Any experience with LED headlights?

I’m considering them. If you have them or have had them, what do you think?

unless you are replacing the entire housing with one designed specifically for LED illumination, do not use them.

if your headlamps are meant for halogen bulbs, that’s what you use. The reflector and optics are designed around the shape and position of the filament of the intended halogen bulb. Putting an HID capsule or LED replacement “bulb” in there will cause the light source to be in the incorrect position, with loss of beam focus and excessive glare for other drivers.

and the first person to say the word “cutoff” gets smacked.

If your make and model had them as an option, buy the complete assemblies and install them. Other than that, forget it. The post above explains why. If you need more, visit candlepowerforums and read all the threads there.

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/aside/

I would be worried that if you live in snow country, they don’t provide enough heat to keep the headlights free from snow and ice.

/aside/

I tried them as my “spots” on a motorcycle and didn’t care for them. I didn’t find the illumination as good as normal bulbs even though I went with units designed for LEDs. If it makes a difference I do wear corrective lenses and my regular night vision isn’t the best.

My motorcycle comes stock with LED headlights and they’re excellent; probably the best motorcycle headlights I’ve experienced. But as stated above, they’re designed that way, and every case I’ve seen where someone sticks in an HID or LED conversion kit into a standard reflector, the results are poor.

I did not like HID or LED and that is in purpose built housings.
Blueish color shift light, at night, has poor contrast even if the light is blindingly bright.

I also found them awful in fog and mist :frowning:

Can’t speak.to fog or mist, but I’ve driven several cars with LED OEM lamps and the color/coverage was excellent.

My '16 Avalon has HID low beams and they too are very good in color and coverage. Not blue at all.

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I’ve had cars with sealed beam, halogen, HID and (now) LED headlights. All stock OEM systems, BTW. I would say I like the LED the best for brightness and color temperature, as well as the fact that both low and high beams are the same. The HID system I had before was good, but the high beam was halogen (they don’t make HID high beams because they aren’t made to turn on and off frequently, AFAIK).

But, to reiterate what was posted above, don’t try retrofitting HID or LED into housings made for halogen lights. The result won’t be good for everyone driving toward you, and maybe not good for you, either.

the other way to do it (like the HIDs in the Mustang I had) is to put a “shutter” behind the projector lens for low beams. When the low beams are on, the shutter is in place and blocks the upper portion of the beam of light to keep it out of oncoming drivers’ eyes. when you activate the high beams, the shutters drop out of the way and the entire beam of light is projected down the road.

A few months ago I replaced the stock headlights on our 2016 Jeep Wrangler with LEDs and the improvement was remarkable. Best part was that, on a Jeep, it’s a pretty easy replacement, as long as you have a nice vertical surface you can use to help alight the lights afterward.

“cutoff”. :stuck_out_tongue: I swapped the halogen low beams in my Subaru for HID bulbs and the difference is substantial; and yes, the cutoff is more pronounced. I also did it knowing a few things going in:

  1. I bought a good quality kit made specifically for the swap.
  2. Projector housings are better candidates for the swap than reflector housings. I’m pretty sure we’ve all seen the end result of some idiot spraying light down the highway in his 90s Chevy or Dodge pick-up with unaimed 55w purple HIDs.
  3. I ordered as close as possible to the original colour of the halogens, which was 4300K vs 3600K IIRC.
  4. I made sure to re-aim the headlights after the install following mfrs procedure.
    Since my hi beams are a separate bulb I left those halogen and installed Sylvania Silver Star Ultras. Not Quite PIAA but much less expensive.

As noted, LED is much better served by a dedicated headlamp assembly and in most cases, the same is true of HID.

Your experience, if you get behind me with insanely bright, blinding headlights will be to follow my big truck at a very slow pace. On a freeway, we will travel at the posted minimum speed (usually 45). On a city street, we will travel at 5 mph. This will continue until the lights are no longer in my mirrors.

I’m stumped. Can someone explain what “cutoff” means in this context?

Low beams and high beams are more a function of the aim point and direction of the light, rather than the intensity of the light. High beams have colloquially been called “brights” by people even though they aren’t necessarily higher power.

with incandescent lamps, the low-beam filament is deliberately offset from the focal point of the reflector so that the beam of light is aimed downward a bit and not directly in the faces of oncoming drivers. The “cutoff” is the line above which little light is cast. People who put the wrong type of lamps in their headlights (e.g. HID capsules in a housing meant for halogens) often claim there’s nothing wrong because they have a “good cutoff.” They don’t realize that even below their precious cutoff the incorrect light type is being refracted and causing irritating glare for oncoming drivers.

and no matter how well you explain this to these people (usually clueless young guys) they’ll insist that they can “totally see better at night dude” just because the intense bluish-white light makes road signs dazzling.

plus it doesn’t help that some cars have had pretty lousy headlamp designs, and putting the wrong kind of lamp in them makes things even worse.

I bought an aftermarket pickup where the previous owner had installed HID lighting in place of the factory halogen. I drove it that way for about a month and then ripped it all out and put halogen lights back in. The cheap HID crap had a horrible look to it.

Hmm, after doing more research on other Subaru forums and here I might just have to consider a retrofit on my lights… Consider my opinion changing.

In my 2015 Buick Regal Premium II I have Xenon (HID) headlights. Surrounding them on the outside of the lens are LED running lights (daytime lights). The Xenon lamps are great, very white, brilliant, clear light.

My question is this: if you’re going to have LED’s on the car anyway, why would the manufacturer opt for HID’s instead of just going full LED for all the front lighting? Cost?

the high-power white LEDs required for headlamp use have only really become practical in the last few years. HIDs were more reliable even with relying on more complicated ballasts.

plus LED headlamps need to have the optics designed specifically for each application.

Makes sense I guess. Since my car is the highest trim level outside of the GS, the Xenon bulbs and LED running lights were standard equipment for that model year. The base versions had neither. I suppose that since the current Regal is little more than a re-badged Opel Insignia that that also had something to do with it. I don’t know.

Good car though. Quiet, quick, comfortable, good tech…just tight in the back seat for six footers. Also very expensive for what it is. My car stickered for $38,800. Seems about four grand-ish too high for the class its trying to compete in. Also it’s the worst selling Buick model, but IMO, their best car.

we’re talking about headlights, not how much you like your car.