I'm rather clueless when it comes to them. I love the light they give, but I was curious if you need to ever replace them (I assume you do) and what the cost is.

Joe

 

Hi Joe,

You should not have to ever replace the HIDs. They should last the life of the car. They are expensive if you ever had to do it. A Bulb alone is almost $200 on average.

dsc888

 

Really?? Our HID could last that long?

Interesting...

 

they could and should...but if for some reason you have a defective one, then yes, the price would be wallet clearing.

 

they use low power, and last a extremely long time, just like L.E.D.'s

 

My service person at Acura told me that if the "igniter" on these headlights go out, it costs about $350 to replace. However, they are covered on waranty.

 

HID's should last a long time but not the lifetime of the car. they have a 3000 hour expected lifetime on the bulbs. so depending on how much you use them it will not need replacing anytime soon. if you drive 10 hours a week using your lights(this is alot of night time driving or just leaving yur headlights on all the time) that comes out to 520 hours of use. this comes out to almost 6 years before it needs to be replaced. most people do not use 10 hours of headlights in a week but you get the point.

 

Does flashing your headlights, or turning the lights on and off a lot, shorten the life expectancy of the bulbs? Since I found out how much it costs to replace the bulb, and the fact that you have to remove the bumper to do it, I am being more careful with my use of the headlights.

 

Another way to get an idea of expected life of our HID's...

A typical halogen bulb found in most cars will last 250-300 hours before burning out.

So our HID's should last almost 10X longer. Of course, I'm sure a bunch of other factors could make that an optimistic estimate but like caball88 said, you get the point.

 

you know that xenon just gets brighter the longer you use it right? there should be no reason to replace rightn now...unless your wiring is messed up...

 

Not sure about shortening the life (although sources around the net say that frequent turning off and on of HID's *will* shorten the life of the bulb.)

However, I'm not sure why you would want to flash your lights given that our high beams are also HID. Ever notice our how HID's aren't instant on but rather they fade in to full power over the span of a few seconds?

If you flash someone, all they'll probably see is a dim blue glow.

 

The difference btwn Highbeam and lowbeam is the "shutter" (OFF or ON). The switch between high and low should not shorten the life of HID.

 

Acura said:

"These bi-function HID high/low beams are made possible by a shutter device that mechanically controls the light output of the HID unit. When the driver selects high beam, an electric solenoid in the headlight moves a shutter forward, opening up a greater reflector area inside the headlight. When the lights are operated on low beam, this shutter repositions to act as a cut-off to keep the lighted area closer to the vehicle."

 

Sorry. The answer in my earlier post assumed the question was about flashing hi-beam from when the lights were off.