LED v.s. HID Headlights - 2016 Civic
The choice between LED and HID replacement headlights is an interesting discussion. There are several things to keep in mind. In additioin to the normal relibility issues with LED's, there is often a problem of bulb geometry that caused a poor beam pattern due to the geometry of the LED replacement bulbs. (assumes that you keep the projector housings due to cost) While there are several LED's that are done correctly for geometry, there are many that are not. Be careful what you buy or your will get a funny beam pattern. Then there is the question of cost. The LED's almost always cost more than the HID's for the same resulting light on the road and light on the road is after all the real crteria. (There is a reason the LED's come only on the high end Civics. Cost.)
A good alternative is the HID's. These do have a very short warm up period which LED's do not, but they can be purchased with the same color and brightness as LED's. That said, be sure to use only 35 watt kits and not 55 watt versions. The 55W kits run the bulbs hotter and there is more risk to damage to the headlight housing. If you use good AC ballasts that are efficient & more stable, you will get all the light you need from the 35W system. Remember that the 35 & 55W ratings are input and not output. That is just one reason why ballast type (AC v.s. DC) matters. Also remember for the typical HID bulb that - for example - if you add one watt say from 35W to 36W you may get 100 lumens more light. However, if you go from 36 to 37 watts, you will get less of an increase, say 99 lumens more and so on until all you get is more heat for increasing the watts, not more light.
LED's usually have a color temperature in the 6000 deg K range. HID's come with options for color temperature depending on the salts added to the bulb for color modification. Most factory HID systems are 4300K to 5000K color temperature. Depending on the bulb vendor, there may be some variation with HID's, but in general 5000K is a good starting point. If you also look at studies done on vision and the eye, 5000K is again a good starting choice and can be changed later by only changing the bulb if you do not like the color. LED's are almost always 6000K but they tend to be a truer color with less vendor variation.
Finally, the typical HID is a direct plug in for a 2016 Civic projector headlight and mounting the ballasts and capacitors for CAN errors is a simple task. Hope this is enough data to make a choice on two good options and not too much info for starters.
