Finally after 3 months of laziness, I finally gave in and thought of sharing my experience with the community. Before this quest, I was a total noob and had no idea about anything such as different types of bulbs, sockets, ballasts,etc. But my hunt for a good pair of projectors changed everything.
Fancied by the projectors and DRL craze lately especially on the new Audi, BMW and Mercs lately, I had been craving to get one for myself my hands on them for a pretty long time. But I was not in a mood when I bought the car initially. So when the car was close to 1.5 years old I thought the time is right to get her a new pair of eyes with lenses.
And so the journey began with my search for them all over the internet in October last year. Initially I started scouring team-bhp threads as well as threads for theautomotiveindia and hyundai-forums. Did not find much good stuff which I was looking for specifically for the fluidic variant in the first 2 forums. The last forum had pretty valuable information which is a US based forum where the Verna is sold as Accent RB 2011+
So I thought our very own team-bhp should not be lacking behind so decided to write one for all the members.
After all the information and links I could gather, I approached theretrofitsource.com and inquired them about the mini H1 stage III kit to which they gave a canned reply " As long as you select the proper parts in the kit, it should work" to which I asked them if the kit would even be compatible as the car belongs to a different part of the world after they which they asked for the bulb type wattage and bulb type. Once I shared this information they recommended me the Morimotot mini D2S kit for my car. The cost of the kit came out to be $315 without angel eyes but I wanted the angel eyes as well which would put the grand total to $345(Rs.21500).
Looking at the cost I started pondering over the decision to source something locally.
I contacted AVS Tuning based out of Pune who are the official distributor for Morimoto in India and requested a quote.
Morimoto Mini D2S 3.0 (Round) Projector 13000
D2S: Morimoto XB35 Bulb 4550
5Five DSP Morimoto Ballast 9100
AMP>D2S (Straight) Adapter 1300 (No idea what this is as it was not part of my final install)
BiGxenon: Morimoto MotoControl Harness 3250
100mm Amber/White Halos 6500
D2S Ballast Housing Seals 650
Shrouds are also missing here. Cost was coming out to be 38350 + 2500 installation
I decided to look else where and then came in touch with Genome Group (thanks to one of the existing threads here). Cant recall correctly but some member mentioned after speaking to somebody from the company that they modelled their own projector lenses based on the morimoto models. So I emailed them requesting for a quote along with local availability. I
got in touch with Mr. Pawan @8860600192.
He asked me to visit a dealer in Gurgaon at a time when he would also be available as my office was also in Gurgaon. They have series such as Silver, Gold,etc. The cost he quoted for their top model which he suggested me to buy was 16k + 1k for installation. I had a look at the projectors as well and they seemed pretty chinese to me so I decided to give them a miss as well as the cost being almost on par with the morimoto ones.
Out of options but in no mood to give up, I had a look at some chinese models available locally and aliexpress but was not excited too much and One of my neighbours have it in his red polo and did not like it that much. I looked at
http://www.mxsmotosport.com/
They sell complete headlights mostly and most are normal headlight assembly fitted with chinese projectors. Discouraged by the pricing between 20-35k it did not make much sense to me go for these as then I could instead go for the Morimoto ones.
By now it was December so I gave a call to my friend in US as he was due to arrive in January. He was already getting me a lot of stuff(includes Ultima Waterless Wash Concentrate and 2 plasti dip cans) so he wasn't willing to get this for me earlier due to the fragile nature of the product but my SSD order was lost by USPS so he gave in and ordered it for me just 1 week before his flight. A couple of calls and emails to TRS along with size change of the halo rings, the ordered reached my friend just a day before his flight.
Final Order:
1 x Bi-xenon Morimoto Mini Stage III Kit (D2S) (MiniD2SIII)
Bulbs Morimoto 5Five 5000K D2S
Ballasts Morimoto 5Five (50w) D2S
Projectors RHD (UK, Australia, etc)
Halos Yes, 90mm Morimoto XB LED (White)
Re-sealing Glue No Thanks
Shrouds Gatling Gun
Wire Harness Relay: H4/9003
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Total: $345.00
I was real excited about it that even went to pick my friend at 6 in the morning at the airport a and it was also a surprise to his parents.
Coming to the installation, I had emailed 3 people out which inclues Retro Rides, AutoPsyche and MXS Moto sport. AutoPsyche did not have the facility to install it, retro rides quoted me 2.5k and MXS Moto Sport quoted 3k. I decided to go for Retro Rides as it was nearer to my house and I regularly follow them on FB.
Installation was done on 2nd Feb after my friend left for US. I reached at 12 in the afternoon and left at 7 in the evening. Rest, I will let the pics do the talking. Also attached are the pics for the place where I got it installed - Retro Rides. The person there are very polite and nice and would recommend them for anything related to car lighting. Headlights, tailights, LED bars, they have em all and experts with it. Output pics coming soon.