(OPINION!) LED Replacement Headlamp Bulbs

Gdetrailer wrote:

SCVJeff wrote:
H1 LED

THIS is what I'm using in the Explorer. Same lamp, different mount

Yeah, well, they "work" for YOU but not so much for the poor sap coming towards you..

I wish I had bookmarked it but either For Truck Enthusiasts (FTE) or The Diesel Stop website someone did a pattern test on some of this style of LED "bulbs"..

The result was the LEDs had more scatter than the correct incadescent bulb..

MOST folks who have tried this style of LED retrofit end up going back to the standard incadescent bulb due to highly mixed results..

One side of the LED lights for low beam and the other side for for high beam.. This messes with the pattern considerably creating uneven lighting and a poorly focused light leading to a lot of the light directed at other motorists and even the sky!

Yes, I really want to try these but my "common sense" tells me not to waste money or time on these, they are not ready for prime time..

I don't wish to be one of those jerks that are constantly blinding OTHERS every day of my morning commute.

I also am not a fan of the 6,000K color temps, that is simply to high of a color, pretty much blue which also is not a good color for night vision..

As noted by someone else, HIDs are much lower on the color spectrum (4,300K-5,000K) which is more inline with good vision resulting in less scatter and potential blinding of other motorists.

I looked carefully at the Explorer lights and they are better focused and lay on the ground better than the OEM filaments. As for the Hi Beams, who cares? I don't drive oncoming traffic with them on anyway. I used to run Cessna landing lights on the high beams and still would if the lamps were round. "Prime time"? Look around... a very large number of new vehicles are now 100% LED, and none are below 6k. Those above that really sick out of the pack and are too blue for the eye to resolve.

BTW- 6k is NOT Blue, anything above it is tho. Mine closely match the HID temp coming off the headlights (and I was very picky about them matching). The Halogens were 4K, if that. Besides, color temp appearance is only what your eye is white balanced to. Are they blue against an old tungsten?, yep. Not so much against HID, if at all.

PS- Your comment on mixed results was with people doing HID retrofits where the arc would move around in the vessel depending on heat and distort the beam pattern across the reflector. That's why I didn't go with HID. LED is completely different since it never moves around. The coach DL's now has a real pattern with a clear cutoff even over the Halogen it replaced. Good engineering on their part