[ OSRAM 9004 HID KIT ]

Installed on my 1998 Maxima GLE

The Osram 9004 HID kit was purchased from Freddie (nickname: 97GLES), a member on the Maxima forum maxima.org. Many thanks to him, as well as Diesel9119 for helping me convince myself I needed them. I got them on 10/27/01 for $437.12 shipped and installed them in the rain on the morning of 10/28/01. Prices will probably keep dropping on these HID kits as it becomes more and more common.

Previously, I had PIAA 9004 Superwhites ($70/pair). Unchanged are my rewired 30w Polarg superwhite corner lamps ($10/bulb) and PIAA 1100x driving lights ($190/set). I am a true "lighting" freak, if you hadn't known by now. And for what it's worth, I actually still like the orange bumper lights, so no, please don't tell me to get white ones. Though if someone donated some diamond clear bumper lights to me, I'll gladly put them on. :P

Osram 9004 HID Kit Box                     Back of Box

(click on any picture on this page to enlarge)

The Osrams were made in Japan. I have no idea what the Japanese on it says. The English part highlights the advantage of HID:

Saving Power: Consumption of electricity 35W

Long Life: Life 2500 hours (the bulb box says 2000 hours only)

High Brightness: Increasing brightness 300%

White Light: Offering comfortable white light

Inside the HID Kit Box                         Philips HID Ballast   

You install the ballast to the other wires and add in the black relay. The bulb goes into one end of the ballasts. Your old 9004 harness plugs into the other wires. Me not technical, in fact, I'm a bumbling idiot when it comes to installing things on cars. Except maybe air freshners, I can do that pretty well. :P

I thought I had pics of everything setup, but I guess I didn't. Bad memory too! I screwed up for like 10 minutes when I didn't know how to install this kit, it's actually pretty easy if you know the right steps. I think it took me about 40 minutes of bumbling around in the rain to install these.

HID Bulb                                                Top Down View of the Bulb

Well, here's a quick installation run down for this kit, first do the driver's side. Unlock the old 9004 headlights. There is an O-ring type thing locking the headlights in place. Unlock the O-ring, then you can twist and pull the 9004s out. Now, plug in the new Osram HID bulb. Twist and lock in place. Then take the O-ring and put that over the back of the bulb to lock that in. Assuming you already have the wires and relay all hooked together to the ballast, take the part which the bulb fits into and fit that over the bulb. It only fits in one way, then twist to secure the setting. Then take the old 9004 bulb harness and plug that into the socket before the relay on the HID kit. You basically use every part in the box, it's just hard to explain without pictures. Now, turn on your headlights to make sure they work. Voila!

Next, do the passenger side. Take out the black plastic piece that covers your passenger side headlight and repeat the last paragraph. It is sort of a tight fit because of the way the ballast's wires are made. I had to pull the wires to make it more straight so that it would fit. Turn on your headlights to check again and put the black plastic piece back on.

Before with PIAA 9004 SW                 After with Osram 9004 HIDs

Well, here it is! Finally it was dark enough to take picture of the setup. I previously had PIAA 9004 Superwhites for my headlights. Unfortunately, since I re-wired the corner lamps to 30w and used Polarg Superwhites (blue bulb), the corner lamps have been the brightest thing on my car (see left picture). Then came the PIAA 1100x driving lights. So I thought it always looked a bit off because my headlights were the faintest thing people saw when looking at it.

Now, after the Osrams, that has completely changed. The Osrams totally dominate (looking at the front of the car or from inside the cockpit). Then come the corner lamps and then the PIAA 1100x's. In fact, I can barely notice a change when I turn on the 1100x's now. The only difference I see is that the first 2-3 feet directly in front of the bumper are illuminated by the 1100x. Whereas before, the 1100x's immensely helped lighting situations for looking far ahead and "whitened" the road. The pictures actually show the 1100x's being sort of yellow. Believe me, they are not, it's just the Osrams and corner lamps overshadow it so much it looks yellow. And that the angle I shot the above two makes it look that way. For a better view of the 1100x's, look at the "Before side shot" below. Now the 1100x's are turned on basically for looks only, not for increased lighting performance.

The Osrams do have a slight blue tint when first turned on from a cold state. This lasts from 30 seconds to a minute, I didn't have a stopwatch with me at the time. From this blue state, it starts to increasingly turn bright white. It's hard to explain, but it's just like the Mercedes, Lexus, Audi HIDs as far as I can tell. I actually wish it stayed blue a bit longer.

Before side shot                                     After side shot

Driving with the Osrams are awesome. I haven't done any extensive driving at night with them yet, but I can tell you that it is really amazing if you like white light, like I do. It's pretty cool that you can see what street signs are new and which are old, because the white in them are extremely illuminated by the HIDs. The newer signs are pure white and the older signs have a faint darker white hue because they are old/dirty. I did not "flashed" by oncoming drivers while I did my limited testing last night. You do lose the ability to "high-beam" with this HID kit. When you do use the high-beam stalk, the HIDs will turn off when high-beam is active. I will update this review in a week or two after more night time driving.

Before closeup                                       After closeup

This set of pictures shows the clearer, more pure, brighter white color. Pictures really don't do it justice, as it's hard to take pictures with a digital camera of car lighting very well.

Osram HIDs without 1100x                   Top down shot of the Osram HIDs

 The top down shot probably best shows what the Osrams look like. So is it worth $437.12? Well, depends on what you value, basically. You could have gotten springs, FSTB, and RSB for that. Or perhaps RT Cat or a budget Y Pipe. But, when you look at 2002 Maxima OEM HIDs being $510 per SIDE, and that most car companies charge $700-$1200 or more for HIDs, $437.12 ain't too bad. I've always wanted HIDs, ever since I saw a Lexus GS400 with HIDs at an auto show back in 98 or 99. Now, it's finally affordable to me, so I got them. You may value things differently. Is it cool to have? Most definitely!

Let me know if you have any questions or want me to review any other aspects of this kit!

Review by: mrb23