really, even for fog lights?

I talked to a cop back when I worked with one, and he said that as long as they are natural looking, they're fine. But if they see like a deep blue, they can pull that vehicle over if they are bored enough.

The other day at school I saw a deep blue chevy truck with hideous wheels on it. The only thing that could have made it uglier than the wheels, were that the HID headlights were the same color as the truck. How the heck does a person with those drive at night? They had to be at least 15,000 kelvin.

 

The problem as I understand it is that it's the beam pattern that's the real issue, not the color. The reflector needs to be changed as well as the bulb to be compliant.

A quick phone call may save some grief.

 

You are exactly correct. HID bulbs in a housing designed for halogens will throw light all over the place and cause glare for other drivers. They look "brighter", but it's mostly just the spread out pattern.

I'm sure MANY people here will disagree with me.

 

Might be 2 weeks late with this info but it may help others out in the future when reading this post.

My father worked at a tire shop that did inspection stickers and he was in charge of that and got his license from the DMV and all the certifications he needed to do that. I believe about a year n a half ago now, the DMV sent out an invoice saying to reject any vehicle that had aftermarket HID kits. If the vehicle hadn't come from the factory with HID's they were to fail them.

Now my father loves HID's, how much they illuminate the road, loves the idea and I can't express how much I love how my truck lights up the road as well (I have 5k hi/low bulbs, cant remember off hand what wattage the ballasts were). My father's reaction toward them was that the only reason they sent out the invoice was because people were throwing aftermarket headlights and HID's into their vehicles not AIMING their headlights. So you have one headlight blinding on coming drivers and the other pointing into peoples living rooms.

Now of course as an inspection person your job already is to ensure that people's headlights are aimed properly so he did just that. He made sure they were aimed as they should and passed them (as long as there weren't any other issues of course.) Now I can't say that everyone takes this approach but I've had HID's in for about half a year and I do mostly night driving. I'm currently at college so late night 120 mi road trips back home are a bi-weekly occurrence and I have NEVER been flashed by oncoming vehicles (as if I had highbeams on), never been pulled over and ticketed. Not one problem. So take all this information as you will but I personally think you'll be fine legality wise.

As 00DakDan has said however a halogen headlight shouldn't be housing an HID bulb. That causes the funky beam pattern. I purchased HID headlights along with HID kits and threw both in as a package. You definitely want to put HID headlights in as well. And I apologize for the lecture. Just wanted to get every bit of information I had out there for future upgradee's to see.

 

The ones that I have in my truck I got from VVME off of ebay, for my fog lights I got their 35 wat slim line kit for the ease of installation. I use them all the time and haven't had a single problem with them being considered illegal here in Colorado.