Best headlight replacement bulbs??

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DrivingImpressions

New member
I need to replace the headlight bulbs in my wife's Mitsubishi Endeavor, and looking for opinions on which are best. Looking for brightness along with good dispersion. Thanks.
 
This seller on eBay has some for $11.50 delivered. I had a similar pair on my car and they are pretty bright. But I now have HIDs and would never go back to halogens again.
 
I like Osram bulbs (Nightbreaker) for my cars H7 bulbs, but your car uses 9007 bulbs. I buy all my auto bulbs online from Daniel Stern who knows more about lighting than just about anybody... and usually debunks the hype rather than feeding into it.



He has some Phillips X-treme Power 9007 bulbs on his site now and I'd go with those just because of all the great advice I've gotten from him and his good reputation on the web.

All the lights on my car, headlights, turn signals, bumper markers and even interior lights are all brighter now than when I got it thanks to DS and Candlepower.com.



Philips Xtreme Power bulbs
(They're Here!)





The Ebay bulbs in the previous post are not HID. They're just blue tinted regular bulbs that will actually put out less light than the same untinted version. Like tinted windows, some light gets blocked. It's better to find one thats clear in the center and blue at the ends.
 
More than youd ever wanna know about lights:



Daniel Stern Lighting Consultancy and Supply



What about light loss due to filtration?



There is no substantial loss of light from a properly-applied absorption-type selective yellow filter placed in the optical system (reflector, bulb, lens, or intermediary filter element) of a lamp, because the blue being filtered out is only a very small part of the bulb's total output. The visible spectrum consists of all the colors of the rainbow: Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and indigo + violet. Glowing filaments produce a whole lot of light in the red-orange-yellow-green wavelengths, and only very little light in the blue-violet wavelengths. To put very rough numbers on the matter, a 9006 bulb produces 1000 lumens, of which approximately 250 are red, 250 are orange, 250 are yellow, 175 are green, 50 are blue and 25 are violet.



Now, suppose we want to add a filter to the glass that makes the light look bluer/colder. How does it do that? Well, there's no such thing as a filter that adds light into the beam passing through it; filters can only suppress light, not add it. So if we can't add green-blue-violet light, then the only way to get the light to look colder is to suppress green-blue-violet's opposites, which are red-orange-yellow. If we want the light to look, let's say, 20% colder, we suppress red-orange-yellow by 20%. Looking up above, we see that we've got a total of 750 lumens' worth of red, orange and yellow. So, cutting this by 20% leaves 600 lumens, plus essentially all of the bulb's original green-blue-violet output of 250 lumens, so we've now got a bulb that produces light that looks 20% colder and produces 850 lumens.



850 lumens happens to be the minimum legal output for a 9006. Unless we're craven marketeers who don't care about compliance or performance, we can't produce a bulb that produces only the bare minimum of light, because 50% of production will be 849 lumens or less. So, we have to put in a high-luminance filament to try to counteract some of the filtering losses. BUT we still have to come in under the max-allowable-wattage spec in DOT or ECE regulations.



So, let's say we build our 9006 with a super-duper filament that produces 1200 lumens. That's too much for a 9006, but we're going to take away some of those lumens with our colored filter (blue glass). This 1200-lumen filament produces, let's say, 300 lumens red, 300 lumens orange, 300 lumens yellow, 210 lumens green, 60 lumens blue and 30 lumens violet. Now we put that same blue glass over it, which suppresses red-orange-yellow by 20%. Now we've got 720 lumens' worth of red-orange-yellow after filtration, plus 300 lumens' worth of green-blue-violet. That gives us a 910-lumen bulb, which is enough above the 850-lumen legal "floor" that we can run the bulb and even if some filaments only produce 1150 lumens instead of 1200, we're still legally OK. Of course, we still only have 910 lumens instead of 1000, and our 1200-lumen filament is going to have a significantly shorter life than a 1000-lumen filament, but we've got our colder/bluer light appearance in a legal bulb.



I bet by now you see why filtering for yellow does not significantly reduce light output: Take our 1000-lumen 9006 as broken down by colour output above. No such thing as a filter that adds extra yellow light, so we have to get our yellow by suppressing blue-violet (the particular yellow in question, selective yellow, contains all the green found in white light. If we took out green, we'd have a turn signal type of amber-orange light.) OK, then, let's cut blue-violet by 80%. That means we've got our 925 lumens' worth of red-orange-yellow-green, plus 15 lumens' worth of blue-violet (after filtration). Total: 940 lumens. MUCH smaller loss! OK, so we put in a very slightly better filament, say one that produces 1060 lumens, and now we've got 980 lumens' worth of red-orange-yellow-green, plus 16 lumens' worth of blue-violet (after filtration) for a total of 996 lumens, which is for all intents and purposes identical to our original 1000-lumen uncoloured bulb—for context, the dimmest allowable parking lamp bulb produces 30 lumens.





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Daniel Stern Lighting (Daniel J. Stern, Proprietor)
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This may go against the grain, but I tend to replace with HID conversion kits. The prices are so low now, selections are high, and many brands make it fun to find the *right* kit.



There are digital plug and play kits on ebay with ultra slim ballasts, ISO9001 Certifications, CE Marked, 2-year warranty, shipped for $50 out the door. I always go for the 4300k temperature, which is the brightest in lumen output and is roughly the same as factory HID (bright white, hint of crisp blue). For me, this means maximum light output, minimal monetary output, and no hassle from law enforcement (blue/purple/yellow attract attention).
 
G35stilez said:
This may go against the grain, but I tend to replace with HID conversion kits. The prices are so low now, selections are high, and many brands make it fun to find the *right* kit.



There are digital plug and play kits on ebay with ultra slim ballasts, ISO9001 Certifications, CE Marked, 2-year warranty, shipped for $50 out the door. I always go for the 4300k temperature, which is the brightest in lumen output and is roughly the same as factory HID (bright white, hint of crisp blue). For me, this means maximum light output, minimal monetary output, and no hassle from law enforcement (blue/purple/yellow attract attention).
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if you do this, i BEG of you to realign your headlights! it is required in nearly every car they are put in.



however if you prefer to stick with halogens, take a look a philips +80.
 
I've been using HIR bulbs for 2.5 years without issues. Definitively brighter than stock bulbs. I got them on ebay. I believe they only come in 9006/9005, but the 9005 have been discontinued.



I'm trying to get my hands on some philips x-treme power that are sold in europe. I have seen only a few people selling them in the states.
 
G35stilez said:
This may go against the grain, but I tend to replace with HID conversion kits. The prices are so low now, selections are high, and many brands make it fun to find the *right* kit.



There are digital plug and play kits on ebay with ultra slim ballasts, ISO9001 Certifications, CE Marked, 2-year warranty, shipped for $50 out the door. I always go for the 4300k temperature, which is the brightest in lumen output and is roughly the same as factory HID (bright white, hint of crisp blue). For me, this means maximum light output, minimal monetary output, and no hassle from law enforcement (blue/purple/yellow attract attention).
Click to expand...



if you do this, 4300k (as stated), but look into retrofitting if you are seriously considering this. the glare given off by HID's in halogen headlights is mindnumbing, I'd rather not blind the people driving the opposite direction of me...



I think any Osram headlights would do fine. I've had Silverstars in the past and they were good enough until I retrofitted some projectors. but retrofitting is a costly process and only really worth it if you're planning on keeping the car for a good long while ($200-250 to do it yourself, $500+ to have it done).
 
IkeRay said:
if you do this, 4300k (as stated), but look into retrofitting if you are seriously considering this. the glare given off by HID's in halogen headlights is mindnumbing, I'd rather not blind the people driving the opposite direction of me...
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+1



Nothing bugs me more than HID retrofit cars w/o projectors driving behind me- I should not see the shadow of my head on my headliner/visor.



Please make sure your car has projectors before you install a HID kit, or buy a set of OEM or 3rd party projectors first.
 
I have the phillips and since then I never replaced it with other brands yet. For me it is the best bulbs for my car so far. All the lights on my car, headlights, turn signals, bumper markers is brighter than ever. The only problem is that my turn signal lens is having a bit of a problem right now.
 
I have the phillips and since then I never replaced it with other brands yet. For me it is the best bulbs for my car so far. All the lights on my car, headlights, turn signals, bumper markers is brighter than ever. I got it cheap from an auto parts store in New York.
 
I have the phillips and since then I never replaced it with other brands yet. For me its the best bulbs for my car so far..
 
In my opinion more than anything a properly leveled set of headlights makes a world of difference. Google the adjustment process for your vehicle.
 
If you're just looking to replace the bulbs go with Sylvania Silverstars. Autozone sells them, and they produce a whiter light without that blue look of fake xenons.
 
I had Silverstars for a year.Then they blew up.

Now Phillips bulbs are in.That was 2 years ago and very happy with the results.
 
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