HID’s – Retrofitting Them to Volvos with Factory (dull) Headlights

The Old Way – HID/Xenon

Adding aftermarket Xenons to your Volvo can be a minefield of what to buy, where to buy it and what to do with it when the package arrives. Then there is the legality angle you must navigate. At 35W lights are ok but 55W are illegal?

HID

Here’s a Volvo Forum topic with information by those who have put HID/Xenon lights in their Volvos. This was the convention 9 years ago… owners upgrading to HID but running into endless problems of “ballast” and dash lights because the electrical draw was outside of normal parameters. Some owners just lived with the dash light or message center message.

BTW, if you’re looking for info on replacing various bulbs, see this Volvo bulb lookup chart series.

Some owners are buying new housing/reflectors and putting in LED bulbs, in effect skipping the entire HID/Xenon technology generation…

Now It’s Reflectors + LED Bulbs

Halogen -> HID/Xenon [skipped] -> LED

Around 2016, aftermarket LED bulbs arrived to a hungry audience of Volvo owners, and generally the whole automotive world. They’d been around as a niche segment in the automotive world — and of course as AC home lighting products — but this year was the turning point in terms of auto enthusiast adoption.

Table courtesy plasmagarage.com

How to Select HID’s for Volvos with Factory (dull) Headlights