Best HID Lighting 2013 R1200 RT

05biggray said:

I, was forced into riding 2 hours in darkness and rain on the Fl TPK returning from MS. I know I am OLD and don't see as well as in my younger day's and had been riding for 800 miles with 200 to go how ever the lights still were dismal. I finally laid in behind another vehicle doing 80 just for protection from recaps and critters. All that aside any advice on HID light's they seem to be the only answer for projection beams of any distance. I had a run in with a RECAP tread once and really don't want to repeat it. Thanks for all the help.
Dave

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Beemer01 said:

DDM Tuning - http://www.ddmtuning.com/

I prefer the 4500-5000 color range and the 35 watt low beam will make you very happy. Easy install.

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lkraus said:

I'm pleased with the DDM HIDs, though if I'd seen them before ordering, I might have tried the 4300K instead of the 4500K version. The 4500K is very white and takes some getting used to.

Changing back to a standard H-7 on the road should not be difficult, just one more connector to unplug.

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wyman.winn said:

Larry,

what wattage did you go with....???

wyman

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lkraus said:

35W. It's more than enough light and I had concerns about excess light "spillage" causing glare for oncoming traffic. Also heard tales of shortened ballast life with the 55W bulbs; don't know if that's true or not. My impetus for the change to HID was potentially longer bulb life and I did not want to trade one problem for another.

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lkraus said:

The HID bulbs have a brief (1-2 seconds) warm-up period before reaching full brightness. General consensus seems to be that this makes HID impractical for high beam flashing. After upgrading the low beams, I did feel I wanted to do something to upgrade the high beam, so I put in a 65W Osram H-7. This made some improvement in beam reach, but nothing earthshaking. The difference may have been masked by the brightness of the HID low beam. Frankly, I have little need of the high beam, as I rarely ride at night and when I do, the road is seldom empty enough to use the high beam. Guess I need to plan a trip to some wide open spaces...

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wyman.winn said:

i hear ya on the old tired eyes.....

i had a right side headlight bulb go out on my 2013 R1200RT and changed all to Philips H7 X-treme Power....brighter and seem to throw a bit farther....maybe my imagination though....

i did have HIDs on my V-Strom and KLR though....6000K, bright white light and good spread....if you do not have the COM system, i would think there would be plenty of room for the ballasts and such....i do not plan on putting HIDs on my RT....if a ballast or bulb fails on the road, replacement would be tough...i do carry a spare X-treme though....

wyman[/QUOT

+1 on the Phillips x-treme bulbs. significantly whiter than oem and so far durability has been good. Put mine in about a year ago after repeated ballast failures on the dual DDM kit I had installed. I have high and low beam HIDs from DDM on my F800 and they have worked flawlessly. I ordered the same for my RT however the newer versions were not the same metal cased ballasts as I got several years ago for the F800. I had no less than 4 ballast failures with the kits i installed on my RT before i finally gave up. Props to DDM as they relplaced each failed ballast with a new one that failed within a few weeks. Some research i did found some references on automotive forums about problems when installing HID kits on cars with daylight running lights. Something about low voltage being sent to the ballasts at engine start killing the ballast. I extrapolated that this might be part of the problem with the newer ballasts and installing them on M/C's with the always on headlights. Sounds possible based on my experience and repeated failures. I would suggest going the the Phillips bulbs and maybe looking for an auxiliary light set up. There are some great LED sets out there i've heard.

BTW, i opted for the 55w kits to match OEm wattage and avoid error messages. Works on my F800 and until the ballasts went out on the RT, never an error code. Another factor, if you care, the aftermarket installation kits are technically illegal for street use.

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