Purple headlights? Are we serious?

[SovereignAxe]

I've seen two cars around town with purple colored headlights recently. One was a riced out civic and the other was some old Suzuki SUV or something like that.

How the **** is this even catching on?! First off, why would you want anything other than the brightest whitest headlight you can legally own (I wont get into those 10000K HIDs, but they fall into the same rant)? And why would someone want to buy a headlight that will almost ensure that they will get pulled over by the police?

And finally, who thought it would be a good idea to manufacture these? AFAIK it's illegal to have anything but white headlights (which makes me wonder how those 10000K+ lights get made), so to make such small numbers of these lights you'd have to make them reeeeally cheap. My guess is Sri Lankan child laborers

[ETC]

First off, let me say that I'm amazed that you are amazed ;] look at all the stupid #($* that people make millions of dollars selling every year.

Pet rocks [I'm old]

"Undaglow lighting"

Spinner hubcaps

I can go on for twenty or so pages ....

People are always pushing the law with their cars and the laws are generally "common sense" and might be a bit ambiguous about certain things.

The only people there are to enforce this stuff is state inspection [which we don't have in CA other than smog ... they don't care about your lights] and the police. The inspection is easy, pull the bulbs before inspection ... put them back in. The police is similar in that generally they can only give you a "fix it" ticket or, tell you "you can't drive it like that". If you have normal bulbs with you and change them out, they can't stop you from driving it.

HID's are kind of blue, the ones on our BMW are anyway

People put smoke covers on the head and tailights all the time, not sure if it's legal but it sure does make the light less visible so ...

As far as selling them ? all they have to do is have a disclaimer that they are "offroad only" and their liability ends.

I pretty much put it in the same category as "fart pipes" [the "tuner" car reed exhausts] and 10,000 watt stereo systems you can hear 5 miles away ... let's not forget people that drive with misadjusted headlights and driving lights, foglights on all the time, more tv's on in their car than I have in my house and all the other little things that annoy me. I guess I'd have to label that category "my problem that I need to get over because I'm not going to change it" :]

[Brucey]

This:

You Tube

You Tube

Those were not only made, but actually sold.

[Wagondude]

Just imagine an STI with those flashing a Scoobies for Boobies message.

[red_ej25]

the purple lights are 13000 K or more HID's, this is because it starts as a yellow(jdm headlights) turns to cream, to white, to light blue, dark blue, then purple. Its 13000 Kelvin (tempurator) and the "light" is actually heat made into light, if you look at the "bulbs" they are sticks that heat up and the good hid companies using teh right tubes, actually you can watch the bulb heat up, or cool (if it does not have power). It is only illegal to have discolored headlamps (glass or mirror) but if you have bulbs producing this un-altered head lamp, you dont have to worry, cops can stop you but they can only suggest to replace your bulbs. The hid's in other than yellow/white/blue do look utterly stupid, but some people think they are 'cool'. but you have to remember, to each their own. Our Huge fog lights ( i have a 02 bugeye obs) might look stupid to someone wiht a civic.

[subiesailor]

They are very popular in the Castro in SF its kinda like a special tag so all the folks playing for the other team can hook up while on the road. LOL

As for HID's in cars not built for them. Couple of issues - power - heat and HID's are more sensitive to vibration than the old bulbs. I think cleaning up the lenses and sticking with the old bulbs is a better approach. Besides if you want HID's buy a new car built with them if you can't buy a new car built with them quit spending money on your car and start saving your money.