2/7/2024 0 Comments Halogen vs hid cutof![]() ![]() I do a lot of hiking, so I'm always driving at night in the canyons on narrow 2 lane roads, and it REALLY sucks to be blinded after rounding a curve. I feel bad because I know how it is to be blinded by people with crappy aftermarket lights, or people who drive with high beams on. It's that they blind people you approach. That's never really been the problem with aftermarket lights for me. I did a long 3 1/2 night time drive coming home from camping, and yes, they are bright. I can absolutely attest that they indeed produce much greater light output. So these Hikaris actually maintain a decent cutoff (though not as sharp as factory halogens), but they SPILL a lot of light above the cutoff, which I am concerned will blind oncoming traffic, and worse, a cop. The really crappy ones use the big wide LEDS. Yes they were dirt cheap on Amazon for $36, but I chose them based on their narrow inline LED configuration, which better mimics the filament of halogen bulbs. I bought the Hikari H11's for the low beams. My biggest gripe with aftermarket bulbs in headlights is the difficulty of finding a bulb that maintains a sharp cutoff beam. Factory HID's from yester-years had a much more neutral 4300K (of course aftermarket HIDs in reflector housings suffer even worse beam quality than LEDs). I found VLEDS which offer 5000K LEDs, but they are pricey and I don't want to risk crappy beam quality again. The spill was lighting up the side of houses as I test drove around the neighborhood.Īnother gripe that is even harder to remedy is the fact that everyone uses 6000 Kelvin color temp LEDs which are so damn blue that it hinders color rendition (basically turning the landscape grayish). But they made a dull blob of light with no cutoff at all and acted almost like high beams. They weren't the ones with LED's on all 4 sides. They were the kind with 3 inline LED's on each side just like most headlight bulbs. They had horrendous beam quality, far worse than the Hikari low beams. I tried Alla lighting bulbs for the fog lights as well. So does anyone definitively know who's H11 bulbs, among the dozens of makers, provides both a good cutoff AND does not spill so much light above the cutoff? Everyone always CLAIMS to have good beam quality, but few are willing to do side by side beamshots while keeping camera settings constant. This is not a matter of adjusting the headlights downward, because the spill hits everything above the cutoff. I do a lot of hiking, so I'm often driving at night in the canyons on narrow 2 lane roads, and it REALLY sucks to be blinded after rounding a curve. I did a long 3 1/2 hour night time drive coming home from camping, and yes, they are bright. I can absolutely attest to the fact that they produce much greater light output. ![]() The really crappy ones use the big wide COB LEDS. ![]() My biggest gripe with aftermarket bulbs in headlights is the difficulty in finding a bulb that maintains a sharp cutoff beam. I've been a long time car enthusiast and am very mechanically/electronically skilled. I replaced all the bulbs on the car with LEDs, except the turn signals and high beams. This is my first post! I just bought a 2013 Premium in silver. ![]()
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