I replaced my stock parking lamps, fog, low beam and high beam halogens with PIAA bulbs. Fog, high beam and low beam are H7s (despite the fact that the Sylvania automotive bulb giude says they're H3). I replaced those with PIAA Intense White (4150 Kelvin color temperature) and the parking bulbs with PIAA 168 wedge parking bulbs, which are available in Xtreme White Plus (color temp 4000 Kelvin). I got all the bulbs from Auto Barn locally, but they also sell online at www.autobarn.com. Below are pictures of stock (on right) vs. PIAA bulbs (on left) of (1) parking lamps only, (2) parking and fog lamps, (3) parking and low beams, and (4) parking and high beams.

Replacing the yellowish parking bulbs is probably the most worthwhile mod you can do -- for a mere $14.

Oh, and for those of you who noticed all the snow piled up in my driveway, I did not move to Colorado. We've gotten over 56" of snow thus far here on Long Island, and we're running out of space to pile all of it!

 

Looks good....way better than the stock yellow.
Just curious, why didn't you go HID?

 

Not worth the trouble for the very limited amount of night driving that I do. But the yellow parking lamps especially bothered me.

 

Oggie - The difference in the parking lights is very noticeable in your photos, while the other differences are very subtle - almost indistinguishable. Are the differences more pronounced when you see the car in person?

 

I have a parking bulb out on my C4S. Is it the same part number I would need to replace mine?

 

My experience with PIAA is everything they make is junk. They have supplanted Wham-O and the iconic manufacturer of cheaply made, unreliable, rip-off products. I have bought enough of their trash to know never to buy from them again. The replacement HID products are not much more expensive, and work infinitely better.

 

This mod is for non-HID cars. I've never used PIAA bulbs. Are the Sylvania and/or Philips bulbs similar but more reliable?

 

Without getting into the debate of proper cut-offs and fitting HID into regular housings, the HID are actually really simple and cheap to install. I bought the slim ballast HID 4300K, for around $50.00. It is all plug and play, and the ballasts simply plug inline between the bulb and connector, and it all fits neatly inside the headlight cap. There are no wires to run or affect the integrity of the headlight seals. I still can't believe that Porsche would put halogen bulbs into a 2000 model $80,000 car!

 

The HID kits can be had for very cheap. A cautionary note, I dont know if the Porsche has resistance sensors on the light circuits as my 92 Bimmer did. I put Apexcone HIDs on my Bimmer and the car insisted it had a burned out headlight. These Apexcone folks have additional cost device that goes inline which defeats the bulb warning. I got mine from http://www.ddmtuning.com/Products/Ap...Raptor-HID-Kit

Issues with these lights: They required extensive re-aiming after install. The BMW lights were 9006s while my F250 lights were H4s. The H4s caused nasty interference with my ham radio in the truck. The ones in the Bimmer did not (same radio, Kenwood D700).

I will probably be purchasing these same lights for my 2K 996.

 

I actually think that HID's should be outlawed. I'm tired of being blinded by them either from someone behind me or from an oncoming car. They may be good for the driver, but they're bad for everyone else on the road.

 

Yes, the difference for the other lamps is quite noticeable. The photos just don't do them justice.

 

You should check your owner's manual for the bulb type for your year. For 1999-2001, the parking lamps are
168 wedge bulbs.

 

This is the first time I've bought PIAA, so I don't know how long they will last. I know that Tire Rack has been selling them for a long time, and they're known for carrying quality products. For those who want to try another brand, I've used Hoen bulbs on two other cars for several years with no issues. They make a bulb called Xenonmatch Titanium, which is 70w and 4300k, which I have on another car and they are a very close match to the Xenons.

 

Thanks. I just installed the parking light wedge bulbs today that I ordered from a local speed shop. I guess I'll order the others as well. Any noticeable decrease in brightness as some have suggested?

Update: After reading countless reviews of bulbs (not really interesting reading), I decided to use Sylvania Silverstar bulbs for the low and high beams (H7). For PIAA, there were more bad reviews than good and for Silverstar there were more good reviews than bad. I'm keeping the PIAA wedge bulbs for the parking lights. The bad reviews were all about expense and longevity, not visibility or color. I'll keep my fog lights OEM for now.

 

Update: The driver-side low beam is much brighter than the passenger-side. I don't think this is an aiming issue as I tried moving my eye level up, down, and side to side to see if I could get a similar brightness by changing my position. I'm going to swap bulbs left to right to see if the brightness moves to the other side. Anyone else seen this kind of thing?