Took the leap and purchased some Sylvania Xenarc X2020 HID's for the Suburbans. Pardon the pun, but the difference is day and night. Installation and aiming took 30 minutes, and the fitment is perfect. These are true HID's made by Valeo Sylvania - the same group that makes OEM HID's for Dodge, Ford, Mercedes, Cadillac, Nissan, etc. This is not an HID modification to your existing headlamp; instead it replaces the entire unit with a self-enclosed HID package.

The cost: $425 per pair, w/ shipping
Ease of install: cakewalk
Performance: at least 3 times brighter than any halogen
Warranty: 1 year
HID bulb life: 3000 Hours

10 out of 10 for this upgrade.

Congrats on stepping up to the plate.

HID is the way to go.

Alll these halogen bulbs are just wanna bees

Agreed. I have them on my 2000 Z71. Very good light spread across the whole lane and shoulder.

I would recommend doing the 4-on-high headlight mod if you use HID's. Otherwise every time you turn off the brights, the HID's will have to restrike when the low circuit comes back on.

I thought of that too - What do the Caddy's do?

Does that replace both the low and high beams or just the low??

The whole headlight assembly gets replaced. The low beam is HID, and the high beam is still halogen, though mine came with two new silverstars for the high beams.

The Sylvania is the only DOT legal HID kit.

The way lenses refract light depends on the wavelength (that's how prisms work). HID's have much more blue light than halogens. The blus light gets refracted incorrectly by the front lens of a stock headlight. That's why the HID's don't have lenses, they have shaped mirrors, with no lens in the front cover.

If you put HID's in a stock holder, you'll be blinding other drivers, and won't have a sharp cutoff to aim them down.

Ok, stupid question I'm sure, but why are the high beams still halogen rather than HID as well? To maintain DOT approval???

$$$$$$$

Though a 4-HID system would be awesome.

Even in my wife's Lexus GS 430 the high beams are halogens and not HIDs.

hid lights do not project the light distances that a conventional filament bulb can. i watched the Motor Trend tv show when they tested them.

i think this is true unless you have projector lamp headlights.

Any pics of the set up?

One of the reasons HIDs are not usually installed in high beams is cost.

The other issue is startup time-the ballasts are not made for flashing the lights, they are made to be switched on and left on. Most HIDs have a warmup time during which the output stabilizes. BWM, for one has a different setup for their HID systems, where the lights are powered up partway all the time, so they can be flashed. This requires computer controls, AFAIK, to keep the voltage correct.

On top of that, if you have HID low beams, and they stay on with the highs, you don't need more than halogens for high beams, especially if they are focused for viewing down the road.

Does Sylvania offer a kit like this for the 2006 trucks?

Dont want to speak for him, but that kit is low beam hid and high beam silverstar halogens which match the color of the hid output. This looks like a really nice kit as it includes completely new housings that are designed for the hid light rather than the old halogen assemlies.

When you did the upgrade did you need to replace the mount for the head lights or not?

I ask this bc on my old truck i put the APC headlights, when you install them you need to replace not only the light housings but also the mounts.

Dude, you got played. I bought EFX HIDs and it was $550 for Highs, Lows, AND Fogs. They are made in Germany and are amazing quality and have a lifetime waranty. They are about 10,000K and look like an M3. Here's the link to EFX: http://www.euroeffects.net/index.html Check it out.

Bother to check when he purchased them?

If the are 10,000 K bulbs, you should be ticketed on a daily basis for having purple lights.

FYI, even though this kit is 10000x better then just shoving hids in a halogen enclosure it is not DOT legal. There are exactly 0 HID kits that are DOT or street legal.

I would love to know why people who only drive in the city think they need HIDs. For that matter, why do people drive with fog lights on in the city day and night with no fog.

They aren't purple. They have a light blue hue to them. You have to get close 20,000K to get purple. Even 15,000K isnt purple. Look here: http://www.euroeffects.net/17-6-_HID_Conve...t__Premium.html
This is the Exact kit that I have. 10,000k is far from purple.

Then they are blue, either way, they are worthless. I've seen lights a lot closer to 15,000K that are purple. They are ricer lights that don't allow you to see as much. No one will ever convince me that using HIDs in a halogen housing are worth anything or that using anything above ~4,500K do anything but make you into a ricer.

Too funny. I doubt I got played seeing that they are DOT legal, HID in a self enclosed specifically designed plug and play unit, and still as bright and accurate as the day I purchased them. Good luck with your mod, though.