is it or is it not illegal to upgrade your lights to hid headlights

[hough]

I'm getting confused, im looking at installing a set of hid projector headlights on my vw bora, I was looking at replacing the whole headlight unit only to be told by a few companies that it is illegal to replace my standard lights with aftermarket hid headlights even if I replace the old headlight units with new ones, iv tried looking this up on google and Bing but can not find a direct answer, so can anyone help????

 

[turbonutter69]

If you replace the whole light unit and it is auto adjusting with washers and all the other things you get from factory fitted hid's then it's legal buddy.

 

[hough]

so if I can fit head washers it will be legal, but auto adjusting I can adjust my current headlights via my dashboard but I guess that's not the same :-(

 

[HDi fun]

It's all a bit vague and open to interpretation. What initially appears to be law turns out to be merely a set of opinions expressed by the DfT. I would, however, ensure that you have rock solid beam patterns and perfect alignment.

 

[pgarner]

its very vague. if you read through the sheets from last year - they have changed again and lutton matt on here will tell you it will still fail an MOT -hid bulbs fitted into projector enclusers are perfectly fine if alignment correctly regardless of washers or self leveling however if they were fitted they had to work
used to be that you needed self leveling and headlight washers and sounds like it is again this year.

however the conditions of use aparently wouldnt cover it as you would be using an H1 H7 setup, the standard h4 setup in the bora isnt any good as its not using projector lenses, the CoU for Hids is D2?

really does come down to how your MOT tester reads it and feels when he tests

 

[HDi fun]

It's also stated that the dipped beam HID remains alight when the mains are switched on. This is technically impossible in an H4 enclosure and I am not aware of any H4 lamps in projector fittings anyway.

One part of the paper states something to the effect that if an HiD 'burner' (correctly it's a lamp, though the word bulb will suffice) is installed in a headlight enclosure designed and marked for halogen lamps then the beam pattern will not be correct.

Fair enough.

But if a correct beam pattern and correct alignment CAN be achieved then that negates that paragraph.

It's also stated that a washing system should be fitted as should a self levelling system. Also that both, if fitted, should work.

See what I mean? It's only a suite of opinions.

However, you are very unlikely to achieve a suitable beam pattern from a HiD conversion in a reflector housing designed for Halogens.