I guess I have thin hands. I was able to replace my low beam HIDs without removing the battery and without removing the top plastic shield/trim. Yes, mostly a blinded task. Good thing these are not my first D2S HIDs. So, I am used to unclip and clip back the bulb.
I used Philips D2S Xtreme vision Gen 2 4800K part number 85122XV2C1. I replaced one first and drove the car for a few days to see the difference. For me, the new bulb was giving me around 20-25% more brightness compared to original OEM Philips D2S 4300K as projected on the garage door (just my visual judgment). Bottom-line, I was very happy driving at night on my trip from Houston TX to Tampa FL this past Christmas.
