs I’ve come across. Visibility wise the yellow doesn’t offer any extra lighting over a standard halogen because that is basically what it is with a yellow paint over the bulb.

With a HID replacement you should get substantially better visibility with a 3K HID bulb, even better visibility than a 4300K HID fog upgrade could provide. This is just based on lower kelvins = more lumens and lumens = visible light. The higher the lumens the more visiblity you will have.

Back on topic, the Hoen Endurance fogs will not offer the same light output as HID’s but to have a more JDM look you can’t beat the quality and even at $39.00 a set it’s still significantly cheaper than the leading HID replacement kits.

Hoen’s website – Endurance Product Page

Hoen Endurance Yellow Foglights - Hoenusa.com