HID Conversion Kit

[Jholko]

Hello Everybody,

I been following this website for a long time, and today finally added my car. I want to put the HID's on my high beams, low beams, and fogs. What is the best kit to buy brand wise? Can I use the same kit for the high and low beams seeing that they are both h7? Also how hard is it and what else would I need relay harness ect? any help would be appreciated.

thank you, Jeff

[nordwulf]

What's the reason you want HID lights for all of your lights? I have mostly read about problems with any aftermarket HID kits and many of those blind oncoming cars. I think all cars in the US need an auto-leveling system for the headlights when HID is used.

They will never look as good as the original Saab Xenon headlights. If you want a little bit brighter and whiter light output, try different halogen bulbs.

[Shazam]

I know the 9-5's headlights are very different than the 900, but I'll give you my take as I have aftermarket HID lights. Mine are for low beam and high beam, and they basically replaced the original bulb; I had to add some ballasts and wiring, and some minor modifications to the existing headlight housings. I got them on eBay, and the general consensus as the time was that they were "middle of the road" in quality for an aftermarket kit. Overall, I would never do the modification again. My 900 has fluted glass lenses, and because the new bulbs have a different placement (and the highbeams work differently than the originals) the light scatters more and differently than they should. My cut-off isn't as sharp as it was before, but I rarely get people or friends saying that the cut-off is too high and blinding them. The only way I can really fix this is to get non-fluted lenses, but the housings are designed for fluted lenses so I would probably lack proper projection, and the bulbs wouldn't appear to work as well.

The 2005 9-5 has non-fluted lenses, so if you were to switch to an aftermarket kit, you would most likely have less problems with improper scattering, but they could still be there improper scattering and blinding of other drivers, but I don't think it would be too bad.

Scattering issues aside, I still would not do the kit again. I now have condensation build up in one of my headlights and I can't get rid of it. Also, the ballasts are annoyingly placed (my fault, but wasn't any better choices). And finally, they are brighter, but not noticeably. The only noticeable difference is that they have that xenon bluish/white look. Sure it's cool, but I'd wouldn't do it again. The only time I would, is if I could upgrade to an OEM xenon headlight set-up.

This is just my take on my HIDs.

HID cutoff with fluted lenses:


What a great cut-off should be (usually best achieved with projector headlights).

[Jholko]

Thank you guys for the honest opinions. I want the brightness and Xenon set up but no way am I going to spend that much money lol. If there are reliable kits out there, I think I might want to give it a try, but by all means I don't want to find myself in an avoidable bad situation. I was looking through some of the pictures and was wondering if anybody has found themselves in this same situation. Has anybody used a kit on a 9-5?

[Shazam]

Not exactly packed full of info, but some people are happy with their HID kits.

HID conversion - The Saab Link Forums

But problem is they have the earliest face 9-5. The headlights were pretty extensively changed, but I'm not exactly sure what was just cosmetically changed and what electrical things were changed.