I have recently gotten my truck back on the road and have run into a minor problem. My first ECE purchase isnt what I thought it once was. When I first did it, they were my first jump into the unknown land of headlamp upgrades and ECE. I didnt want to spend a fortune without knowing the real performance of the lamps. With that in mind, I picked up a set of Autopal 4x6" E-codes from autooptiks.

Well, four years passed, the Contour got its assortment of Hella 90mms, the truck got its Hella 4x6 highs, and now my lows arent what I thought they once were. Their beam pattern seems narrow, the cutoff isnt as sharp as it should be (no internal shield), etc. Also comparing the Autopals to the Hella highbeams, quality concerns are brought up. The lens on the Autopals isnt as clear as the Hellas. When looking into the lamps, the reflective material isnt near as shiny as the Hellas either.

So, the obvious solution is to replace the lamps. Susquehanna has Hella 4x6 lows for a decent price, but I am intrested into your opinion on the Cibiés that Dan Stern sells. I have always (since the Autopals) run Hellas due to their availability. I am curious if any of you have run Cibiés and what you thought of them. How was their cutoff, beam pattern, glare, etc? The main reason I am asking is when I compare the pics to pics of Hella lows or my Autopals, there seems to be an awful lot of fluting on the lens. Noone I know is of any help either. Everyone I know who has upgraded has gone with Hellas. The only two exceptions are my friend who upgraded his old Mercedes with some 7" Autopals and the guy I ran into with a old Golf who did a shieldless D2S upgrade on the same lamp (glare is an understatement).

-Jon

Sylvanias 4x6 complete HID is a an entry to 4x6 HID, but probably not an option if u want world class quality. I would say that a Narva 80/100W halogen in a quality 4x6 Halogen fixture is better choice.
Others on the board here have ventured the HID route with el cheapos plastic 4x6 fictures with clear lenses that they have done a HID projector retro on as described as alternative 4 on this page: http://faq.auto.light.tripod.com/hid-upgrade-routes.htm
I was looking into alot of 4x6 fixtures as well before I pioneered into the Hella 90mm units. My SHO almost got 4x6 lamps on them. That would have been quite a retro look!
Anyways, among the ECE units, qualitywise, I found that Marchal units was the best, followed by Hellas and Bosch. (The company Marchal was taken over by Cibie). I have no idea about the stock of Marchal units on a world basis, if there are any left?? I have one unit that I bought for testing for way too much money. Give me an offer if u are interested. I probably have some pics of this unit as well if interested. let me know.

The AutoPal lights are really low-end. The Hella 4 X 6 model light is much better, but still not as good as the Cibie or Bosch (hard to find) versions of the same thing.