LED Headlights Vs HID?
 

Hi Guys!

I am new at this forum. First of all, I want to tell you that I am a single parent and bought a used car last year. I am not good at handling technical issues of my vehicle. Mostly, I act upon the advice of a mechanic, but now, I came here to ask a question. Actually, I want to replace my headlights due to lousy performance. As it could be a significant risk for me, that's why I decided to place LED lights.

However, my office colleague Johns suggested me that I should install an HID Kit ( https://bestazy.com/best-hid-kit/ ) to get shiny and bright lights. I am just confused that what should I do.

Please come with serious and feasible recommendations. You can also share other suggestion if you have.

If you are in Berlin wouldn't the EU army bust your ass for installing an aftermarket HID kit into Halogen housings and without headlight washers? :paddle:

If you are referring to the headlights in a GT86, I would suggest that you just leave them alone (assuming the lens cover isn't fogged over, and they are working properly).

Why? Because their ain't nothing wrong with them. Just don't outdrive your car's headlights.

See, my theory is that one will drive at night as fast and far as one can see ahead.

I suggest that you just keep your eyes focused on the road and one ear tuned into the back seat on the child's frequency.

It's sort of like passing on a two lane road, the more power your car has, the shorter distance you will try to pass in.

pa-pa has spoke - ;)

There are so many things you could do to upgrade your lighting. I have no idea what is legal in your country.


Additionally, since you are a single parent, I assume that you are on some sort of budget. I would get LED replacement bulbs for your current headlights. (and if needed; a headlight restore kit) If your headlights are hazy or scratched; a restore kit can fix them. This should be the most cost effective way to get what you want (LED or HID) and upgrade/fix your headlights.


HID is great if the headlight housing is compatible with this type of bulb. They are also a bit harder to install. They have a ballast that has to be mounted and wired in. Some HID kits are plug-and-play, though the ballast would still need mounted.

[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0KbZBgrEk_w"]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0KbZBgrEk_w[/ame]

I hope that this helps!

Just swapped my stock halogens out a couple days ago for these:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1
About $65 for both the high and low beams and it's multiple times brighter than the stock setup.
HID may indeed be brighter but I'm not trying to spot something 1/4 mile away and/or blind anybody.
It looks like the links for the HID kits above are just for low beams and those are all roughly $90.
On a budget, just get the LED stuff. Really don't even need the high beam ones for 99% of driving too.
And if you leave the stock high beams in, you will also retain your DRL.
Swapping a LED bulb in high beams will not dim down for DRL use so, you have to disable the DRL .

Your headlight housings aren't designed for HID nor for LED bulbs. You will get uneven coverage and quite likely will end up seeing less overall. You can replace the halogens in the high beams with brighter halogens. This will give you brighter brights and the same coverage while not causing any issues with blinding with the low beams on.

Now if you replace the entire housings with well-designed ones meant for HID or LED, you'll be fine. However, I doubt most people know what good light looks like, and I know that designing these well is extremely difficult. Just look at the IIHS's reviews of headlights to see how, even for OEMs, the designs are difficult to get right.

Also European headlights are different from American. Different laws. Different bulbs.

Thanks for sharing your views. I have to talk mechanic whether he can install LED in reasonable cost. I am also planning to upgrade the current lights and kit.

But I know every single person that would do this sort of mod improperly and illegally are ricers.

What is a ricer again? Is it an anti-Asian thing or just a term for people who buy and modify Asian cars?

I must be a ricer... I have Acura HIDs retrofitted into my FR-S high beams. (I had them laying around) :popcorn:

This is correct. Keeping this in mind xenon bulbs will give you much better light output than an LED, since the light source is closer in shape to a halogen bulb.

Halogen bulbs emit light from the filament, so the light source is a small line
Xenon bulbs use a gas chamber, which acts almost like a point source.
An LED bulb lights up an entire diode, which is much bigger than either the halogen or xenon light source.

That means your projector cannot focus the light from an LED well at all, and you'll have a crappy cutoff line and plenty of hotspots above and below it. Xenon bulbs will focus a tiny bit fuzzier than the halogens but they won't scatter since they have the smallest light source of the 3. The pattern itself won't be ideal but it'll be close, especially cause it's not a simple reflector bowl. Most halogen projectors do quite well with a Xenon bulb inside.

That coupled with the typical light output of each type makes the Xenon your best bet for an upgrade.

typical output values:

35 watt Halogen: 1500 lumen
$100 led low beam bulbs: 2400 lumen (the $30 ones are much worse)
35 watt xenon bulbs: 3400 lumen (depends on the color, 4500k-5000k are brightest)

You can get a lot of brightness up close, but how is the throw going to be? And will the brightness up close make the light farther out harder to see?

It really depends on the projector.

it seems that the FR-S projector does quite well:

http://www.ft86club.com/forums/showthread.php?t=9116

there's a portion of light above the cutoff line due to the 'squirrel finder' tabs, but those can be bent down to get rid of them. Definitely should be done to not blind oncoming traffic.

http://i47.tinypic.com/zilsgo.jpg

Race
Inspired
Cosmetic
Enhancements

^Very broad definition.

I thought it was people who like to eat rice?

I agree that the definition is broad. IMO, it refers to people that buy all their "upgrades" from Autozone.




Something like this...


https://i.imgflip.com/2qu8vg.jpgvia Imgflip Meme Generator

I believe that was the original definition from the 70's. @humfrz please correct.

I'm Asian. :bonk:

The proper Chinese term for that is rice bucket.

A lot of people in here bashing using LED in the stock projector housing. Weird since as I actually have done the mod and am not just spewing off something I read online or heard somebody else say.
I have a massive amount of more light on the sides and it pushes out much further too. It cuts off exactly like it's supposed to and I don't blind anybody. It may be hard to believe since it wasn't hundreds
of dollars to get there but the roughly $15 per LED bulb I bought works and works well. The only problem could be longevity since halogen usually last many years but we all won't know that until our new
LED bulbs are 5+ years old.

Maybe a small amount of butthurt from naysayers because HID is expensive and if you already spent the money for it, you may be sore because new LED tech is making HID obsolete? Either way,
swapping the halogen bulb to LED bulb was all positive and any negatives brought up just don't exist at this point, at least on our stock halogen housing any way. Unless you have actually recently swapped
(since the LED bulbs are so much better now than a few years ago)your halogens for LED bulbs and have something negative to say anything else is just meaningless conjecture that helps nobody.

In no way am I an expert however in my recent experience I'll take LED over the HID aftermarket systems. Specific to my kids FRS we installed the Moriomoto Two-Stroke 2.0 LED bulbs and are very happy with the light output. Conversely, I also installed a HID setup in my daughters car along with all accouterments (anti-flicker, relays etc) to make the system full-proof. The HID setup has been such a pain in the ass that I uninstalled and am ordering the Morimoto Two-Strokes.

Oh, don't get me started - :eyebulge:


humfrz

Oh, my, how did we ever get along traveling down a dusty gravel road at night with nothing but these?

Let alone moving through a fog shrouded woods at night with these?



:sigh:


humfrz

Look at those fancy electric lights, this is the old school real deal:

http://www.luminaryshoppe.com/stagecoach.jpg

If only they had such fancy lighting...
https://78.media.tumblr.com/10cf4fe7...co4uo1_400.gif

How does this specific bulb work in this specific headlamp for this specific market? Oh, just bend this and trim that. Good luck!

A bucket of rice? Great, now I'm hungry.

No it's rice bucket. If you are a bucket of rice then you'll be full and not hungry.

Cuz these old lights probably had much better contrast than LEDs can ever hope for.

Car manufacturers aren't retarded to choose 4300k color temperature for HIDs.

This was my first LED lighting over 10 years ago for my mountain bike. The back side heated up like a bitch.

http://livedoor.blogimg.jp/tunwork/i...4/f41e36b7.JPG

Oh, yes, I DO remember upgrading lighting systems - :thumbsup:


humfrz

Hmmm, thanks for this. I have a set of LEDs (both low and high) I bought when they were on sale recently on Amazon. Was planning on swapping them out to try them, but didn't think about the high beams not dimming for DRL (duh).

https://d1ielco78gv5pf.cloudfront.ne...2990cb3852.gifhttps://d1ielco78gv5pf.cloudfront.ne...2990cb3852.gifhttps://ih0.redbubble.net/image.1001...,ffffff.u3.jpg

Super easy fix to disable them if you go for the highs too. At the drivers side in front you pop out 3-4 plastic snap rivets and 1 hex heads screw and pull that cover down.
Right above it is what looks like a heat sink connected to a plug. You just pull out the plug and no DRL.

I've seen a trend starting with LEDs to specify how thin they are. Seems they are realizing the light needs to be as tight as possible. I have some LEDs in mine and for sure they aren't as bright as the halogens. I think people confuse color temp with brightness. Mine aren't so dim that it's really a problem and I like the color so I suck it up. I am tempted to try some newer bulbs that are smaller and brighter to see if it's any closer to the halogens.

I have LEDs in mine but I don't have massive amounts of light. It does seem to cover the sides a little better. My cut off is crystal clear but I don't have the heavy hotspots that I did with the halogens which is why it isn't casting down the road as well as the halogens. This has to do with the light not being as close to the center as a halogen.

I put mine in the road and walked 10 houses down to be sure I wasn't blinding people and it looks perfect. I didn't want to be like a Jeep owner you know. Hahaha

The Two-Stroke is noted for being really thin so your results will probably be better than the average LED on Amazon.

You can do it with software over the OBD2 port along with many other settings, passenger seat belt warning being the most significant.

LED Headlights Vs HID?
 

So I replaced my current LEDs with these ultra cheap LEDs:
https://s.click.aliexpress.com/e/bjYYevT2

$23 for the pair. They are basically a knock of off these $89 LEDs:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B077BT6M6Z..._HMZDCbPX5Q78F

I figured at this price I might as well get them for the low beams and high beams. I was super skeptical of putting LEDs in the high beam but these things are bright as hell. The low beams are also much brighter than my previous LEDs. LEDs have certainly improved in the past year or so. The claim to fame on these is the LEDs are super thin and the mounting surface is also very thin which focuses the light closer to the center like a halogen does. Obviously they will never get the light dead center but it’s much closer than my previous LEDs.

I also parked at a wall and used tape to aim them based on the ISO standard and the cut off is perfect with no random stuff up high. I also parked the car on the road and went down several houses and on the other side to simulate an oncoming car and they weren’t blinding at all.

Long story short, if someone wants to give LEDs a shot these are a cheap option. Only thing that sucks is they ship direct from China so it takes a while (around 15 days). In my case I ordered right before the Chinese New Year so they took over 30 days to show up. I rarely order form ALI Express but it never fails that when I do it’s Chinese New Year.

Bingo.

I'm pretty sure it stems from the "I only buy American" crowd referring to japanese cars as "rice burners". Then, people put gaudy racing-inspired parts on those "rice burners" and instead of racers, they're "ricers".

Personally, I wish people would stop saying it. Even if it isn't really meant in a racist way nowadays, the term is still pretty racist in origin. :iono:

The term "rice burner" started in the mid 70s but was mainly aimed at the new influx of Japanese motorcycles and was usually the Harley crowd throwing it around. Then when the Japanese cars started to make the big push here in the late 70s and early 80s it sort of got applied to them as well. Important to note that it applied to all Japanese cars not just modified ones. By the late 80s and early 90s it had evolved again and was applied modified cars and the people that modified them became "ricers".

Perfect history lesson! :)