Best Aftermarket HID Kits on Amazon under $60 Tested

September 23, 2018

If you’re looking to upgrade from Halogen to HID, you came to the right place. We’ll be comparing stock halogen to HID kits that performed best from our lab tests, and we’ll have the best recommendations for upgrading your stock headlights.

We purchased and tested 8 of the most popular and top rated HID kits on Amazon, so let’s check them out.

Other Products Shown in the Review

Starting off with a Stock Halogen bulb, you can of course see from the video that the output is decent, color is yellowish, and beam pattern is ok in a projector.

In terms of brightness, all the kits we tested from Amazon were brighter than a stock halogen bulb, but none as bright as the DDM Tuning Premium kit. This was 239% brighter than halogen at 2970 peak lux with the included 35 watt ballast, vs 876 peak lux for a halogen running at a higher wattage. That’s almost 3.5X better output on the road. The overall light spread in a low beam projector is improved. So not only do you get much further distance, but better ambient brightness to see side to side. At $60, this is the brightest kit you can get under $100. 55 watt results on our test 55 watt Innovated Ballast yielded less output for some reason, but 55 watts isn’t usually a good idea for longevity of the bulb or the UV light hitting the headlight housing lowering the lifespan of that as well. We’ll mark the 55 watt test inconclusive as of this review, but check back once we have that available as we’ll pick up DDM’s 55 watt ballast to test with.

Now I also want to mention another kit, the Xtreme Vision. This kit was 120% brighter over stock halogen with the included 35 watt ballast, which doesn’t sound as great as the DDM kit, but at only $30, it’s really a great bang for your buck if you’re looking for something cheap but still bright. It was also one of the only kits that didn’t flicker during our burn-in and testing, as well as both DDM Tuning kits, and the Lumenon kit. All others had a funky flickering which I don’t like. Results on our 55 watt kit were interesting here as it was actually brighter than the DDM Tuning Premium kit at 3060 lux vs 2640 lux on the DDM kit, bringing the overall brightness up to 3.5X brighter than halogen. Again though, I would stick with the 35 watt kit if you can, especially if you have DRL headlights where they are on all the time.

If of course you want the very best, check out DeAutoLED or Morimoto. They’re more expensive, but are higher quality and even brighter. We also showed the DeAutoLED HID Kit, as it is what we personally run in our vehicles. Great quality, lifetime warranty, and always a pure white color at 5700k. The DeAutoLED kit tested at 3580 lux, which is 309% brighter from our tests. Highly recommended if you have the money.

You’ll notice all the options for color temperature or ‘kelvin’. The output will vary depending on the kelvin you pick, and if you want the brightest out of the kit, you’ll want to go for as close to 4500k as possible. There are so many options, but if you want the closest to a pure white, go for 5000k or 5500k. If you want a blue tint, look for 6000k or 6500k. All of our tests were the pure white option, as that’s the most popular option people pick. We listed each color we used next to the kits on the chart.

The DDM Tuning Premium kit was actually the closest to a pure white at exactly 5150k in the 35w kit, even though it was claimed to be 5500k, were ok with that. The XtremeVision kit was about 7150k in the 35w ballast, so if your looking for something more of the ice blue look, you'll enjoy this one.

The other kits were mostly over 6500k, with a few right around 5500k. Anything under 6000k will look nice and white, with only a hint of blue. Once you start getting over 6000k, for example 10000k, people often confuse that with a brighter kit, but in fact is much dimmer, and will be much more blue or even purple, and should only be used if you’re going for a certain look, but I wouldn’t recommend them for actually driving at night!

Now remember that HID is designed primarily for Projector headlights, but some people run them in reflectors. If you do, be sure your glare is minimal, or go for a specifically designed kit which has special coatings. I did a video review on one, you can check it out here.

I hope this helped, and again to find details on these kits as well as other HID kits. If we didn’t test a kit your looking at or already run, be sure to comment below and we’ll look into testing for you guys!

Stay safe out there everybody and until next time.