LED Headlights

There are a few vehicles with them but the whole reflector assembly has to be designed around them. Sadly, I don't think there will ever be a replacement bulb or retrofit kit available.

Hi,

There is a way to aim your headlight. I pull my car up to the garage door, and turn them on (after dark). Measure the center of the bright part. Then turn them off, and measure the center of the headlight to the ground at the grill area. This will give you a indication if the car headlight is being pointed upward or downward, or straight ahead and level. Then pull the car back about 20 feet, and measure the center of the light to the ground again. Try again at about 30'. If the car headlights are pointed level, then the hieght from the ground to the center of the light beam should stay stable about the whole test.

If say the bumper measurement is 20" above the ground, and the light on the door is close to 20" while the car is parked 5' from the garage door, yet 18" at 20' and 15" at 30' distance, then the headlights are pointed downward, and will not offer much light performance while driving. You only need to make an adjustment to bring the light back to level.

I like it when my headlights are pointed nearly level, but a bit downward. They should also not point to the left (into the oncoming drivers) but more to the sholder of the road.

You might also have a problem with the light being pointed to far to the center of the road, while the signs are on the right side.

Also a good idea is to check the weight of the coach. If you have a broken air bag on the rear suspension, it can cause the headlights to point "to the moon" as they say. Overloading one end or the other can also cause the headlight aim to by way off.

You also do not want to set the lights, then add 100 gallons of water to the coach, and have the aim go off again because of the weight being added while getting ready for camping.



Fred.

There may be other options like HID lighting or aftermarket "hyper whites"... be careful as some aftermarket headlamp units or lamps could be considered for "off road use only" and not legal...

Be sure to look for DOT stamps if you are looking at anything aftermarket.

Look at HID headlights. The previous owner of our Excursion 39S installed them and they work reasonably well.

Bill

I have no idea what a "Revolution" is and you have nothing in your profile. Is this an older MH? You might have a bad ground. You might also need to run a separate power wire through a relay, again, I have no idea what you have.

beemerphile1 wrote:
I have no idea what a "Revolution" is and you have nothing in your profile. Is this an older MH? You might have a bad ground. You might also need to run a separate power wire through a relay, again, I have no idea what you have.

It's an 05 Fleetwood/American Coach Revolution.
Wiring is spec. Power to headlights is from the compartment below driver. Don't know the gauge off hand but appears to be 08 gauge or better. Not sure that is correct since I can't crawl under to examine the whole thing and run the wires but appears to be.
Factory replaced the headlight assemblies several years ago now for a different issue and they are aligned. Could be a bad ground somewhere, I don't know. The bulb is partially encapsilated by a reflector that supposedly direct the light back to the big shaped reflector per NHTSA sorry designs. There may be a shorter bulb available but I haven't seen one.

It really seems that "Poor Headlights" is a common tread amongst owners of Class a Motor homes.

I'm of the opinion that it is partially due to Our Seating position while driving them.

In a Car we are behind the Headlights and sitting fairly close to the road looking where the lights are aimed. In the Motor Home We sit almost on top of the Lights, the light is shining ahead of Our Feet.

Most Motor homes have Headlights that were originally designed for Cars and Pickups. I'm thinking it is poor engineering right from the get go.

I have tried several things to get better lighting including heavier wiring with Relays to gain voltage at the Lamps and those Super Bright Bulbs ,but they just don't seem to work as well as the Lights in My Cars.

I just avoid driving at night whenever possible.

The headlights on our rig came from 1997 to 2000 Ford Explorer. Most rigs have headlights from other vehicles. You just have to determine where yours came from.

A few years ago I looked into upgrading my car headlights and researched the subject a lot.

LED headlights are still very rare.

If I remember correctly, last year The Caddilac Escalade Platinum was the first to offer LED headlights.

If you did find any LED aftermarket headlights I would avoid them. Its tricky to design them with enough heat sinking to remove the heat and also to focus the beam properly. If you did buy a LED headlight kit and it failed on the road, where will you get parts?

If you are looking for a "bulb replacement" type of improvement, some of the brighter bulbs (Sylvania Silverstar for example) might offer some improvement. I tried this on a minivan we have and it did help. The down side is that the brighter bulbs usually only last about a year or so.

HID lights are brighter but require a different reflector. They do sell HID bulbs to replace regular types but they don't work as well as complete HID headlight assemblies with the proper reflectors. Also, HID bulbs in a headlight assembly not designed for them was technically illegal as of a few years ago, don't know if it still is. Best bet would be complete HID headlight assembly, but they usually only offer these on a few popular car and trucks models as aftermarket parts. This being said, I know of people that have used HID bulbs in regular housings and are happy with them. Just be sure you are not blinding oncoming drivers. Also, some HID bulbs don't have Lo and Hi beams, only lo beam so make sure you check.

Steve

Found some references to 2004 using 2002 Lincoln Navigator headlamps and the like, but can't know without the headlamp numbers.

Can you pull a headlight and look at the numbers stamped on it? Better yet, take a pic of the numbers and also of the lights when installed and post them.

Once you have a cross reference, you can likely choose from quite a number of replacements ;)