I have a 2008 EX 35 with original halogen headlights. My daughter hit a tree and destroyed one of the headlights. I purchased a used one but it is a HID headlight instead of the original halogen headlight can I still use that in my car and if not can I convert the replacement HID back to halogen?

Or do I need to do a plug and play HID or LED conversion on both headlights?

From the WD, I think the plug to the car will be the same, but the bulb fittings will be different and so will the internal reflectors. You might be able to kluje a halogen bulb into the hole using a parts store H11 connector, but I dunno how distorted the light pattern will be. If it works okay and you want more light, get a good set of H11 LED's and skip the Xenon. HID's are already "old" technology and they'll be increasingly hard to find and service as time goes on. On the other hand, LED technology has matured in the last few years and manufacturers like Diode Dynamics, GTR Lighting and VLED are making retrofit products with great cooling designs that no longer sacrifice reliability.

Never replace factory Halogen bulb w/ HID / even LED bulbs as the optics are NOT meant for such and you will get a different beam pattern, specifically blinding in-coming traffic.

z32S wrote: ↑

Fri Mar 25, 2022 7:40 am

Never replace factory Halogen bulb w/ HID

True, halogen housings won't handle the heat from an HID. However, the OP was talking about replacing HID with halogen, not halogen with HID. That might give you a screwed-up beam pattern, but it's harmless in other respects.

z32S wrote: ↑

Fri Mar 25, 2022 7:40 am

even LED bulbs as the optics are NOT meant for such and you will get a different beam pattern, specifically blinding in-coming traffic.

Completely untrue, at least for quality LED replacements and not China-cheap ones. When a reputable LED manufacturer constructs a 1:1 replacement for a given bulb type, beam pattern considerations are part of the engineering, Simply buy the same wattage H11 LED replacements for H11 halogens, etc, and buy from a reputable source.

Optics / lens are different in Halogen / HID... whether swapping HID bulb to Halogen / vice versa will result in a change in beam pattern. If you look closely at Halogen bulbs, the light beam shoots out at '360 degree' while that from an LED is not (usually a headlight LED bulb has 2 LEDs aligned on flip sides.... some LED backup bulbs for instance are arranged in a more 'circular / 360' layout though). Bulb socket isn't the concern as they are vastly available in various types. Any btw, yes some 'made in China' products aren't up to par, but if that country can send astronauts to space, they are capable making quality products. Apple products are mostly 'made in China' too, and to me the quality is pretty good. GM / Ford makes some highly unreliable vehicles too (some are still great like the older F150s)...and so are Land Rovers / Jags or even Aston Martin.

z32S wrote: ↑

Fri Mar 25, 2022 10:00 pm

Optics / lens are different in Halogen / HID... whether swapping HID bulb to Halogen / vice versa will result in a change in beam pattern. If you look closely at Halogen bulbs, the light beam shoots out at '360 degree' while that from an LED is not (usually a headlight LED bulb has 2 LEDs aligned on flip sides.... some LED backup bulbs for instance are arranged in a more 'circular / 360' layout though).

Think about what you're implying in terms of your original statement about blinding oncoming drivers. Yes, LED's have a slight "dead spot" in the pattern at the very top and very bottom, but a halogen will actually emit more light on the driver-blinding high axis than an LED. The flatter pattern is an asset and not a liability in those terms. "Blinding" LED's are rarely an issue of beam pattern unless an idiot installs them horizontally. They're more often a matter of an idiot simply using a bulb that's too bright. Some LED's output 7 times the lumens of an equivalent halogen, which is frankly ridiculous.

z32S wrote: ↑

Fri Mar 25, 2022 10:00 pm

Bulb socket isn't the concern as they are vastly available in various types. Any btw, yes some 'made in China' products aren't up to par, but if that country can send astronauts to space, they are capable making quality products. Apple products are mostly 'made in China' too, and to me the quality is pretty good. GM / Ford makes some highly unreliable vehicles too (some are still great like the older F150s)...and so are Land Rovers / Jags or even Aston Martin.

In a previous life I dealt with "cracked cup syndrome" out of the Far East every day. Materials, construction, and QC for stuff made in China will be exactly as good (or bad) as the designer specifies. If your sample cup has a crack and you don't specify that the production units shouldn't be cracked, you'll get a million cups with an exactingly-reproduced crack. The best common example I can think of is Pittsburgh tools at Harbor Freight. The Pittsburgh Pro stuff is outstanding, I have a set of chrome combo wrenches that have resisted everything short of C4 and come up smiling. Right beside them on the shelf are regular Pittsburghs which will probably break if they look too hard at a sledgehammer. You get what you specify, and HF simply has stringent specs for the Pro line and probably none at all for the regular Pittsburghs.

PS - There's also a huge difference between LED's in a projector housing as opposed to a reflector housing. I retrofitted our gen5 Altima with Diode Dynamics SL1 H11's, which independent testing showed are 210% brighter than the halogen baseline in projector applications. Plenty of light and nobody flashes us. The same test showed the SL1's about 400% brighter when used in a typical reflector housing, which might very well get you flashed. So the application matters very much. If your lamps are reflectors, you may need to deliberately choose LED's with a lower lux/lumen rating to avoid blinding people.