Xenon lamps

Thank you Mr. Benoy,

        I was just researching as to the feasibility of fixing a pair of HID Xenon bulbs on my Maruti A Star. What ever information I got from  the web about this , I put them in the forum. One of our friends in the forum made a remark that only single filament bulb HIDs are available. This is a wrong notion. 'H4' bulbs are the ones that we need for our 4 wheelers in India.

       Now I wish to know from the Forum members if there are any kind of regulations rearding the use of these bulbs in our country.I have seen many people using the blue ones giving much trouble to the oncoming vehicles.

i own an i10.and am not able to find suitable fog lamps which will support hid..pls suggest..will factory fitted be good enough to take the heat

Dear Abhishek,

You can get a pair foglamps from  Hyundai dealers theselves as OE or as an extra fitting. A slot for this purpose is already there just below the headlamps

dear Abhishek,

recently I fitted the company's original fog lamp which is good which comes to around 4K. but I am not sure whether it will support xenon bulbs; generally modifications in hyundai kits is difficult unless you cut the original wiring system which is not advisable.

Dr.Ramanan Earat

Is it possible to install XEnon HID in i 10 and i20 without effecting the warranty   If Yes confirm the wattage of the lamp ...and what would be the cost.

Dear Gurudev,

    The headlamps that we have in India are of the H4 type in most of the 4 wheelers.  There are Xenon kits ( called HID-Xenon)available for our use.  A set of 2 - ( two bulbs and two ballasts) costs around Rs. 700 to 9000.  Please make sure that they are of the H4 type, with 2 filaments.  The bulbs take just 35 watts or  less. Bu the problem is with the legality of using them on our roads.  The one that gives a blue  coloured illumination is of course not allowed. But those connected with RTOs of in my state says NO for any alieration.  But at the same time they cannot indicate as per which clause of which law it is banned. So please do a good research with the RTOs in your state and then only procede for the purchase

Rule 105 of Central Motor Vehicle Rules (CMVR) specifies that the vehicle must be equipped with a white light in front and red light in back.

Also Rule 108 restricts the use of any other colour like red or blue in front side except in cases of top light in ambulances and dignitory vehicles.

OT: nice to see new members from Kerala..esp. from my district.

dear gurudev,

i had discussed this matter with the hyundai dealer but their advice was againt changing the bulbs even to halogen 100/90; if you are just sticking to the equivalent of 65/55-(the company fitted bulb)-in the xenon it may not affect the warranty. but the bulb with lower wattage does not throw light more than 30ft; hence the visibility is not good in highway riding; but higher voltage xenon bulb needs a change in the wiring system which will affect your vehicle's electrical warranty.

dr.ramanan earat

Xenon FAQ i posted at an other site !

xenon lamps are a type of HID lamps. there are others, but what you get here are mostly xenons. for more info , check Gas-discharge lamp - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Chances are, they are regular bulbs with blue tinted glasses.they cost anywhere between 300 ~1.5k.they are popular since you get the xenon colour without any serious mods.

xenons are a very powerful point source. either reflectors can be use like regular cars, provided they are designed with an HID light source in mind, such as the corolla altis, or a lens- the case where a lens is used to focus the HID beam is called a projector

An HID kit is usually a plug and play setup. you'll get adaptors to plug the HID bulbs in the stock reflectors, wiring, and electronic ballast ( sort of tube lights).

Projectors on a car without them involves serious modding, You can either get aftermarket headlamp assembles with built in projectors for frequently modded cars like the swift, lancer etc, or get it done locally - only few modders in india know how to do this properly.

I believe philips sells HID conversion kits with bill and warranty.a bit pricey, but they're the only official source AFAIK. the rest are just importers, and a lot of fakes abound

HID's generally draw lesser power than stock bulbs (35W as opposed to 55/65) so there is no risk of overloading. a dealer *may* claim the warranty void if you have fitted a conversion kit, since it is a nonstandard item, but there are no inherent risks to the electrical circuitry as long as you use a good conversion kit ( and not some cheap crap which might die and short out the wiring etc). projectors on a car which doesnt have them will mean that the warranty is void, but ideally not if the issue is not electrical related. In either case, if you are really paranoid, switch to the stock setup before paying the dealer a visit.

anything aftermarket is illegal unless you get it homologated by the ARAI or something like that ( fat chance unless your car has projector headlamps in a higher spec variant). Cops might bust you out of their ignorance even if your car has stock projectors, or just blue/white 55/65W bulbs - which is entirely legal.

From what I've heard, good conversion kits are at the 10k ballpark, chinese ones cheaper, and if you want to go for projectors, even more (another 10~15k for the Headlamp assembly)

Some upmarket cars have a warning sytem which detects if a headlight is fused etc - such cars might need a 55W HID kit so as not to trip these systems. a 55W HID kit does not make more power than a 35W kit.it just draws the same amount of power to fool the car into thinking that the bulb is working properly. Otherwise, all you need to do is find out what type of holder your car uses ( H4, H7 etc) and get corresponding kit.

much longer than stock bulbs. if the bulb itself is dead, its just a matter of buying just the new bulb - D2S or D2R or whatever - will be cheaper than the kit. Alternately, if the ballast blows - they are not available seperately - high chance of this in cheaper kits - you'll need to get another pair.

usually in the case of bixenons, the filament moves back and forth for highand low beams. If your car /head light assembly has seperate high and low beam reflectors, you can use halogens in the high beam. most folks have found that HID's suck as high beams