How to make your HID's brighter? It's easier than you think!

One of the first things to ask yourself how much usage is on the HID bulbs. Since its hard to quantify hour usage of HID bulbs, we usually just go by amount of miles driven. On a typical car, most people are doing about 10-12k miles per year. If you've got 40K+ miles on your factory HID equipped vehicle, its definitely time to change out your bulbs.  We usually see significant intensity drop off around the 3-5 year mark if they are original Osram or Philips bulbs. On aftermarket HID bulbs, the bulbs may be very worn around the 2 year mark. Low beam HID system as DRL? After a year you may feel like your lights aren't as bright, and you would be 100% correct!

One thing to note, is on higher mileage cars, on specific models, you could also be dealing with projector bowl burn. That is when the reflective coating inside the projector wears away and loses its efficiency. Aside from a projector conversion, there is nothing you can do about that. New high-performance HID bulbs such the premium bulbs we carry will help, but they may not full restore performance. 

Seeking the best? We'll only recommend bulbs from Osram or Philips. They manufacturer the highest performing bulbs on the market. The bulbs will retain the same reliability and longevity as the original system; all while improving your performance. You get what you pay for in this case! 

We had a customer come with the complaint of dim headlights on a 2020 Jeep Grand Cherokee equipped with the factory HID headlights. The car only had 8K miles so we pulled it in to check. Everything looked quite normal. We explained while the car is not technically due for new bulbs, the best performance on the market will come from the Osram Nightbreaker Laser. To set expectations, We explained that since its low mileage, probably only see 10-20% gains. We were very wrong! The result was almost 2x as bright!

Here is a lux and beam comparison between the Original Osram HBI bulbs and the new Osram XNL bulbs. You can see each projector performs different. The drivers side was weaker before and after the new bulbs, but the key note is to look at the difference in intensity and overall beam distribution. In this case, for $215 plus installation time, this is by far the best bang for the buck that you can make with your HID lighting performance. 

Click here to check out the full HID bulb line up!