Well, finally after 2 months of woes I have my HID's installed. "2 months," you may ask? "This guy must be an idiot; the install should only take 30 minutes." Well, you'd think so. I wanted to post this, just in case someone else down the road has the same problems with HID's as I have. So lets get started...

About 2 months ago I ordered a 35W 5000K DDM kit. It arrived quickly and as soon as I got the box I was quick at work. I removed my old bulbs and put together the kit and all seemed fine... that was until I fired them up. Interestingly they would start up but the right headlight went from a slight blue all the way up to yellow! I couldn't believe it! The other light looked fine, but the light on my driver side was completely yellow. I called Apex (DDM people) and told them my problem. They said it sounded like the problem was the driver side ballast was not getting enough power. They then recommended that I purchase the wiring harness and plug that in. I waited a week or so and it arrived. I plugged the harness in (one side goes to the battery and the other to the ballast) and suddenly my lights would strobe. I mean litterally strobe! Again I called Apex and they suggested I get a 55W kit instead of the 35W kit. This time I wanted them to check to make sure my kit was okay so I sent back the whole thing. They received it and gave me a call to tell me everything worked fine and they asked whether I even wanted to bother with the 55W kit. Because I wanted Xenons so badly, I told them I'd be willing to try them. So a few days later the 55W kit arrived. This time I was smart enough not to replace the stock H7 bulbs, so I just kept it ontop of my car and wired it up without actually putting the bulbs in the housing (just FYI, this is the HARDEST part of the install). They fired up and actually looked okay. Surprised, I decided to install them in the housing (by now I had actually gotten pretty good at doing this). With the car off I fired them up and everything looked really good. I then started the car and guess what, they started to flicker. I remembered reading somewhere that another person had this problem because they weren't using the warning cancelers, so I thought I'd throw those into the mix (luckily they had shipped those back to me). To my utter astonishment they worked. So after all this time I finally have HID's. I must say they look really good and I'm very impressed with the setup.

I just wanted to post this just in case someone else has this same problem. I know people have successfully put the DDM kits in their C's and they seem like great kits, but there may be those out there that have a similar problem. So in summation, if you have problems with weird flickering, one light turning yellow, or "strobing" try the 55W kit with a warning canceler. Let my lesson help you so you don't have to live with the same frustration.

***Steps off soapbox***

 

wow man quite a story. so is there any definitive answer on why some of these kits have worked fine for others but you needed a 55w kit instead?

 

it really doesn't blind anybody. seriously. i've done tests driving behind my friends from all distances.

stop being a hater because you paid 10x as much for a very close and basically indistinguishable end result.

 

AMEN! No one asked your opinion of using aftermarket HID's! I was simply telling a story so that other people in the same situation would be able to get through it. Some people have these things called "budgets" that they need to stick with. The extra $2K was not worth getting a pair of headlights and a rear seat you could fold down. But to each his own. You don't see me saying "I think every person that got P2 packages are arrogant," now do you? Why? Because that's something a 6 year old would do. Not an adult!

No. Apex said that sometimes cars just don't like aftermarket HID's. Whatever that means. I don't really understand how one C has no problems, but another does.

 

Thanks for sharing your woes. Glad it worked out well in the end. I don't plan on going HID, but if and when I do, I'll keep this post in mind. Your kind of posts are what makes forums great--sharing problems, and then their solutions.

And as for the pointless, useless hater replies that add nothing to the discussion: who the hell asked you? Why waste your time, the OP's time, and everyone else's time? I wanted Xenons, but I couldn't get it because 1. it was packaged with other useless BS I didn't want, and 2. my car was already built and on its way before I grabbed it. So if I want to add it on later as an option (in a way that does NOT blind others on the road, from what I've read and seen with my own eyes), that makes me a dumbshat? WTF? Idiots abound.

 

MB Fanatic, that was uncalled for. Post deleted.

 

Glad it worked out for you. I just got HID conversion done on my car this weekend (8000K) and loving every second of it. I wish I had more time to get the fogs upgraded to, but I'll have to save that for another day.

 

DDM? Is 8000k bluish? Or just white? Not purple yet, is it?

Time to update your sig, homez...

 

They have a slightly bluish tint. 6000k is white, 10000k is purple. And yeah, I need to upgrade that sig. Took a bunch of pics from the weekend mymb meet I helped organize so I'll need to go through them to find a good one.

 

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Why wasn't I there? I didn't see a mention of this over there... oh, was it in SoCal? I vaguely remember that you went down sometime recently...

 

Yeah, this was the socal meet at our family restaurant and later we rolled over to Promax and then to Super Autobacs to catch the tail end of the car show. We had some Versus guys there too. Was cool, but hot as hell.

 

Getting my D1S Bulb replacement from Philips so it will go up to 6000K. Should be simple enough. My next steps should be Fogs Xenon.. but still debating whether this is a good idea or not since MB will turn on and off the fogs for cornering..

 

If you have HID heads, I'd do HID fogs in a heartbeat. It just looks so much better with a matching set and I'd run with them both on all the time.

 

Does anyone have a problem with one side being brighter or higher than the other? is it the bulb or the housing? thanks