I know the debate on Xenon bulbs in halogen housings. I just wanted to see what the experts thought of these bulbs I found from Mcculloch claiming that these Xenon bulbs are engineered to emit teh same light pattern as halogen bulbs. If what they say is true, it'd work perfect with my halogen projectors. also, how long do typical HID lights last? These only have a 6month warranty on the bulbs/ 1 year on the ballasts. that doesn't seem very long to me? Opinions needed. thanks.
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the whole issue with converting top HID in a halogen lamp assembly, is that there is no cut off on the top of the light pattern, therefore creating alot of light that would be cast into oncoming drivers vision. With the halogen projectors, i would assume that there is some sort of cut-off associated with them, but may not be as low as a HID projector.

heh, I know the whole debate on HID bulbs in hologen housings. I was on the side of many arguments against putting xenon bulbs in halogen housings. I was unsure if this particular kit would work good in a hologen housing or not because it says they were engineered to have the same light pattern as halogen lighting.. If they have the same pattern there shouldn't really be the "hot spots" that are known to blind other drivers. It should be an even light. (especially with projectors.)

True, but the same could be said by people doing the High beam bulb trick in the low beams. those dont have a cap on the end either. While not the same output the principal lighting direction is the same.

The mcculloch stuff is pretty good, its about the best of the non-oem kits out there. As far as lifespan goes, from everything i've heard a year for the bulbs should be no problem, and the balasts and other wireing should last the life of the car if they are installed right and not abbused.

The whole problem with hid conversions is the very reason you'd want to convert in the first place......they put out more light, 2-3 times as much light as a standard halogen bulb. Now, the beam pattern issue is where it gets complicated. These newer hid conversion bulbs put the light emiting part of the bulb in the same location as the halagon counterpart, so hypothetically, they should have a very close match in terms of light pattern. But nothing can change the fact that they're brighter, and halagon reflectors/projectors just wern't designed to deal with that much light so you end up getting a lot of stray light simply because of that fact.

Now, this is not to say its impossible to convert to hids. If you live in an area where there aren't that many people driving on the roads at night, then a direct swap would be alright. However, there really is no substitution for retrofiting in an actual oem hid lamp housing to give you that true cut off beam pattern.

Anyway, sorry if I started rambleing off there, and I hope this helped.