[Mk2] [NA] Removing aftermarket HIDs / How bad are the standard lights?

[HansR3]

My car came with aftermarket HIDs fitted when I bought it, but they aren't great on main beam. I've been planning on going back to the stock headlights but I'm unsure if the originals will be an improvement as the previous owner said the HIDs are much better. Would going back to a decent halogen set-up be better?

I've partially dismantled one headlight and the set-up appears to be:

A small box (a relay?) near the spare wheel with 2 fused wires going into the bottom of the fuse box. 2 wires going off to the other light. 2 wires into this headlight into a couple of boxes with an earth coming back.

There's another three wires going from the box in the frunk to what I think is the original bulb socket, has anyone got a pic of one? It's got three wires coming out of it, red/blue, red/yellow and red/green. An identical plug is taped up out of the way on the other side.

Inside the headlight housing there's what I presume to be two ballast boxes and another large object with a grey plug on top. I think this is the electronic height adjustment, can anyone confirm?

I believe then, if I removed all the HID gear and plugged a halogen bulb in it would be back to stock?

Any ideas on what will have been done with the wires going to the fuse box and will it be easy to fix?

I've also got two different sets of headlamps, one pair which I think is the stock ones (Koito Halogen H4 XL88) and the ones currently on which are supposedly Raybrig multi-reflectors but have Koito H4 XL19 written on the glass. The pattern on the glass is quite different, can anyone tell me about the differences between these two?

Any help will be much appreciated, I know very little about HIDs and I'm not great with electrics!

[Nic]

From your description, the HID kit you have fitted has a relay connecting the ballasts to a 12V source in the fuse box, if you're fitting halogen bulbs you can completely remove these wires and relay. Then remove the HID bulbs, ballasts and wiring, basically everything that is plugged into the cars main wiring loom, the halogen bulbs will then plug into the connector on the cars wiring loom.

I removed the HID kit mine came with and replaced it with Osram Nightbreakers.

[HansR3]

Cheers Nic, picked some cheap bulbs up on the way home and sorted it all out. It's a big improvement on the HIDs

My only problem now is that my headlight cover touches my bonnet, I need the inside lower corner to move towards the wheel a couple of millimetres. I can't seem to find any horizontal adjustment? Just adjusting the cover with the four bolts holding it to the lamp doesn't give enough movement. I'm thinking of adjusting the bonnet slightly or is there a better way?