Just thinking out loud here and would like to hear the thoughts of this broad group.

Just to set expectations...this has nothing to do with illumination.

Yesterday we had a short, yet strong snow storm hit the area which dropped several inches of heavy, wet, sloppy snow. After driving in this weather, I pulled into my garage and noticed I couldn`t see my headlights projecting on the walls. Since my GTI has projection HIDs, I found this odd since they always project plenty of light. I figured the weather was at fault, but when I inspected the front of the car, I was surprised to see a thick layer of yet snow completely covering the lenses on both sides.

I`m not new to snow, but am new to driving an HID equipped car in heavy snow (winters here aren`t what they used to be). In the past with halogen equipped cars, even in the worst conditions, the heat from the bulbs always seemed to keep an area clear of snow and ice. This leads me to wonder if newer lighting technology with HID and LED`s is making thing safer due to better illumination, the cooler temperatures on the lenses due to xenon HID projector housings or the simply fact LED`s run much cooler than a halogen bulb might be actually making things LESS safe because of the conditions I experienced. Now I know to not only need to keep the lenses clean from spray as I`ve always done, but an occasional wipe is needed to keep them clear of snow/ice since it won`t melt.

Don`t get me wrong...now that I`ve driven a factory HID equipped car, I`ll never go back to halogens again. I just found an odd ownership quirk I wasn`t expecting.