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HID & LED Headlights

201K views 273 replies 85 participants last post by  crichgas 
#1 ·
Is it possible to get the OEM LED's from GM and have them installed on a lower trim level such as the Luxury? I really like the look of the LED strips in the lower fascia, however I do not need the Performance or Premium trim that they come standard on?

Also, is there and issues with the connectors for the Luxury headlights to switch to HID?
 
#2 · (Edited)
[EDIT] To your first part of your question: Just adding the lower LED lights. This should be doable - the lower LED lights are plug and play compatible, and you would need a relay harnass (ebay-$30) that wires to and controls the LED signals. The upper portion LED/HID is more tricky - see the rest of my answer.

Tot the best of my knowledge, the connectors in all cars are identical, as are the light housings, so fitting is not an issue. Same for the LED portion. However the wire harnass in the Standard & Luxury does not have all the same signals connected that the Performance and Premium have. It is unclear if you just lose the adaptive forward lighting control, or whether you simply do not have the proper grounding for the HID ballasts. Also, the DRL is solved very different between the two cars, meaning there is no wiring provided for the LED at all.

I guess that upgrading to OEM HID & LED lighting requires installing additional wire harnasses, and possibly controls. This could make it cost prohibitive, and I wonder if dealers (or GM) would support this.

I find it unbelievable that the HID option cannot be ordered on these pricey (Standard & Luxury) cars. As we pointed out in another thread, GM can factory install an HID projector (instead of a Halogen projector), and populate it with a Halogen bulb, if Halogen is required (fleet?) or preferred. Converting to HID, option or afterwards, would then be trivial. European cars with projector headlights (Audi) do it this way nowadays.

I seriously hope that this will be addressed in the 2014 model lineup.
 
#15 ·
So much for believing and buying into an American luxury product for 2013 (my 3rd Cadillac). The sales guy had me believe that the car had HID (projectors) and that the Premium was another $10k - I bought the car off the lot. Maybe both were overstated, but I still can't imagine that HIDs are not standard nor are offered as an option. Most cars, that are $10k less than the Luxury, already have them. I haven't owned a car without HID during the past decade.

BTW, at the Premium price I would not have gone for the ATS, but would rather have upgraded my Porsche instead. Now I am keeping that as my weekend car (only 40k miles). The ATS is my daily commuter. It in fact was the Luxury price point, and trim, that made me make my decision.

If GM offers an upgrade HID solution, I'd happily switch to that. Either way, I am happy. Fwiw, the converted HID are actually nicer (light beam pattern) than the genuine (Porsche) HID, from a driver's perspective - and are not at all blinding to oncoming traffic. No need to call them crappy.

Oh, I am an European living in the US, and out of my eleven new cars purchased here to date, 9 were American (1x Ford, 4x GM, 4x Jeep). That should count for something, I'd say.
 
#16 ·
Your dealer wasn't very honest with you. I went from a base luxury ATS to the base premium for 3500 dollars. I thought that was a very reasonable price difference for all the extras you get with the premium. Just to name a few you get navigation with 10 speaker surround sound, HID /LED headlights, 18 inch wheels, HUD, Driver awareness pkg, CD player,paddle shifters, active grill shutters, adaptive foreward lighting,automatic rainsensing wipers,foreword collision alert,12 way adjustable sport bucket seats and a few other things. I think thats not a bad price to pay for a much better equiped and looking car. 10 grand is a huge exageration and I would never pay that much more for a trim level change.
 
#17 ·
I would not call him dishonest, a fully loaded Premium is about $10k more here.

But moreover, he had no Premiums in inventory and only one 3.6 Luxury. This one came equipped as I would have ordered it also, minus HID and MRC. MRC I can do without, but HID is a must. We checked the ATS service books with the master mechanic and we made the incorrect conclusion that they could be upgraded. I have since sent back the OEM components (didn't fit) and went aftermarket instead.

I am just being practical, but wished that Cadillac would allow choice of HID on all trims.

OTOH, for $3500 more I would have picked the Premium, you are correct about that.
 
#19 · (Edited)
No need for a tutorial, conversion is pretty simple, really. It takes $100 in parts and a couple of hours in a garage.

Search for "ATS HID" at amazon.com. This should point you to this $85 item -> link ZEEZ-HID-Headlight-Conversion-CADILLAC
(Their ballasts are of very high quality).
I gave them all the information, but I believe it to just be the GM 9006 standard halogen size.

Make sure that you also get the Anti Flicker Capacitor - here is an ebay $10 item -> link anti-flicker+capacitor
You need this to arrest the flickering of the DRL.
(You HID take over the DRL function - they are 'normally on'
- but you can turn them off in the daytime by turning off the automatic light control on the steering wheel control stalk).

ATS: OEM halogen bulb

HID replacement bulb

And you'll need to remove the bumper, wire the HID and put it back on.

The projectors are quite clean with the HID bulb - better than most that I have seen prior


Reminder - an adjustment screw on the headlight unit exist for vertical alignment only (big white plastic screw). (There should not be any adjustment needed, really, but my halogen bulbs were actually aimed a bit too high).

And 6000k looks great, nicer than the 4500k Premium HIDs. (Don't go any higher)
 
#21 · (Edited)
I don't know - there are deer on my street late at night and I almost could not see them with the Halogen lights. Never happened with HID (the eyes of the deer light up). I am talking high beam here.

It's not about speeding - go to the track for that - it is about driving comfort - to me. HID give me that extra comfort, even on freeways and dark roads.

Between two negatives, I'd take the HID over the Halogen, lol :cool:
http://www.danielsternlighting.com/tech/bulbs/Hid/disadvantages/disadvantages.html
If you illuminate the foreground very strongly, your eyes will adapt to that big area of strong illumination, your pupils will become smaller, and your distance vision will be reduced. (On the other hand, if you take the route prescribed for so long by US headlamp regulations and have very LITTLE foreground illumination, you'll have a "black hole" in front of the car, and you'll be straining to see what you're about to run over...)


Besides, if Halogen were truly much better, they would be installed on the Premium, right?
 
#22 ·
I never said halogen were better. Xenon tend to be better because they are generally more expensive and better engineering has gone into the enclosure. I admit most halogen lights don't give an ideal amount of illumination. But I have driven at least one that was superior to any xenon I have driven.
 
#24 ·
My 2004 Honda Pilot. The halogen beams were superior to every xenon light I have experienced. They had a wide, far reaching pattern, that somehow, did not reach into the path of oncoming motorists. They were superb. Which sucks, because it was the only bright spot (pardon the pun) of that otherwise horrible vehicle.

The xenons on my 2010 Camaro are not bad. 2009 Enclave is decent. The xenons on all my CTS were absolutely horrible. fwiw, I have spent considerable time in a halogen 2009 Maxima (which are the projector type) and they border on dangerous. Their beam path is very, very small. It scares me that my mom drives that car at night.
 
#25 ·
[My 2004 Honda Pilot. The halogen beams were superior to every xenon light I have experienced. They had a wide, far reaching pattern, that somehow, did not reach into the path of oncoming motorists. They were superb. Which sucks, because it was the only bright spot (pardon the pun) of that otherwise horrible vehicle.
Makes sense as it is a taller vehicle, so the lights have a better angle towards the ground.

The Porsches are very low to the ground, and their HID is self leveling as to not to blind oncoming motorists, too easy for lowly mounted Xenons.

The xenons on my 2010 Camaro are not bad. 2009 Enclave is decent. The xenons on all my CTS were absolutely horrible. fwiw, I have spent considerable time in a halogen 2009 Maxima (which are the projector type) and they border on dangerous. Their beam path is very, very small. It scares me that my mom drives that car at night.
I guess that we are lucky here in California, all roads here are properly marked, and the road reflectors (cat eyes) remain bright for a long time. They really work well with HID lights.

When driving on roads with no reflective surfaces (no street signs), and dark roads, then driving with Halogen can possibly match HID, as you get used to the darkness. but in urban settings, on roads with lots of markings, or oncoming traffic, nothing beats HID as you are not using your night vision anyways.

I find Halogen lights often tiresome, sometimes dangerous, like you say. You end up relying on the lights of other cars, not a good thing.

Another quirk, HID lights use less power, are brighter, and last much longer than Halogen, why not make them into law for all cars?
 
#34 ·
Replacing projector housings are a whole nother animal but it is the proper way to do it. Check out the HIDPlanet website there are plenty of people there doing true HID retrofits. I would strongly recommend against altering your stock headlight housings. If possible order some replacements and butcher those up for the projector replacement. Plus with a retrofit you could choose your projector and gain a much sharper cutoff than the Cadillac projectors give you. I love the HIDs on my 2.0 but IMO the cutoff is crappy.
 
#35 ·
Before you get too excited with HID headlamps, know what you are getting yourself in for. I have a 2007 Lexus ES350 with adaptive (move with the front wheels) HID headlamps. I don't find that they do a noticeably better job of illuminating the road and I just paid over $300 to have a bulb replaced! I'm sure the performance of the lighting varies from brand of car to brand of car, but I don't think HID is necessarily better than haolgen and there are disadvantages.
 
#43 ·
Correction, 5500K is daylight. Human eyes respond best to 4300K. The main difference between 5500K and 4300K is that the scene have a daylight or night time feel to them. Personally, I like the starker 'white' response from 5500K.

6000K is not blue - it is very close to white. If you want blue, go above 8000K. Purple is 12000K, but is nearly unsuable.

In fact, anything over 6000K is too blue, and will give no reflections in rainy weather. If you go back in time, France had 'yellow' headlights as the mandatory standards, as it works better with Haze and Fog, a common winter occurrence there.
 
#44 ·
blue_skies said:
Correction, 5500K is daylight. Human eyes respond best to 4300K. The main difference between 5500K and 4300K is that the scene have a daylight or night time feel to them. Personally, I like the starker 'white' response from 5500K.

6000K is not blue - it is very close to white. If you want blue, go above 8000K. Purple is 12000K, but is nearly unsuable.

In fact, anything over 6000K is too blue, and will give no reflections in rainy weather. If you go back in time, France had 'yellow' headlights as the mandatory standards, as it works better with Haze and Fog, a common winter occurrence there.
I'll stick with stock 4300. I had 1800 or 2200 (can't remember which) on my GTO's fog lights. The yellow really does cut the haze/fog...
 
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