Headlight Upgrade - LED replacing Halogen

[Route246]

Ok good. Yes I love Amazon for their returns. Makes it so easy.

I'm hopeful that the bulbs you chose are decent however its unlikely. But the good thing is I want to help you select the right bulb for your vehicle. One that will perform and provide a safe, compliant and usable beam pattern.

As here is more food for thought, below is a comparison of H11 halogen/LED/bad LED.




And a thermal filter on the same image so that we can easily see the beam characteristics. The bad LED has no hotspot! This translates into poor distance visibility which is very unsafe. Most of the extra light is just foreground illumination (which often gives drivers a false sense of security because a ton of light is directly in front of them). I also want to point out that, as you can see, a distinct cutoff is still present with the bad LED. And just because you have a cutoff that won't glare to other drivers does not give this bulb a passing grade whatsoever.

I retrofitted the Cougar-branded H11 bulbs and drove around with them this weekend. The results are satisfactory in terms of brightness and improvement. I need to adjust the beam a few degrees upward which I will do once I get my garage door taped with calibration marks.

I drove around Los Altos (NorCal town notorious for having no streetlights) on Saturday night and the performance was quite good. The only downside is the performance is not up to my Focus RS or my wife's '18 RAV4 Hybrid Limited. From my standpoint, I'm probably done with the low beams for now. This is a significant improvement over the stock halogens.

I ordered Cougar-branded 9005 LED bulbs for the reflector high-beams. The halogen high beams are pretty good as-is but I'm hoping to get the same colder temperature of the LED to match the low-beams. I'm not expecting much for these as long as they are at least as good as the stock halogens.

Once I finish the high-beams I will probably revisit the low-beams and look for the improvement you mention, looking for a more intense hotspot in the middle of the projection beam.

Thank you for all of your technical input on this.

Specifically, do you have an H11 branded bulb you can recommend? Ditto for the 9005 high-beams.

[evo77]

Would you care to snap some pics of your new LED beams against your garage wall? Please be sure the distance is at least 20 ft so that the beam is developed.

I recommend the Diode Dynamics SL1 LED headlight bulbs from my first post. Unfortunately they are so popular right now that they continue to be back ordered (currently 6-8 weeks). If your in no rush I would place my order and just wait it out.

My second recommendation is the Xenon Depot Xtreme Pro, which I also posted above (blue gasket with aluminum bendable fins). Since we know how the beam pattern already looks inside a Toyota H11 halogen projector (from above) its also a winner.

[Klasse Act]

Since the Prius came with HIDs as an option why not just upgrade to them?

[glen e]

I mounted these a few weeks ago on my honda HR-V and am very satisfied so far.. ..had numerous HID packs over the years, these mount so much easier. They come recommended to me from the honda forum , where many people are using them.

Amazon.com: NIGHTEYE-S1 H4/9003/HB2 LED Headlight Bulbs 2Pcs 50W 8000LM 6500K All-in-one Conversion Kit w/ CSP Chips Bulb Hi-Lo Beam Bulbs Super Bright LED Car light: Automotive

And these for my fogs:
Amazon.com: NIGHTEYE H11 H9 H8 H16(JP) LED Fog Light DRL 80W High Power Bulb CSP Chipsets White 2 Year Warranty: Automotive

[Route246]

Since the Prius came with HIDs as an option why not just upgrade to them?

It came with halogen, not HIDs.

One thing to note, there was nothing wrong with the stock halogens. They work fine. I just wanted something brighter to better compare with our two other vehicles.

[Klasse Act]

It came with halogen, not HIDs.

One thing to note, there was nothing wrong with the stock halogens. They work fine. I just wanted something brighter to better compare with our two other vehicles.

Right...HIDs were on option, that's all I said.

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[Route246]

Would you care to snap some pics of your new LED beams against your garage wall? Please be sure the distance is at least 20 ft so that the beam is developed.

I recommend the Diode Dynamics SL1 LED headlight bulbs from my first post. Unfortunately they are so popular right now that they continue to be back ordered (currently 6-8 weeks). If your in no rush I would place my order and just wait it out.

My second recommendation is the Xenon Depot Xtreme Pro, which I also posted above (blue gasket with aluminum bendable fins). Since we know how the beam pattern already looks inside a Toyota H11 halogen projector (from above) its also a winner.

Attached are the low beam and high beam shots 17’ from the garage door. Unfortunately there is a lot of backlight from the front yard lighting. I need to find a dark parking garage to get it right.

The high beams are beasts and reflector while the low beams are projector.




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[Don M]

I'm subbing to this thread because the H13 halogen bulbs in my Camaro are TERRIBLE!!!

Right now I'm looking at the *Headlight Experts* H13 bulb, does anyone have any feedback on them?

[evo77]

I'm subbing to this thread because the H13 halogen bulbs in my Camaro are TERRIBLE!!!

Right now I'm looking at the *Headlight Experts* H13 bulb, does anyone have any feedback on them?

You started a thread a few months back about your bulbs. And I commented in your thread about H13 options.

[evo77]

Attached are the low beam and high beam shots 17’ from the garage door. Unfortunately there is a lot of backlight from the front yard lighting. I need to find a dark parking garage to get it right.

The high beams are beasts and reflector while the low beams are projector.




Sent from my iPhone X using Tapatalk

Thank you for sharing. Unfortunately the images are over exposed to really give a proper assessment of the quality of the beam. At that distance there appears to be a tremendous amount of foreground light (right under where the hotspot should be located). But technically your H11 projector (Koito) was actually designed to have more than typical foreground light (as shown in my previous wall shots). It just may be exaggerated by the unfocused light inside the projector.