Car headlights - are you happy

[obi_waynne]

Are you happy with your cars headlights? Have you tried any other bulbs to improve them?

I would seem that as we are limited in the amount of watts we have on our front lights that most OEM bulbs are woefully inadequete.

Some people have the notion that lights on French cars are pretty good but this is probably just a beam pattern thing with conversion to RHD.

My lights were rubbish but with some Brilliance 80% brighter bulbs there were dramatically improved.

Bulbs also seem to wear with age - any one else noticed this?

 

[pgarner]

mines are somewhere near very poor. going to have to change the bulbs seeing the dark nights are back in

 

[HDi fun]

Firstly, terminology. What we call a bulb is actually a lamp. Incandescent filament lamps do deteriorate with age, although those filled with halogen gas - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halogen - exhibit this effect far mroe slowly.

Xenon gas technology (and we're still talking about incandescent lamps here, HiDs are totally different) is a later alternative.

The 406 had superb headlights, so if that's an example then French cars are well lit. It had H7s, two each side (so separate enclosure for dip and main) and the headlight lenses were of the clear type with the beam pattern being determined by the complex reflector.

I suspect that the clear lenses help a alot - out Seat 1.9D has normal lenses and a single 472 each side and the lighting is crap.

I have played about with upgrade lamps, Osrams nightbreakers are stunning but don't last very long. The Silverstars are very good as well, much better beam pattern than OEM cheapies.

 

[obi_waynne]

So I'm off to plant my Daffodil Lamps in the garden! (Point taken)

Pedantics is Old-Gits job!

I'm amazed we haven't had a major revolution in lamp technology yet. HID and LED are emerging and it will be interesting to compare the advantages and disavantages of these. I guess that ultimately LED will win out.

 

[Loz]

I noticed mine have got worserererer recently so I've ordered a pair of Philips X-Treme Power bulbs.

 

[2fast2catch]

mine get changed to led sidelight bulbs and hids normally the same day i get a new car

 

[StevieDB9]

The philips xtreme bulbs are amazing, i've just fitted my second set in 5 years

 

[HDi fun]

"HID and LED are emerging"

HiD has been around since 1994. Much like DVB we're spending too long adopting and ratifying new standards. By the time HiD is adopted across the board it will be gasping its last. OLED technology will be on the way out by then as well. I'm sometimes surprised we don't still light candles mounted in enclosures (not lamps, mind ) on the front wings.

 

[lutonmatt]

well mine are bad in the suzuki they dont have bulbs but candles lol

but think most of it is cos they are half full of mud if i want to see were i am going and on one is in front i have 4 front fogs on the ball bars that light any country lane up

 

[RobBentley]

R36 Xenon Projector lamps are fantastic, they are even motorised to look "around the corner"... and there is even a normal H7 bulb mounted pointing sideways which comes on past a certain percentage of steering travel and/or below 25 if the indicator is on to light up where your going to turn into while the xenons maintain the straight ahead lighting.

 

[RobBentley]

and for Halogen alternatives...

Philips Bluevision are my recommendation. They have the same colour temp as a xenon gas discharge lamp. Totally transformed our freelander...

 

[HDi fun]

I'm going to tread on OGs toes here then. The outer glass around what is commonly known as a bulb (but is actually a lamp) is known as the envelope.

Applying a colour filter or tint is only going to reduce the total amout of visible light.

Do we all rate HIDs? I like them insofar as they appear to offer better illumination but I sometimes wonder whether the actual far improved brightness (which is actual and measurable) really does provide a driver with better perception of vision.

HIDs work on a gas discharge principle. As such, the light they emit is not of a continuous colour spectrum but a combination of line spectra which, together, give a good approximation of daylight white light.

Perception can, of course, work in any way the observer would like it to work.

Just because it's brighter, can you actually see more? I'm of the opinion that you possibly can. Sometimes.

Or, does the discrete line spectra quality of HID light give rise to confusion of visual stimuli? I'm, again, of the opinion that it possibly can. Sometimes.

Visual perception is very different from vision and visibility. Visual acuity is different again.

I happen to like HID lighting but I cannot vote for everyone in this respect. There are some situations where the colour rendition provided by a broad and continuous spectrum incandescent lamp cannot be bettered. Even if it means that much of that spectrum is biased towards the longer wavelengths of visible light.

Beam patterns, light distribution and illumination properties all deserve a separate thread.

 

[pgarner]

, Osrams nightbreakers are stunning but don't last very long.

fitted these tonight after they arrived this afternoon - bought from www.powerbulbs.com - also got a free set of phillips blue vision sidelights and free delivery

also put in discount code - ZXRCX111 for 10% off
so i got the nightbreakers in H4 the sidelights for jut over £15


ok sidelights appear alot brighter and whiter than the OEM ones - they do have a blue tint on the lamps :blink1:but as normal the light is still white.
dipped looked brighter but couldnt see much difference to begin with. The DID have a huge improvement when out in the country on dipped.
switched on the fog to see the difference. foglights could just be made out at the edges as a really horrible yellow light but nowhere near the improvement i used to get by switching them on - the H3 fogs are probably still OEM as well.

full beams - woo. BIG difference.


cant comment if it would make this much difference to everyone as the H4s did have a nice VW printed on them so im guessing they may have been in there a while

 

[HDi fun]

If you could retrofit the twin enclosure headlights with an H7 in each you'll get an even bigger wow. This is quite costly but the benefit of having a separate reflector designed for each purpose (dip and main) makes a huge difference. You will also find that dip stays on when main is selected giving extra near field lighting.

 

[pgarner]

the only ones i could find are stupidlly expensive for starts and all LHD so would possibly be blinding everyone on the roads.
other option for me is to swap the front end with a golf - wings bonnet bumper and lights obviously.
in truth if i had the money the xenons would be going on but they are rare as hens teeth or starters and cost around £700 a side for the enclosures, lamps, ballasts, and self leveing motors so around £1400 then whatever the actual level sensor cost, bigger washer tank with 2 pumps and the headlight washers

i did look at doing a little rewiring to get both beams on together but i think the heat might cause an issue. ok with 2 enclouses but think both elements burning would cause issues. then if it does work why wasnt it done as standard for the sake of 2 pins

 

[HDi fun]

the only ones i could find are stupidlly expensive for starts and all LHD so would possibly be blinding everyone on the roads.
other option for me is to swap the front end with a golf - wings bonnet bumper and lights obviously.
in truth if i had the money the xenons would be going on but they are rare as hens teeth or starters and cost around £700 a side for the enclosures, lamps, ballasts, and self leveing motors so around £1400 then whatever the actual level sensor cost, bigger washer tank with 2 pumps and the headlight washers

i did look at doing a little rewiring to get both beams on together but i think the heat might cause an issue. ok with 2 enclouses but think both elements burning would cause issues. then if it does work why wasnt it done as standard for the sake of 2 pins

Heat will be an issue if a 472 H4 is running both filaments simultaneously. It will also load up the -VE cable with twice as much DC current.

Many MoT testers are very quick to screw down the beam heights excessively in the interests of a quick pass.

Try setting the headlight beam levelling control to the highest but 1 point and then adjust the dipped beams manually (under the bonnet) so they are where you want them to be. (Park facing a wall to help and use a bit of chalk to mark the beam centres).

You can then use the '0' setting and simply move the dial down one notch if you're finding other motorists are flashing you.

 

[old-git]

So I'm off to plant my Daffodil Lamps in the garden! (Point taken) Pedantics is Old-Gits job

Ah, grasshopper, he learn fast.

 

[pgarner]

might be an idea to raise them slightly them

 

[herb]

im still on standard bulbs (lamps for hdi) and i am more than happy with them. i would rather spend my money elsewhere on my car! than the brightness of my lights when the standard ones are good enough!!!

dead money if you have good eyesight imo

 

[pgarner]

herb your running twin enclosure as well H1 and H7- wifes are standard and they are about the same as mines with the nightbreakers. the bora lights are really that bad, nightvisuion googles would probably been a better idea

 

[HDi fun]

What's emerging here is that vehicle lighting capability varies widely. So why do the Road Traffic Lighting Regulations enforcers persist in trying to prevent glare or dazzle by restricting electrical consumption? After all, a HID lamp only sinks about 30watts but look at the intensity available and how bad it would be if that were misaligned.

 

[pgarner]

yeah standard HID are 35w high powered ones are 55w
the civic also ran H4 and werent as bad - lot better with the 6 additional driving lights

 

[HDi fun]

Referring to my earlier post about visual perception and acuity I think the jury is still out on whether HID is actually superior [to incandescent] as a light source technology for the purposes of road driving.

I've driven cars with superb factory fitted incandescent headlights and I've also driven enough HID equipped cars (OEM only, no conversions should be considered because they're not lawful for UK road use) to be of the opinion that it's not necessarily always better.

I will reserve overall judgement - although personally I like HID lighting for it's measurable brightness I cannot say that it's automatically superior in all situations. Colour rendition is obscure at times and this might well be a problem for those with certain types of colour vision deficiency.

OLED technology is likely to be the next player - let's just hope that we don't stifle yet another emerging stroke of technical genius with needless officialdom. OLED is very clever as the individual lamps themselves can effectively work as discreet point sources.

If this could advance further to use semiconductor lasers (such as in CD and DVD players) in combination with DLP technology incorporated into projectors then things would really get interesting. There would no longer be a need for lenses at all, nor for reflectors.

100% of the light output could be directed where it's needed with ZERO losses and zero glare.

 

[obi_waynne]

I've often wondered why cars are not fitted with "black lights" which will highlight all of the road markings up ahead and further than a conventional dipped beam? Are there any technicalities to this?

There would be some inherent problems with lasers and intensity but these could probably be ironed out. Green lasers can damage your eyesight and there are also questions over the use of red lasers - I actually have a small spot in my right eye caused by a red laser pointer years after it was shone.

 

[HDi fun]

Black light has been proposed many times and I think it would work very well indeed. I don't know why it hasn't been tried in production cars.

 

[obi_waynne]

Ok so one of my philips brilliance bulbs just went, so that is about 1 years use out of it. I'll see how long the other one lasts for but I'm not all that impressed at one year out of such an expensive bulb!

 

[HDi fun]

The +xx percent LAMPS ( ) do 'burn' hotter than standard ones. This is the only way to increase the brightness of a filament lamp. The filaments are made of finer tungsten alloy wire. The clever bit is the lamp's gas fill. Halogen is not a specific element but includes the whole group of halogens from the periodic table of elements - fluorine, bromine, iodine, chlorine, astatine. There may be other synthetic elements but these are never used for this purpose.

Xenon is a rare earth inert gas and this is used in the high brightness replacement lamps. The trick is to reduce surface evaporation of the filament and it works perfectly but does nothing to increase the life of the filament.

Halogen lamps are different. The halogen gases are highly reactive and the way these work is to catalyse a chemical reaction at the burning filament's surface which encourages vaporised filament material to re-bond with the filament when it is cooling after use.

You will never see a halogen or xenon filled filament lamp whose BULB has become blackened due to filament evaporation and subsequent deposition.

But we cannot get away from the fact that a hotter filament will fail sooner than a cooler one due to the increase thermal shocks it incurs.

Even amongst 'standard' lamps the differences in performance between the best and worst are marked and price is no indication of performace or longevity.

I have previously used Osram's H7 Nightbreakers and they are superb in terms of brilliance and beam pattern but they die young. In fairness I often use dipped beams in daylight so possibly I give them a bit of a bashing.

I've managed to get the word 'lamps' in enough times for one post. So I'll shut it for a little while

 

[Yugguy]

I've had some Halfrauds extra bright bulbs in for nearly 2 years now. I had to change them cos mk4 Bora/Golf lights are horrendeous. In fact the first time I drove at night on the standard bulbs I had to stop cos I thought my headlights had failed.

 

[HDi fun]

The Golfs and Boras with the single enclosure lights (H4 twin filament) are horrifically bad at night.

Our Ibiza had similar units. Useless so we fitted Osram Nightbreakers which offered a slight improvement.

 

[pikey motorsports]

you think mk4 platform vw's are bad??? christ, you should try driving at night in a mk1/2 Golf or a Corrado!

problem with the old vw's was not the bulbs themselves ( although they can be massively improved on with Osram Nightbreakers) but the loom for the lights.

On the original loom the power was drawn from the battery through the bay,in through the bulkhead on pass side, across to the fusebox on the drivers side, back into the bay,down the chassis leg and across the slam panel to the lights..... now that is a long way for the current to have to travel, and results in a rather large voltage drop by the time they hit the headlight plugs. Most will show somewhere in the region of only 9v.

Solution for this and something i do to every vw i own, is to make your own headlight loom. basically drawing the current straight from the battery via a fused relay per bulb and direct to the headlight plug, using the original loom only to send the signal for the relays to turn on. 12-13v average after fitting the new loom. BIG improvement!

 

[Yugguy]

Reminds me of when I was 17/18 years old, driving 1970s Morris Marinas and the like. I'd stick extra driving lights on, wired directly to the existing lights and the engine would die when I turned them on.

Relay? What's a relay???

 

[HDi fun]

Reminds me of when I was 17/18 years old, driving 1970s Morris Marinas and the like. I'd stick extra driving lights on, wired directly to the existing lights and the engine would die when I turned them on.

Relay? What's a relay???

Thankfully I've never had the misfortune to drive a Marina. Do you remember the 'facelift' Ital? They were no better.

 

[Loz]

I was considering fitting some driving lights/lamps/bright shiny things because even with the best bulbs/lamps/bright shiny things fitted the high beam isn't that great. But I think I'll have a look at the loom & see if Pikey's fix will work for my little tin pot. :amuse:

 

[Yugguy]

Thankfully I've never had the misfortune to drive a Marina. Do you remember the 'facelift' Ital? They were no better.

Hey don't be dissin' the Marina. 1.8TC engine straight out of an MGB.

Leaf-spring handling straight out of a cross-channel ferry.

It was actually, for its time, relatively quick in a straight line.

We didn't bother with the Itals, why window-dress perfection?

Feast yer eyes:

I'd love to drive one again after 20 odd years but I know deep down that it would be horrendous.

 

[HDi fun]

"It was actually, for its time, relatively quick in a straight line."

It's not often you'll manage to keep it in one of those.

 

[obi_waynne]

Weren't these used as police cars back in the day?

 

[HDi fun]

Probably, yes.

The Allegro was also used by TVP for routine duties.

 

[obi_waynne]

I realised that the lights on my car are quite poor. It wasn't until I was driving on a dark unlit road that I realised how bad they were.

 

[stamford]

More than happy with the Disco ones, adaptive xenons, they light up the road and corners very well. MG ones are okay but not fantastic but not worth worrying about as I don't drive it that often in the dark or tend to do track days after 6pm

 

[T9 man]

Yep, I have a Bi-Xenon adaptive headlights from a 2012 TX fitted to the Beast now, the lights move and follow the car around the bends/corners