Automobile headlight bulbs

[1luckydad]

Hi. Do any of you folks out there have any experience with the different automobile headlight bulbs available on the market these days? I drive 40 miles to work at 9:30 PM, and was wondering if any of these more expensive bulbs are worth the money or just a lot of hype.

I totaled out my last vehicle Thanksgiving week when I hit a deer going 65MPH. I have been lucky though, as this is the first I have hit in 26 years of driving. Now I am as nervous as a long tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs, when driving to work. Some better headlights would really be nice.

[SteveWilson]

I replaced the bulbs in my Suburban with PIAA bulbs and have been very satisfied - a bit pricey though.

[Jeremy airjer W]

Just pay attention to the wattage rating for any "brighter/better" bulbs. The older ford products especially the trucks didn't care for the Lazer blues when they first came out. I replaced alot of them as well as the headlamp pigtails that where melted! The wiring wasn't beefy enough to handle the extra amperage.

[Valv]

Airjer has a great point, beware of your light switch on dash also. I did a double setup once (you know...one of Val's weird morning thoughts) and almost set truck on fire melting switch and some wires in dash.....

[hawkeye43]

I went and up-graded my wiring in my 02 chevy with a heavy duty harness, then went 85 watt low beams 100 watt high. then had them hooked so all 4 lights come on at the same time on high Now you can see things

[Whoaru99]

Ah ha....

You're the guy with the blinding headlights...

[Whoaru99]

Actually, I'd stay away from the fake HID-looking bulbs (blue tint) but the SilverStars(?) work pretty well. I had a 93 Eagle Vision with the notoriously bad headlights and while these bulbs cost a fair bit, it made the lighting at least usable for night driving.

I've taken to installing two sets of driving lights. One set is somewhat of a wide angle pattern similar to a fog lamp but with a bit more range and these are angled off to the sides of the road and light up the ditches and field edges pretty well. The other set are driving lights with "pencil" beams that really reach out and those are aimed for maximum distance forward.

Combined with the factory headlights, it's the next best thing to driving in the day.

The lights are separately switched so you can enable them, but the pencil beams are wired such that they only work in conjunction with the high beams to simplify switching/dimming on the highway. The low mounted lights work with low or high beam.

Back to the SilverStars(?), I believe those are DOT approved, but some higher wattage bulbs are not and can really be awfully hard on oncoming traffic. You can see, but everyone coming at you is temporarily blinded...

If you have not already aimed your headlights, that may be a first step. Again though, be kind to oncoming traffic if you "tweak" headlight aim.

[1luckydad]

The silverstars are exactly what I was thinking of trying. I just didn’t want to spend the $ and find out they where no improvement at all. I just happened to find a coupon for $20.00 off a set at Checker just last night at work. I have all the info for aiming my headlights and plan to do that in the brother-in-law’s machine shed where I have a nice level distance. Thanks for the info guys.