Kensun is one of the top-rated HID kits on the market. They offer several different colors of HID kits you can choose from, ranging from yellow to blue to white to purple. They take about an hour to install, and are compatible with most vehicles on the market.
Before you buy a kit, it’s important to understand what options are available to you. Kensun currently offers a few different types of kits.
We decided to test the 6000k Bi-Xenon kit. It took less than an hour to install (check out our HID installation tutorial for a complete summary of the installation) and only required some zip ties, a wrench, and a pair of scissors.
The kit is shipped inside an aluminum briefcase-looking container. It’s pretty cheesy, but in reality, it was somewhat refreshing to actually find a company that cares about the perception of their product and the customer experience. We found this to be the first of many efforts made by the company to ensure their customers are happy with their product. A lot of other kits just come stuffed into a small cardboard box and then shoved into a padded envelope, only to be half-squished by the time the kit gets to your mailbox. Kensun is one of the few exceptions. So, our experience with Kensun started off right.
Opening the box reveals an HID kit carefully packaged inside foam padding. The bulbs are covered by a plastic protective casing, and the rest of the kit is ready for plug-and-play application. We ordered the “slim” version, so the ballast was supposed to be slimmer than the standard sized ballast. It wasn’t quite as small as we were anticipating, roughly 1/2 the length of a dollar bill, and just shy of an inch thick. A lot of companies market the size of their ballast as one of their main selling points. While it’s certainly convenient to work with a thin ballast throughout the installation process, we’d rather have a ballast that actually functions well, even if that means it has to be slightly larger.
The Kensun HID Kit comes with two metal brackets that can be used to attach them to the most convenient spot you can find on the frame of your car. We found these to be entirely impractical. The most convenient way to secure the ballasts is to pick up some simple zip ties and strap them in a web around the ballast, and then use additional zip ties to strap them to your vehicle’s frame. When you do this, make sure they’re in a safe location, away from belts and hoses, or anything else that might cause damage to your car or the HID kit.
The kit connects directly to the vehicle’s battery and provides a steady flow of electricity to the bulbs. This eliminates the flickering that a lot of the cheap HID kits experience. If you have the option, we recommend choosing a kit that connects directly to the car’s battery. Dealing with flickering headlights can be extremely frustrating, not to mention the possibility of the headlights completely losing power. Unlike many of the other kits we tested, the Kensun kit did not flicker at all, and was one of the brightest kits. Not that you can’t get a bright kit without a direct battery connection, but it certainly helps to have your kit connected directly to your battery.
HID bulbs are significantly longer and thinner than a traditional bulb. You shouldn’t have any problem with the bulb fitting in your headlight housing, but certain vehicles could require a retrofit of the housing in order to fit the bulb inside. We’ve tested kits on various different vehicles, ranging from a 1991 up to a 2008, and we have never had an issue with the bulb fitting.
The kit is significantly brighter than the standard HID bulbs that come installed in many vehicles. Believe it or not, HID lights draw less power than halogen bulbs. The images below show the true color and brightness of the Kensun kit. We installed this kit in a 2008 Nissan Pathfinder that we use for off-road purposes. Even though the housing in the Pathfinder is a reflector housing, it doesn’t spray light all over the place. You can clearly see below that the light is cut off on the sides and front of the vehicle. The color of this 6000k Bi-Xenon HID Kit is a true white with a purple tint. Not all HID kits are created equal, so we recommend you check with the manufacturer to ensure you get the color you are looking for. This kit is most similar to the color of the latest model Prius Xenon or the most recent BMW headlights. The 8000k are a deeper blue, and anything higher than that is going to be impractical. We’ve all seen the car on the road with deep blue headlights and wondered how the heck they are able to even see the road in front of them. Those are 8000k and above. An important point to remember is the higher “K” headlight you install, the more blue/purple and less white/bright your headlights are going to be. As you get lower than the 6000K the light turns to pure white and then yellow. The 4300K Kensun lights are a bright white with a small hint of yellow. We wouldn’t go any lower than that unless they’re fog lights. If you’re looking for a clean blue, purple, and white color in your headlights, we recommend this kit.
Overall, we were extremely pleased with the Kensun kit. The kit came well-packaged, installed quickly, functioned flawlessly, and outlasted our vehicle. We ended up getting rid of the vehicle before the headlights burned out, which was nearly two years. Not only did the lights last a long time, they also maintained their color the entire time.
