HID Option?

Anyone know if the headlights can be upgraded?

With the complete oversight of no foglights, I would have thought GM could have at least offered projector headlamps or HIDs....

Out of curiosity, there are several HID options for the standard Spark..wonder if they are compatible.

FYI...if anyone is interested, I received an email from a company called XenonPro

I asked if the standard IC Spark EV HID kit could fit into the Spark EV and this is their reply:

Hi Sir,

They are indeed compatible and should cause no problems to your vehicle. Our kits are also plug and play and do not require any modification to your vehicle 's electrical system.

Best Regards,

HID KITS

So it looks like we could have HIDs...

Which HID options are you talking about? If you're talking about xenon kits that simply replace your bulb with a different bulb, this is not recommended at all as it provides extremely poor quality lighting!

Can you clarify what gas Spark parts you're referring to?

Bryce

Nashco said:

Which HID options are you talking about? If you're talking about xenon kits that simply replace your bulb with a different bulb, this is not recommended at all as it provides extremely poor quality lighting!

Can you clarify what gas Spark parts you're referring to?

Bryce

Click to expand...

It's probably this

http://www.xenonpro.com/high-and-low-beams-h13/9008-bulb-full-xenon-hid-conversion-kit-for-chevrolet-spark-2013/


My cousin bought similar a 'plug-n-play' HID kit through a cheap vendor off of ebay that wasnt xenonpro. He must have paid about $40 for only the lowbeams. Anyways, he bought them for his 2013 Chevy Cruze and basically you use the existing lamp wiring to connect to an adapter that then powers the ballasts.

Oh yea, one of the ballasts went out after a month. You get what you pay for.

According to this thread
http://www.mychevysparkev.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=3460

The bulbs on the spark ev are rated at 55watts each, so potentially you can purchase a 35watt hid kit and save little energy and have better light output than halogens or just purchase the 55w kit and improve your lighting significantly with little to no relative impact.

It all depends, of course, on the housing. HIDs with Halogen Housing is a huge no no.

Nashco said:

Which HID options are you talking about? If you're talking about xenon kits that simply replace your bulb with a different bulb, this is not recommended at all as it provides extremely poor quality lighting!

Can you clarify what gas Spark parts you're referring to?

Bryce

Click to expand...

Yes apologize...it's an entire kit..with ballasts and everything...plug and play.

And the correct link is this:

http://www.xenonpro.com/chevrolet-spark-2013/

You get what you pay for...Xenon kits that are REALLY cheap are cheap for a reason...

MysteriousJ said:

Nashco said:

Which HID options are you talking about? If you're talking about xenon kits that simply replace your bulb with a different bulb, this is not recommended at all as it provides extremely poor quality lighting!

Can you clarify what gas Spark parts you're referring to?

Bryce

Click to expand...

It's probably this

http://www.xenonpro.com/high-and-low-beams-h13/9008-bulb-full-xenon-hid-conversion-kit-for-chevrolet-spark-2013/


My cousin bought similar a 'plug-n-play' HID kit through a cheap vendor off of ebay that wasnt xenonpro. He must have paid about $40 for only the lowbeams. Anyways, he bought them for his 2013 Chevy Cruze and basically you use the existing lamp wiring to connect to an adapter that then powers the ballasts.

Oh yea, one of the ballasts went out after a month. You get what you pay for.

According to this thread
http://www.mychevysparkev.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=3460

The bulbs on the spark ev are rated at 55watts each, so potentially you can purchase a 35watt hid kit and save little energy and have better light output than halogens or just purchase the 55w kit and improve your lighting significantly with little to no relative impact.

It all depends, of course, on the housing. HIDs with Halogen Housing is a huge no no.

Click to expand...

I'd get the 55W HID's that consume less power than the halogens but you get considerably more light. And it runs cooler.

I wish they would tell us the output, measured in lumens, instead of just watts consumed.
Power consumed doesn't tell me much about their efficiency.

I haven't kept track of the various lighting technologies.

NomadMac said:

I wish they would tell us the output, measured in lumens, instead of just watts consumed.
Power consumed doesn't tell me much about their efficiency.

I haven't kept track of the various lighting technologies.

Click to expand...

I found this on their FAQ website...

This is what will determine the color of your HID bulbs. The measurement used in order to calculate the color is in Kelvin degrees. The way it works is that the higher the kelvin, the less light and less brightness gets emited from the bulbs. So for example, a 4300k bulb will be brighter than a 6000k bulb.

3000K: These bulbs are 3x brighter than halogen bulbs and have 3200 lumens outreach. The light projected appears yellow and is usually used in fog lights.

4300K: These bulbs are 3x brighter than halogen bulbs and have 3100 lumens outreach. The light projected appears pure white as a traditional OEM look. Customer put these in both headlights and fog lgihts.

6000K: These bulbs are 3x brighter than halogen bulbs and have a 2900 lumens outreach. The light projected appears white with little tint of blue. This is our best seller and customers put these in both fog lights and headlights.

8000K: These bulbs are 3x brighter than halogen bulbs and have a 2500 lumens outreach. The light projected appears blue with a little tint of white. Customers put these in both fog lights and headlights.

10000K: These bulbs are 2x brighter than halogen bulbs and have a 2300 lumens outreach. The light projected appears pure blue. Customers usually put these in fog lights.

12000K: These bulbs are 2x brighter than halogen bulbs and have a 2000 lumens outreach. The light projected appears blue with a little tint of purple.. Customers put these in fog lights.

Cool. Thanks.

I can assume that these are 55 watt bulbs?

Please don't use one of these kits. As I said above, they will provide very poor quality lighting that is worse than the OEM lighting! Don't just take my word for it, Daniel Stern is a well regarded expert on lighting:

http://www.danielsternlighting.com/tech/bulbs/Hid/conversions/conversions.html

So you've read about HID headlamps and have it in mind to convert your car. A few mouse clicks on the web, and you've found a couple of outfits offering to sell you a "conversion" that will fit any car with a given type of halogen bulb. STOP! Put away that credit card. HID headlamps are terrific, and they can offer significant and substantial safety performance advantages over halogen headlamps, but only if they're designed and built as HID headlamps from the start. Installing an "HID kit" in a halogen headlamp isn't an upgrade, it's a large and serious safety downgrade.

Click to expand...

Bryce

Nashco said:

Please don't use one of these kits. As I said above, they will provide very poor quality lighting that is worse than the OEM lighting! Don't just take my word for it, Daniel Stern is a well regarded expert on lighting:

http://www.danielsternlighting.com/tech/bulbs/Hid/conversions/conversions.html

So you've read about HID headlamps and have it in mind to convert your car. A few mouse clicks on the web, and you've found a couple of outfits offering to sell you a "conversion" that will fit any car with a given type of halogen bulb. STOP! Put away that credit card. HID headlamps are terrific, and they can offer significant and substantial safety performance advantages over halogen headlamps, but only if they're designed and built as HID headlamps from the start. Installing an "HID kit" in a halogen headlamp isn't an upgrade, it's a large and serious safety downgrade.

Click to expand...

Bryce

Click to expand...

Well the article's argument may be valid but there are some points which I flatly disagree. One being foglamps. On my car at least, when I turn my lamps on, I get considerably better lighting in front and to the side than without. It makes a big difference on my Fiat.

Second, I do understand that much of the time many HID kits are simply cheap bogus crap and should be approached with caution...but some out there are done with some real thought and engineering. I'm not saying what this particular outfit (XenonPro) offers is good or bad...I don't know as I've not used them nor do I have the Spark. However, I don't think this guy "Daniel Stern" can claim all kits out there are bad. Just like anything else, you have to do your homework.

I'll give you very good example. The HID kit for the Fiat 500 made by 500Madness is exemplary. It's a true plug and play kit and the ballast is designed inside as part of the actual lighting housing. It's a screw on, compact, and offers better performance than even the 2200 lumens projector lamps that come with the Fiats already. This kit has very good reviews and was designed SPECIFICALLY with this car in mind.

I do agree with one part of the article that if you really want to do it right, you change out the entire headlamp unit. Clearly that's the best solution by far. But that would be very expensive and I'm not sure if there even exists one for the Spark/Spark EV...if there is, then yes I'd take that route since the entire internals are designed for that to begin with.

Probably the best HID/Xenon lights out there are fitted on BMW's...they are by far the brightest but also have excellent beam patterns and reach. Those are the lights we should all strive to have on our cars and frankly I think lights are by far one of the most important safety improvements one should get on their cars...either as OEM options or upgrades if done right. It's a shame the Spark doesn't at least have light upgrades as an option from GM. It wouldn't have killed them if they at least offered HIR2 type projectors...similar to what I have on my Fiat 500 Sport.

NomadMac said:

Cool. Thanks.

I can assume that these are 55 watt bulbs?

Click to expand...

They have both 35 and 55 watt kits it seems...you can choose.

If you are still reading this thread....

Try these. I fully agree with the glare issue. These are half as bright as HID but should be brighter than halogen, have a dispersing glass around them to avoid hot spots that other led lights have. No fans either, and built in drive electronics. You'll need to disable the DRL or use a workaround to enable them to be on all day. If I get a Spark EV I'd try them in myself.

Only one person I found posted about them and liked them in his tacoma. Didn't fail on him like the "lifetimeleds" version with fans do.

http://www.vleds.com/led-headlights/all/h13-9008/vx3-h13-9008-2800lm-high-low-led-headlight-1-pair.html

Just installed LEDs from xenondepot.com. Only 20 watts each and the light output is amazing. No cooling fan so super quiet. Worth every penny. About $115 shipped.

sprockkets said:

If you are still reading this thread....

Try these..... You'll need to disable the DRL or use a workaround to enable them to be on all day....

http://www.vleds.com/led-headlights/all/h13-9008/vx3-h13-9008-2800lm-high-low-led-headlight-1-pair.html

Click to expand...

What do you mean by 'workaround'?
Why can't these function as the stock DRL?
Are the stock incandescents run on reduced power? Will this not work with the LED's?

edit:

These 'Bi-xenon' kits are always dicey when it comes to high beam function. The HID lamp has to have a small 180° reflector for low beam, just like the stock incandescent. The the high beam forward of the little reflector and lights the whole area. Some HID kits physically move the the lamp out from under the reflector on high beam. Some only have a second incandescent lamp for high beams.
I finally got this response from xenonpro:
Sales Representative
Bi-xenon means that both low and high beams are integrated in the same bulb. It is also called Hi/low beam/bulb, This is possible due to a spring loaded motor attached under the base of the bulb. The high beam and low beam is activated through the controller wiring harness included in the kit. This harness activates the bulb motor to move into low beam or hi beam when either beam is selected without having to re-ignite or warm up the bulb.

This is the function I worry about. I want something that looks and acts like a legal DOT approved HID system. So many of these kits on the road are not playing nice with other people...
I really want to hear more about the LED system above in this thread!

sprockkets said:

If you are still reading this thread....
Try these....

http://www.vleds.com/led-headlights/all/h13-9008/vx3-h13-9008-2800lm-high-low-led-headlight-1-pair.html

Click to expand...

Sprockets,
Did you try them? I started looking into these and other sources for LED headlights.
The ones you link to have this statement: NOT FOR USE IN LOW VOLTAGE DRL SYSTEMS. OPERATING VOLTAGE RANGE 9-32V

Isn't this how the Spark EV handles the DRL's?
I was told by SuperbrigntLEDs.com that there is PWM of the the voltage going to the stock headlights when in DRL mode.
This messes with the drivers for the their H13 LED headlamps. There is a workaround dealing with disabling the DRL by pulling the DRL relay, but I'm not going that route.

I've not done HID lights in a car, but have done a couple in my motorcycles, specifically my BMW 1150 GS which had one of the worst headlights ever made. A few observations:

Light output is measured in lumens, not watts. Even then, there is no real standard for how lumens are measured nor is there any guarantee that the figures quoted are real.

Most headlight modifications are not DOT compliant and you may find something in the fine print like " for off road use only."


A headlight consists of a light source, a reflector, and a lens. All three parts are critical and must be designed to work together as a unit. A reflector is designed so that the element of the light source is at the focus of the reflector (parabola). The lens may direct the light coming from the reflector and light source. Insert a light source that is a different size than the original, and you get crappy, unfocused light, maybe a lot of it, but still poor quality.


Imagine one of your units fails, either the ballast or the capsule. And you go looking for a replacement and find that the company you bought it from no longer exists, or the unit you own no longer exists and there are no replacement parts. Ask me how I know about this.


LEDs, I know that they get hot and there is a risk of melting plastic and wires. Also, LED light tends to be very directional unless well engineered. Again, DOT certification would be useful.


I think there are some marginal gains to be had by messing around with different headlamp bulbs, but mostly it's money down the drain. Is there a specific problem with the stock headlights that needs to be solved?

OK, for all the replies here:

You can find cheaper versions of this led on eBay if you look for the glass around the led, around $50 but they are brighter unfortunately.

No, this won't be dot certified. Like mentioned before, it probably won't be exactly the same beam pattern. But, it also shouldn't be annoyingly bright either. The glass dispersion should help with the spots of other older led units.

No one figured out how to disable DRL, so you'll have to modify the supply with a capacitor. Search DRL hid and you'll find out the simple mod. It smooths out the DC supply so you won't get flickering.

Not sure about low vs high but pics of it so far show a decent improvement for high beams.

Installed LED bulbs from xenondepot.com. No issues with DRL. Only 20 watts and plenty bright. They are fanless and make no noise and cause no radio interference like other brands.

Worth every penny.

Daytime Running Lights on the Spark EV are just the headlights alone, at full power, no PWM lowering the power.
The H13 bulbs used have no internal reflector creating the low beam cutoff pattern. It just has two filaments in different positions.
Some how the headlight assembly creates the low beam and high beam pattern from the two different filaments.

I tried the very LED headlight system recommended above and had to return it because the low beam pattern was wrong and dangerous.
This is the pattern I got with the LED in the right and the stock halogen in the left.


As I rotated the LED in the direction of removing it the pattern was perfect but it was just about at the release position and there is no way to lock it there, so I returned them.

I have been in discussions with the seller of this LED system: http://smile.amazon.com/OPT7-Headlight-Bulbs-Arc-Glass-Clear/dp/B00VNBEBCS/ref=sr_1_2?s=automotive&ie=UTF8&qid=1438880349&sr=1-2&keywords=h+13+led+headlights
The rep says with H13's it is up to the headlight assembly reflector to create the proper low beam pattern.
He said try them and return them for free through amazon if the low beam pattern is wrong.
There are many choices on ebay, but "buyer pays the return shipping". Most of the cheap crap ships from china, so no thanks.

The goal here is: Less Wattage than the 55 watt stock halogens (more range in theory, yeah right...) , More Lumens at a whiter color for better night vision performance (for Real).
And Don't be Rude and Dangerous to on coming traffic.

PS, Dinoco, could you post a 'Garage Door' picture of your beam pattern?

EDIT: Has anyone found an LED H13 headlight replacement that works correctly?