Mex, my comments are mostly intended to futily keep other readers, from willy nilly plastering the front of their vehicle in LED spotlights, since there is apparently litle to no enforcement of existing vehicle lighting laws, and the car manufacturers do not even seem to be compliant in the glare department on many newer vehicles.
The horrid light output pattern of the so called 'fog' lights provided with many vehicles today is a sad testament to just how badly understood proper vehicle forward lighting is. The use of these 'foglights' by almost every driver whose vehicle came so equipped, shows just how ignorant the general public is regarding forward lighting. Anytime you see someone with 'fog lights' on at highway speeds, feel free to think 'what an ignorant idiot!' and then feel sad for humanity and this poor planet, as 85% of vehicles will have them on.
Even if these so called 'foglights' had a proper beam pattern, at highway speeds the excessive foreground lighting reduces the ability
of the human eyeball to see at the fringes of the low beam's reach, thus making for even poorer ability to see properly.
I too wish to see better off to the sides at low speeds. I used to have a pair of 'fog' beams which at least tried to have a narrow flat wide beam, and they were OK for seeing pedestrians on sidewalks at slow speeds with my low beams off, or not blinding pedestrians in parking lots with low beams, but when I swapped 12awg for the provided 18awg, they melted the reflector material and blistered the paint on the outside and eventually shorted out the wiring. These were bought years before mainly for their size and on price, back before I knew better.
For grins I bought some inexpensive h3 LED bulbs for their guts, and the result was similar to someone aiming a spotlight at a disco ball from the 70's. I could not even use them in the workshop, inside the housings anyway, I use the H3 led bulbs in a simple hooded shroud. I doubt their output is anywhere near a halogen 55w h3 bulb.
I still want low speed lighting for illuminating the sides and down at low speeds, but I will be saving for an actual quality fog beam or auxiliary low beam, not just use inexpensive LED spotlights.
If I were rolling in disposable income, I would get some JWspeaker LED headlamps to replace my sealed beams, and probably would not need any additional forward lighting, as these are very well engineered headlamps.
Next on the list, so as to be able to take advantage of my upgraded wiring harness, would be Cibie housings and Phillips extreme h4 bulbs. Another step below that would be the Hella 6054 sealed beam replacements with the same bulbs, though these are said to have issues with the high beam being too high when the low beam is aimed properly.
As for my Taillights, I spent near 25$ for some 1157 LED's that used many radially firing 5730 chips and 2 behind a projector lens firing into the red plastic lens. They were brighter from all possible viewing angles, deeper red, had that instant on, and a fraction of the amp draw, and proper difference between signal and running filament brightness. They only lasted about 14 months before one blew out and the other started flickering, and I have gone back to incandescent. Wish I had that 25$ back. Waste of time and money.
I also have some side marker red leds t-10/194. On a recent walk around I found one to have many of the leds on the bulb die and the others flickering and way too dim. Back in went the 194 Incandescents. Oh well, at least those were inexpensive.
I once had my brake light switch not adjusted properly, after a brake booster replacement. I kept wondering why the transmission was dropping out of lockup on the highway, and quickly reengaging. The mildest bump was triggering the brake lights unbenownst to me, which was dropping the TX out of lockup, and this might have contributed to getting pulled over in Mississippi.
So much that we do in hopes of improving things has negative consequences that we simply refuse to believe. Doing so would make us question our intelligence.
Can't have that.
