Headlight or Fog light performance on E350

I wish my 2005 E450 had the the sealed beam lights. The "aero" lights are marginal even with the expensive bulbs in them. If I could find a wrecked base E350 and get the sealed beams bezels and trim, I would do that in a heart beat. My old 87 E350 had sealed beam Halogens and were wondeful.

I wish my 2005 E450 had the the sealed beam lights. The "aero" lights are marginal even with the expensive bulbs in them. If I could find a wrecked base E350 and get the sealed beams bezels and trim, I would do that in a heart beat. My old 87 E350 had sealed beam Halogens and were wondeful.

To answer a few questions that were asked.

1) Yes I did have the headlights on, i got out and verified.
2) I just bought the van, so its quite possible that they're out of adjustment.
3) They are sealed beam and I have no idea on age. Perhaps new sealed beam bulbs will improve it, but I dont want to put the money into sealed beams if there is a better solution.
4) I say they seemed miserable as the didn't give much light at all. They were worse than any car I've driven in recent history. The high beams were better but I wasn't in a situation i could use them. I'm used to my Chevy 2500 which are much better, and the factory fog lights on that improve visibility for all types of driving (though they may not be properly adjusted).

On my 2000 E450 based Class C I first felt the headlights were poor until they
were re-adjusted properly.

True Fog Lights will have a low cutoff point so they do not reflect from rain,
fog back into your eyes. Most after market fog lights are not true Fog Lights and offer a lot of light in-front but not far down the road. They also blind on-coming traffic if not adjusted very low.

True Off the roads light are illegal in most states to run on the highway.
They blind on coming traffic because the beam is very wide as well as long.

What are you comparing the illumination to when making it out to be "miserable"? I haven't found that the lights on my '98 E450 chassis are terrible (nor are they exceptionally fantastic). They seem rather normal and perfectly adequate for safe night driving at appropriate speeds. I certainly wouldn't describe them as miserable, but rather normal or typical.

Fog lights are not helpful at all for highway driving under normal conditions. They are designed to only illuminate the area directly in front of the vehicle so you can see the line at the edge of the road when traveling (very slowly) in dense fog such that normal headlights more or less completely wash out your vision. When there is no fog, illuminating this bit of road is generally counterproductive because it draws your attention away from things further down the road, where you should be looking, and the extra ambient light tends to cause the pupils to close down a bit and make everything else less visible.

Driving lights, if you mean DRLs (daytime running lights), are intended to make your vehicle visible to others when you don't need the headlights, and generally don't provide any significant road illumination. If you mean off-road driving lights, those aren't generally legal for highway operation, though some do provide very powerful illumination that's blinding to other drivers.

Maybe it's a stupid question, but are you sure you had the headlights on, and not just the parking lights and (possibly) DRLs which may well use the headlight filaments at low power? Were the high beams better than the low beams (or was there too much traffic to use high beams)?

Added after market fog lights. I.E. yellow.
Makes a BIG BIG BIG difference at night.

I added them to my first van and before my first trip with my Class C new fog lights were installed!

Real driving lights will not be usable in traffic and real fog lights will give you a very low beam cutoff. If those lights are the old rectangular sealed beams, you can find aftermarket replacements that are much better. I know that Hella makes or has made rectangular lamp replacements. One of the Hella offerings is even DOT compliant. Take a look at rallylights.com

The LeRoys wrote:
I'm not sure if I'm better off getting some fog or driving lights to add on?

I'm going to add fogs AND driving lamps to our 2008 Chevy based Class C. I've run Cibie, PIAA and Hellas on my Jeeps and frankly no aftermarket headlamp compares, IMHO, to a well engineered Fog and Driving lamp.

Right now have done nothing on our 2012 e450, but with the fancy lights you want (OEM) they are nothing to write home about IMO. Have looked but not seen much that are an improvement. There are better sealed beams out there I beleive and a set of LED running lights will make you more visible like the trend in the new imports fancy cars but dont think they will help with illumination much. My son installed projector headlights in his 04 f150 and said they are good lights, but he has been having problems with the ballasts as they dont seem to last.