Crummy headlights - Can't see, need upgrade

Gdetrailer wrote:

ktmrfs wrote:


yes, most "standard" bulbs will have long life even with full battery voltage going to them and be much brighter than factory wiring.

I did try the xtravision with upgraded wiring. Yes they were brighter, but a pretty short life. But IMHO not enough brighter to justify the short life and higher cost.

Key point is that light output is highly dependent on voltage, not a linear or square law relationship, even stronger but bulb life is even a stronger relationship to voltage. No free lunch.

Correct.

Brighter the bulb, the less life you will get and as I mentioned, my own experience with a relay harness and using standard halogen bulbs I did not see any drastic reduction in bulb life..

The OEM wiring is reducing the voltage so much that you could easily drive 100K miles (or even much more) with a lot of night driving and never have to change a bulb.

Getting the bulb voltage up may trade off SOME bulb life but it is a good trade off and most likely will not be a big issue given how crummy most auto headlights are. Typical Halogen lights are rated 2,000 hrs so even if we lose 25% of the life when operated at full battery voltage it would mean only 1,500 hrs of operation.. I am good with that, much better than 250 hrs of Xtravision..

1,500 hrs of night driving at 60 MPH is 90,000 miles of night driving..

250 hrs of night driving at 60 MPH is 15,000 miles which in my case would have meant changing Xtravision bulbs every 10 months..

I do have one concern, I believe Bob is in Canada, as such he may need some provision for DRL functions depending on his countries regulations for that yr (not sure when CA required DRL)..

Relay kits will bypass DRL function if it was done via the headlights being routed through a resistor to reduce headlamp brightness during the day..

If so, may need to improvise further with modified relay setup that includes a Single pole double throw relay that connects headlights to resistor when no headlights are turned on but engine is running..

GM used parking lights for DRL at least in the U.S. for many years. Don't know if they used the same system in canada. In any event on my 2004 duramax the kennedy diesel kit didn't affect the DRL function with the parking lights.

My experience with the sylvania xtra vision is that I went through a couple of sets of low beams in less than a year. and high beams in less than a year as well. low beam short life was probably due to me having headlight low beams on anytime I'm on the highway. And at the time I was using them we did a fair amount of night driving when I could use the high beams for miles on end. Couple that with the kennedy diesel kit that gave me full voltage to the bulbs didn't help.

In the end I went to HIR bulbs which are better than regular H series (9004/9005) but take a slight mod to the plastic base to work. (9011/9012) GM eventually switch to those bulbs on later trucks. Much longer life than the sylvania but almost the same light output due to a more complex and more robust design and longer lasting filament. And they aren't cheap, $40 or so each at the time. HIR bulbs lasted 3-4 years before needing to replace them.

Phillips now makes HIR 9011/9012 and the price seems to have come down.

The HIR used a different gas composition. What I found interesting is that a typical H series bulb if you look at the filament as it ages you can see bumps where tungsten has redeposited non uniformly. With the HIR bulbs one had to look very closely to see any non uniform redeposit of the tungsten on the filament.