Ford E-Series Van HID Projector Retrofit lights - Page 12

**BroncoHauler** · 09-22-2015, 10:48 AM

It's hardly unheard of in the "modify my vehicle" game that upgrading one part, exposes weakness in connected parts. Stuff a big block monster engine into a Chrysler K car, you'll likely end up with a burnt transmission, busted driveshaft and/or busted differential.

Where your original lights operated fine (I assume), these higher performance lights may be showing up inadequacies in the van wiring or even the headlight switch. I'd say follow the steps recommended to narrow down the list of possible culprits.

Herb

berns378 · 09-22-2015, 11:25 AM

since I am not able to work on my van all I was doing was asking scott if he could figure out the problem. I was willing to drive up to his house again whenever it was good for him, but he told me to figure it out myself. I would pay him whatever he asked but he was too busy. for those of u who are mechanicaly inclined his instrustions to me may have sounded very easy to others but to me it was like taking a chemistry test without ever knowing chemistry. all I know about my van is how to keep it clean and enjoy it for camping and bike racing. john wintersteller has done lots of work on my van and is a very good friend and will b the first to tell me don't touch anything just drive it. thanks for all your comments! love this forum.

arctictraveller · 09-22-2015, 11:28 AM

There are always two sides to every story and normally the truth lies somewhere in the middle. In this case I tend to think there is some problem with electrical components Scott did not manufacture. Any time you purchase a product from a vendor you run the risk of defective parts. As an end user, you expect the vendor to stand behind what he is selling, even if he ends up loosing money, it's just good business practice. One bad review can wipe out lots of good ones and reduce future sales. It sounds like Scott is willing to make this right once the problem is identified, but unwilling to continue troubleshooting it himself. Since Berns378 is unwilling or unable to simply swap parts from one side to the other, his choices become limited. He could ask for help from someone local to him, take it to a shop, or ask to return the whole set up. Since Scott installed it there should not be any damage and he could resell it. As a vendor, he has a responsibility to assist in resolving this failure despite the fact he is busy with his family and did not manufacture the individual components. Resolving warrantee issues is just a cost of doing business even if it costs you money or time. Having said that, sometimes customers are difficult to deal with and make unreasonable demands. Often times keeping a good attitude and understanding that you are just one of many people needing attention will go a long ways to resolving a problem. Hopefully both sides can find some common ground and resolve the problem. Then be sure to let us know what happened.

Meanwhile, I purchaced one of Scott's kits and I'm looking forward to installing it in a couple weeks. I am curious about where he sourced the ballasts and bulbs though, and now wonder if I should carry a spare or two. If I have a failure within a reasonable amount of time (6 months?) I would expect him to stand behind his products. Fortunately I have the ability to troubleshoot any problems myself but I'm not expecting any. The kit arrived quickly, well packaged, and seemed complete. I'll post a report once it's installed and tested. Being an old guy that doesn't see so well at night anymore I'm excited to upgrade the crappy stock lights. I'm looking forward to hearing that this problem has been resolved.

berns378 · 09-22-2015, 12:20 PM

my first failure happened within two weeks. when it happened the second time scott asked me to reinstall my original lights. I took it to a shop and had it done drove with them for almost three months, no problem. went back to shop had them reinstall scotts lights, within a month same light went out. I just contacted several well known off road shops all in orange county and two of them gave me a guys number who they said is the man for hid lights. spoke with him and send him links on the lights and bulbs that we are getting from scott. u guys may want to talk to this guy before you proceed with any more installations.

berns378 · 09-22-2015, 12:24 PM

by the way I forgot to mention he comes to you.

mikracer · 09-22-2015, 12:38 PM

REF's post is probably right on. Most likely your ballast is bad. At first, I didn't think these headlights came with the bulbs/ballasts/harness, but it sounds like he includes them now. I would imagine that the bulbs and ballasts aren't top shelf stuff (due to the price point) and the lower end parts are known to be unreliable. Most of the cheap ballasts don't even put out enough juice to properly light the bulb which results in more of a colder color (blue tint). I've had the same experience with ebay kits where I bought a 4300k kit and it looked like a 6000k kit. I threw that kit away and bought a quality kit made by Morimoto. I now run Morimoto bulbs in my BMW headlights and their bulbs/ballasts in the fog lights. They're much more expensive than the ebay kits, but they're solid and put out tons of light at the proper temp.

http://www.theretrofitsource.com/hid-sy ... gGcrXmFOM8

arctictraveller · 09-22-2015, 01:04 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mikracer

REF's post is probably right on. Most likely your ballast is bad. At first, I didn't think these headlights came with the bulbs/ballasts/harness, but it sounds like he includes them now.

Your correct, he didn't include bulbs or ballasts when I first contacted him.

From his email: "The lights now come as a kit for $350. This includes the modified housings with projectors, HID kit and wire harness. I have found that when I sell the housings alone people have issues finding parts that work seamlessly."

This is a $100.00 increase in price. Since these kits are available on Ebay for as little as $8.00

http://www.ebay.com/itm/55W-HID-Xeno...0782fa&vxp=mtr

(probably not the one he supplies, this is just an example) its clear there are inferior kits available. I'll give him the benifit of the doubt though, and guess that he ships a much higher quality kit for the additional $100.00 Again, I don't blame him for any failures, but since I'm far away from my van at the moment I cant check to see what brands he's supplied. Scott, could you please expand on your source and experience with the bulbs and ballasts you are supplying? If there is a question about the quality, I'd rather replace them with better parts in the beginning than suffer a failure on my upcoming long road trip as I drive a lot at night in remote places. Thanks.........

REDOVAL · 09-22-2015, 01:18 PM

(edit, arctictraveller this may help you some, if not PM me and we can talk it through)

mkiracer is correct, the items that come in the kit are not the highest quality that can be purchased. This is on purpose since the average consumer would laugh at the $900 price tag of a top shelf kit. Interestingly enough, I am currently running the Morimoto XB ballasts and bulbs in my personal van now (same housings and projectors I sell to everyone else) and they are not as visually stunning in comparison as I had hoped. The alignment of the cutoff may be very slightly more precise, but overall light output and color (5500K) is on par with my regular kit's components. I do offer an upgrade to the genuine Morimoto parts, but not one person has opted in for this in the past two months. I agree their quality is higher and the part fit and finish is great, but the price difference is a little hard to justify for the non-enthusiast. The Morimoto stuff is still made in a Chinese factory, but they do come with a warranty that covers the realistic life of the electronics (about 2-5 years depending on the ballast wattage). Recognizing previous reliability issues, I made the switch for the regular kit to come standard with a set of the Fast Bright 55w ballasts that my supplier backs in the event of failures. These have been reliable for the past 3 months and seem to have the output of units three times their cost. For those customers interested in an upgrade to these ballasts, please send me a PM and we can work something out.

mkiracer,
different subject.....have you seen the MH1 and FX-R outputs in person side by side? I am interested to see if the FX-R is really worth the additional hours of labor in terms of output and beam pattern. I am very familiar with what TRS says they will do, but experience is sometimes different. Thanks

Scott

Quote:

Originally Posted by mikracer

REF's post is probably right on. Most likely your ballast is bad. At first, I didn't think these headlights came with the bulbs/ballasts/harness, but it sounds like he includes them now. I would imagine that the bulbs and ballasts aren't top shelf stuff (due to the price point) and the lower end parts are known to be unreliable. Most of the cheap ballasts don't even put out enough juice to properly light the bulb which results in more of a colder color (blue tint). I've had the same experience with ebay kits where I bought a 4300k kit and it looked like a 6000k kit. I threw that kit away and bought a quality kit made by Morimoto. I now run Morimoto bulbs in my BMW headlights and their bulbs/ballasts in the fog lights. They're much more expensive than the ebay kits, but they're solid and put out tons of light at the proper temp.

http://www.theretrofitsource.com/hid-sy ... gGcrXmFOM8

mikracer · 09-22-2015, 01:37 PM

I haven't seen the difference in person. From what everyone says (on the forums) the beam pattern on the FX-R is wider. When I did the retro on my Tacoma, I just went with their standard kit and it was wide and bright enough for me. I could see where a wider beam pattern would be beneficial to some but it wasn't worth the extra work and customization for me to do.

It looks like TRS sells led housings from new cars that have high/low/running lights. That would be pretty cool to see modded in.

Quote:

Originally Posted by REDOVAL

mkiracer,
different subject.....have you seen the MH1 and FX-R outputs in person side by side? I am interested to see if the FX-R is really worth the additional hours of labor in terms of output and beam pattern. I am very familiar with what TRS says they will do, but experience is sometimes different. Thanks

arctictraveller · 09-22-2015, 01:48 PM

[quote Recognizing previous reliability issues, I made the switch for the regular kit to come standard with a set of the Fast Bright 55w ballasts that my supplier backs in the event of failures. Thanks

So I assume since I bought the kit way back in Feb, I have the older less reliable parts. I definately want to upgrade. Can you supply the new bulb / ballast kit part number so I can look at it? Thanks for the quick response...........

.