Posted: Sep 23 2006 at 10:25am | IP Logged

I'd like to ugrade the lighting on my 06 CC. I'm looking for more light down the road. The xenon look isn't important to me just more lumens, properly placed.I'm primarily driving on highways not off road.

1.How effective is it to ugrade the  9007 headlight bulb to something like  Piaa extreme white bulb or similar? do they or any other aftermarket bulbs really throw more light down the road? I have trouble with the claim of '55W but lights like a 100W' type claims. Has anyone done this and in your opinion are they better than stock?

2.HID replacement bulbs, ballast, etc. I see that there are these replacement units out there that the stock bulb out and replace it with a 35W HID xenon bulb system. I have OEM HID lights in an Audi I drive and they are outstanding. However I feel that using HID technology in a lighting system that wasn't designed for it isn't the best. I wonder how well these systems work.

3. Auxiliary lights IE Driving lights etc. This most likely would require a bull batr or grill guard to mount the lights.

Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Hugh

Posted: Sep 24 2006 at 6:01pm | IP Logged

Hi Hugh,

1) I replaced the stock 9007's with Sylvania Silverstar Ultra's and I have to say that the difference in the amount of light thrown is negligable. Lumens as quoted on a bulb manufacturer website is only a 'nominal' value and not an actual value for the bulb in question. I do not notice the aftermarket lights to be any brighter than the stock ones, although what is different is the color temperature of the bulbs. The stock Halogens are about 3200K (yellowish) and the Silverstar's are 4000K (whiter). So these 9007's are a nice and inexpensive way to upgrade, but don't expect too much from a set of bulbs that you have put in the same harness.

2) As for the HIDs, there was a thread started by kcidmil, a moderator here. It had to do with offering people HIDs through a company. I for one am waiting for his report on the kit before I invest in a set.

http://nissanfrontier.org/forum_posts.asp?TID=723&PN=1