East87

Hey everyone. So I took part in that MustangForums group buy for RetroSolutions HID's. I ordered the 55watt 5000K for the headlights and fogs. After firing them up multiple times for test runs as my dad and I were putting these on, it became alarmingly clear that my fog light color did not match up with the headlight color. *side note* I also had a tremendous amount of trouble with the gaskets on the fog lights, causing me to scratch about 70% off of the $25 coating I paid for the fogs forcing them into the fog housing. */side note*

All that aside, for some reason, my naivety got the best of me as I figured that the fogs had to "warm up" and would eventually glow pure white. During our test illuminations (no defective bulbs/ballasts!), I did not have them lit for more than 30 seconds. After we were ready to tie down all the wires and mount the 4 ballasts (no small feat), I gave the fogs one last shot and lit them up for 5+ minutes. It was at this point I realized that my fogs have to be 6000K instead of 5000K...there's a significant shade of blue with these bulbs. With this realization, I had a decision to make:

Keep the fogs as they were, 6000K along side my bixenon headlights @ 5000K

or

Undo a *pain in the **** install to ship the bulbs back to RetroSolutions and live without fogs for a week until I can muster up the courage to re-tackle this.

Removing the bulbs is do-able, yet highly annoying and somewhat aggravating considering my ridiculous ballast mounting locations (passenger side on top of the washer fluid box, driver side just on top of the wheel well level with the front bumper I think..). The wiring harnesses make this job very complicated.

In the end, I decided to zip tie everything and call it a night. The install was a tremendous success (other than the color variance and the near-total removal of the fog light bulb coating), and I got to spend some quality time with my dad.

I took the car out for a spin on the local interstate (I-95 ftw) and a few local roads and am glad to report no flashing from oncoming drivers. I did not aim my bulbs after install. With the scratching of the bulb coating on the fog lights, there is a lot of scattered light coming from the fogs. The headlight beam can best be described as "bearable" in terms of spread and scattered light when compared to my brother's '07 Mazda6 and its oem HID's.

ANYWAY...here are some pictures of what I'm talking about. Sorry for the quality and weird perspective, I was pinned against the back wall of my garage, as I did not want to start the car this late to back it out...family and neighbors are sleeping...

Does this look totally stupid? I know fog lights are supposed to have a lower color temp <5000K to function effectively as...FOG lights...

Suppose the normal setup was reversed... 5000K headlights, 6000K fogs. Does the "unique" factor come into play at all here?

Edit: the look of the headlights and fogs together creates this 5500K look on the road that is nothing short of BADASS... 55w ftmfw by the way...

staggolee

In all honesty, I'm not the type to obsess over these things, but I think it looks fine. Especially since they're fogs, i think its ok that it looks a little different. On top of that it would be a pain to redo and on top of THAT you like the way it looks on the road, which matters the most imo

smokestang

Damn...im blind! HAHA. It seems as though your fogs are pointing up directly into the camera!

mygt500

Take some time to aim the fogs and the headlights and get some pics of the lights spraying light onto the garage door at about 20-25 ft....then I can make my judgement.. I want the 55W 5000K and my question is are they brighter then stock? and the lights IMO look fine. I think an upgrade to 6000K for all bulbs if you like the ting of blue. If not get the 5000K for the fogs....I like the same color of light across the board but it in no way look weird or dumb. Thanks for posting East!

ahddm

I actually think it would be really nice with bulbs switched around 6000k headlight 5000k fogs. It's what you like though if you don't like the blue ship em back you paid for them get what you paid for. That's how I see it.

East87

Thanks for your inputs guys. I don't know what I'm going to do yet. I'm leaning toward keeping them. I really did have a LOT of trouble getting everything in, and removing the bulbs is kind of a big deal because of where I mounted the ballasts and because of the 3-4 different connections from the ballast to the bulb. God help me if RetroSolutions required me to ship the ballasts back too. In any event, the color combo looks awesome on the road.

Jason, I have to admit, the 5000K did not impress me while I was in the garage looking at them from 3 feet away, nor did they impress me in my driveway shining at the garage door. HOWEVER, when I took the car for a spin, I kid you not, the road in front of me was positively BATHED in light. It was more light than anyone should ever need coming from their car...just what I need As I think about it now, I cannot decide if the 5000K HID's are "brighter" or if there's just a TON of more light. Up close, 5000K looks dead-on OEM in terms of color, but on the road...no halogen could ever produce so much light. Now I know why everyone with 55w said "55w and don't look back!" It's a lot of light, but, if aimed properly, shouldn't pose any issues...and it's spectacular!

Yea like I said, there's a lot of scattered light coming from the fogs. I don't know if aiming will help since I ended up scratching off most of the bulb coating on both fog bulbs just trying to get them in. Beware of the freakishly huge gasket on the fog HID bulbs! I needed a crescent wrench to screw the bulb into the housing!!! Stock gasket is too small for the new bulb's plastic casing...

East87

Oh and while I'm thinking of it...

An addendum to my statements above:
From the outside of the car, 5000K is VERY close to the OEM color, if not spot-on. They do not look impressive as you stand off to the side or above them. If you want functionality without looks at all, 5000K packs a lot of light, yet doesn't attract attention at all (unless the bulbs were to be aimed improperly). Now, if you were looking for a little bit of an appearance mod, 6000K is probably what you want. 6000K is *just* slightly blue to the point of someone saying "oh yea, those are HID's all right" whereas the reaction to 5000K typically is "those are different than stock...how?" That is, unless they're behind the wheel of your car and can see a quarter mile ahead

Just a point of clarification from someone who has received both reactions already haha.

war machine 115

Looks good Andrew. I say just leave it as I don't think it looks all the noticeable of a difference.

I need to get me HIDs now too...the Cervini fogs make the factory stuff look terrible.

b1stang

I think it looks fine

157dB

I dont think any other drivers will be making a U-Turn
to catch up to you to tell you that the yellow 5000K
headlights dont match your blue 6000K foglights.
Would you not just need to remove the 6000K fog light bulbs
and return them for 5000K fog light bulbs without removing
the fog ballasts for return as well. The K rating is in the bulb,
not the ballast. If it was, we would have a user selectable K
ballast. :')
It was their mistake, was it not? Shipping you the wrong fog
bulbs? Are the bulb assemblies not stamped with the K rating?