Man, I had to become a member just to chime in on this one.
A couple people on this board are claiming to be experts on HID and also making some statements that are totally untrue.
And the most recent one about Autolamps-online.com being in California is the most untrue statement of all.
There is an Autolites in CA which (from what I hear) is tied in now to performance-cafe.com (or was). I had a bad experience (actually, two) from autolites which I will not discuss.
I have had plenty of experience when it comes to HID's as well and have to agree (with the exception of the name-calling) with MondeoV6 (hope I got it right).
No aftermarket HID kit would ever have an OEM D2S capsule like the one shown a couple posts above (with the round-style red cap connecting at the bulb). The only way you get that is with OEM-style HID's.
Since aftermarket HID's mean retrofitting into halogen optics a round d2s style plug would only be used in an OEM application. Period. So the picture that started this entire mess (with a burned out red/round connector) was not an aftermarket HID b/c it still had the round (again OEM) style plug at the end. And those plugs only hook up to OEM d2s-not rebased to fit into halogens....that's where the pigtails come in.
Autolamps has been known to sell high quality kits and they stand by their work. They also sell OEM Philips burners (d2s and d2r) and ballasts (OEM LVQ-212 300 and the ones with pigtails too). Philips LVQ212-300 ballasts are not Korean and never were. Matishuta (sp???) makes a ballast very common with Korean-style HID kits. Those ballasts are also known to be Panasonic (Panisonic is a parent company to Matishuta or vice versa). By the way, these aren't bad ballasts...but I'm trying to say that the Philips are not made in any other country than Europe and they certainly would never put their name on an otherwise unknown ballast.
Whoever was blasting autolamps for his/her burnt out ballast obviously made an error and caused a high voltage to ground or something...they either forgot to put the round plug on the bulb (which was an OEM bulb btw b/c it was round)or-well, that's probably what happened.
I don't claim to know a crapload but I will say that I have no incentive here to lie (although I could be anybody posting since this is my first post-but I work for nobody-not autolamps-not for anybody).
I have used the cheap Korean-style crap bulbs in my '98 GTi and have since gone thru H7 retrofit, H1 retrofit (into projectors) and recently (one year back) completed a BMW E46 Xenon projector conversion which is using Philips-based OEM equipment in it...
I don't own a Contour so don't blast me for that. I have no incentive except to clear up some statements that I know to be false...And I hate it when that happens,
.
Later guys,
Nater
