HID lights

[Brett Dikeman]

At 9:20 PM -0400 5/23/02, John Cummings wrote:

>     Tom, my wife has a 99 A6 and I hate those HID lights! The dealer said
>you'll get used to them, but after 100000 miles we haven't changed our
>opinion. I'll take the euro lights and piaa fog/driving lights on my 20v 200
>any day. The HID are bright but the cutoff is so sharp that driving on back
>roads with hills and corners is terrible.

I had the chance to test-drive an S4tt shortly after it came
out...besides the super-sensitive controls(don't get me started on
this fly-by-wire silliness), I also hated the HID lighting.

Precisely what you said...they are so sharply defined that seeing
things above the cutoff or to the sides is nearly impossible.  On a
back country road at night, I had to slow down to about 10-15mph and
flip on the highs to find a side road to turn around in.

The family volvo has standard lighting and a decently-defined cutoff
level, and a very nice, even spread of light; plenty of it,
too...funny thing, those well designed reflectors, eh? :-)  However,
there's just exactly enough light above the cutoff that you can see
roadsigns, driveways, bikers, whatever.  Of all the vehicles I've
driven in, or been a passenger in(probably about a dozen, at least),
the Volvo takes top notch on all points.  Two HID-equipped vehicles
are in that lineup.

It's not how much light, it's where you put it and how...

Brett
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"They that give up essential liberty to obtain temporary
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