HID Questions

was looking at HID-SiN.com and on their website it says if you have an auto on feature for your headlights that you must disable it. is this true? and it also says you must disable the DRL. thanks in advance

Only purpose I can imagine for this is to eliminate unneccessary ignition of the ballasts. Sometimes you may be in an area that might be dark enough for the ambient light sensor to turn on the lights, even though it is daytime still. For ex, in a parking garage, or at an intersection underneath an overpass, etc.
The ballasts wear quicker with repetitive bulb arc ignition. Not sure if this is the reason they suggest that or if it is more involved than that.

Here's another reason, just clicked in my head as soon as I posted the previous post: HID ballasts need a strong 12v at least for the igniter to light the bulb. As you turn your key forward to the ignition position then to start, either the DRLs or lights will turn on depending on outside lighting conditions. When the engine cranks, the starter draws a lot of current and will bring the voltage down below 12v for a brief moment. Since the Auto on will turn the lights on as you pass the ignition position on the key cylinder, the ballasts will try to ignite while the engine is cranking. This will not be sufficient voltage for most ballasts to ignite. Most will fail under repeated usage under these conditions.
On some vehicles (not ours), the DRLs use the low beam headlight. The DRL circuit will provide a lower voltage to the headlight, resulting in a dimmer bulb used for daytime driving. Without disabling the DRL on these types of systems, the system will always try to ignite the ballasts. And with the lower voltage while in daytime mode, will damge the ballasts.
I can't believe I didn't think of this sooner, because that is the reason I disabled mine in the first place. I had problems at first and had to disable my Autolights.

thanks JK, any recommendations other than HIDs? i really like em but i really like the auto on, especially since i drive to work at 230 am. ive had the silverstars but they just arent the same ya know?

Hoebag03 said:

thanks JK, any recommendations other than HIDs? i really like em but i really like the auto on, especially since i drive to work at 230 am. ive had the silverstars but they just arent the same ya know?

Click to expand...

Don't know of anything else that are going to be whiter than the silverstars. There are people on Ebay that claim to have 6K krypton bulbs and what not, but it's very hard to trust the exact color and lumens rating of a bulb w/o actually seeing it. I did buy a set of 880 bulbs for my fogs from ebay just to experiment with. They are much whiter than before, but when I have the HIDs on, they look yellowish in comparison to the HID.

so how would you disable the auto-on? is there a way to keep the DRLs or do they need to go too? or maybe wire it to come on with the HIDs

Hoebag03 said:

so how would you disable the auto-on? is there a way to keep the DRLs or do they need to go too? or maybe wire it to come on with the HIDs

Click to expand...

I installed a resistor on a couple wires from the BCM. I'll have to look at it again to see what value resistor I used and which two wires I spliced into. Been a while , so I don't remember off hand. Anyway, this will dasable the Auto on feature but retain the DRL.
I'll let you know soon.

i appreciate the help! i want HIDs really bad so i know its gonna be a little hard (especially with the projectors, and having to mount the cooling fans)

Did you get your HIDs yet? Sorry I haven't got back to you about the bypass yet. I want to make sure it will work on the 03-up systems first since they were a little different.

no cant afford til tax time or so.. (having 2 kids is brutal on the wallet) i went to the link for the halos where bandit got his, the housing look like plastic. are yours like this and thats why you mounted the cooling fan?

how was GM able to do this for the C6 and new acadia then, cant we do the same.

the acadia is set up almost like a tahoe on the dash, and there is an auto even if you have HID's, which go on even before you start the car, also if you hit the unlock button they light up, they cant be at 12v when there no alternator powering, can they?