Anyone find good LED headlight bulbs?

panteramatt · Feb 18, 2016

Ive read on here a couple posts but most people havent stated if they found a good drop in led replacement bulb yet. With technology changing everyday I wondered if anyone has found a good drop in replacement that would rival an HID kit? I have a mk4 golf and I do have projector headlights with the cutoff.

panthers89fan90 · Feb 18, 2016

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panteramatt said:
Ive read on here a couple posts but most people havent stated if they found a good drop in led replacement bulb yet. With technology changing everyday I wondered if anyone has found a good drop in replacement that would rival an HID kit? I have a mk4 golf and I do have projector headlights with the cutoff.

Doesn't exist. Maybe a newer car that was designed with led headlights. But just stick with HIDs.

panteramatt · Feb 18, 2016

How about LEDs in a set of aftermarket projector fog lights? I hate how they take time to warm up and it would be cleaner without using a ballast.

gdengine · Feb 18, 2016

There are no aftermarket LED bulbs capable of competing with a HID. There are maybe two cars that have decent LEDs (Toyota Corolla), but that is it. If start up is what you are concerned with, they make fast start ballasts. The ballast warm up is meant to ensure that the bulbs have longevity. Even modern halogen bulbs will be "brighter" than an LED. You have to consider the difference between lumens and lux. LEDs have lots of lumens but do really poorly with lux, which is what you are really after. If you don't go with HIDs then you could consider some of the premium halogen bulbs like the ZXE.

panteramatt · Feb 18, 2016

Great write-up thanx. I always use ddm for my hids but who has these fast lit ballast?

panthers89fan90 · Feb 18, 2016

panteramatt said:
Great write-up thanx. I always use ddm for my hids but who has these fast lit ballast?

Haven't dealt with ddm, although I heard they have pretty good products.

I bought my HIDs from a vendor on here. If you goto the vendor section of this forum, he is Midwest Light Creations. Forum name is FreakWithRacket. Website is Midwestlight.biz I believe.

His quick start ballast have worked well for me so far. The HID bulbs as well.

turbovan+tdi · Feb 19, 2016

LED's suck in projectors, there shape and design changes the light output, I found that out the hard way, its damn scary at night with them.

Digital Corpus · Feb 20, 2016

These might perform just fine. I'm busy reviewing them now and expect to make *very* detailed posts about them sometime next week and the week after. The LED array is about 6.6 mm long and about 2 mm wide. The mounts came setup so the first LED is 24 mm from the base. Stock H7 bulbs have ~ 1.5 mm by 4 mm coiled filament and the coil starts 25 mm from the base.

My reflectors are good enough to where the spirals of the filament can be seen on my garage door when distanced appropriately for aligning the lights, fwiw.

compu_85 · Feb 20, 2016

DC, looking forward to your posting!

-J

turbovan+tdi · Feb 20, 2016

Ditto.

VeeDubTDI · Feb 20, 2016

gdengine said:
There are no aftermarket LED bulbs capable of competing with a HID. There are maybe two cars that have decent LEDs (Toyota Corolla), but that is it. If start up is what you are concerned with, they make fast start ballasts. The ballast warm up is meant to ensure that the bulbs have longevity. Even modern halogen bulbs will be "brighter" than an LED. You have to consider the difference between lumens and lux. LEDs have lots of lumens but do really poorly with lux, which is what you are really after. If you don't go with HIDs then you could consider some of the premium halogen bulbs like the ZXE.

Toyota Corolla (weakest of the bunch), Toyota Prius, Cadillac Escalade, numerous Audis, numerous BMWs, numerous Mercedes-Benzes, numerous Lexus models, Mitsubishi Outlander, Honda Civic, Ford F-150, Ford Explorer, VW e-Golf, Volvo XC90, Nissan Leaf, Freightliner Cascadia class 8 trucks, New Flyer Xcelsior buses, and many more.

I'm constantly seeing more and more models on the road with LED headlights, some plain Jane, and some beautiful.

compu_85 · Feb 20, 2016

Don't forget the new Passats as well

jayb79 · Feb 20, 2016

LED headlights are not the same as LED headlight "bulb". You will not find a LED bulb that will compete with a glowing hot wire or arc. LED headlights are purpose built and you could not put an incandescent bulb back into them. Most of the LED headlights that I have seen use multiple LEDs to get the same kind of light output.

79jasper · Feb 20, 2016

Motorfiend has some led bulbs I've been looking at. Seen some pretty good reviews.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G890A using Tapatalk

Digital Corpus · Feb 21, 2016

gdengine said:
You have to consider the difference between lumens and lux. LEDs have lots of lumens but do really poorly with lux, which is what you are really after.

jayb79 said:
LED headlights are not the same as LED headlight "bulb". You will not find a LED bulb that will compete with a glowing hot wire or arc. LED headlights are purpose built and you could not put an incandescent bulb back into them. Most of the LED headlights that I have seen use multiple LEDs to get the same kind of light output.

You both have partially valid points. Lux = luminous flux / area. Lumen = a unit for luminous flux.

Yes, I and others are referring to headlight bulbs though it gets tiring to type out that many syllabals in tepid succession so please pardon some laziness.

The reason why LED bulbs perform so poorly is due to the design of the reflector. You can make reflectors suited for a 1.5x4 mm filament or for a 7x15 mm COB LED array. Using one in the other's application is foolish, but a basic understanding of optics is required to understand why.

There are plenty of applications where LED bulbs trump filings that bulbs. However, where are LEDs and other electronics die in heat and filaments relish in it, application differences between the two are still rather stark until efficacy and thus technology catch up.

VeeDubTDI · Feb 21, 2016

79jasper said:
Motorfiend has some led bulbs I've been looking at. Seen some pretty good reviews.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G890A using Tapatalk

Unfortunately, many of the "good reviews" I read online about LED drop-in replacement bulbs are from people who don't know what they're talking about when it comes to lighting.

Some popular review highlights include loving the fact that the lights shine a ton of light at the ground immediately in front of the vehicle, or that the low beams now light up street signs for miles.

turbovan+tdi · Feb 22, 2016

I put LED bulbs in my stock Jetta headlight housings and the light output and pattern was so much better than HID's. I also put LED's in projector headlights and they were awful.

VeeDubTDI · Feb 23, 2016

I thought your HIDs were great!

deejaaa · Feb 23, 2016

Digital Corpus said:
These might perform just fine. I'm busy reviewing them now and expect to make *very* detailed posts about them sometime next week and the week after. ............

looks like they're no longer available.

turbovan+tdi · Feb 23, 2016

VeeDubTDI said:
I thought your HIDs were great!

They were but the LED's are that much better,

As a bonus, no warm up,

TdiRN · Feb 25, 2016

turbovan+tdi said:
I put LED bulbs in my stock Jetta headlight housings and the light output and pattern was so much better than HID's. I also put LED's in projector headlights and they were awful.

Link to said bulbs?

alloztome · Dec 28, 2016

deejaaa said:
looks like they're no longer available.

I just looked, there are 7 left in stock @ 89.95 free ship

VincenzaV · Dec 31, 2016

turbovan+tdi
(night) Pics from driver's perspective? I have custom HID retrofit I did and would love to see how LED's compare...Thanks!

mejpassat · Jan 3, 2017

Philips is making the X-treme Ultinon LED in the correct sizes.
These have a ballast and a real nice heatsink. All plug and play no cutting wire.
I have put some in my Toyota FJcruiser and am going to try a set in my Passat when I have a bulb burn out.
In my FJ, the high beam is stronger and the low beam is brighter. Have not had anyone flash me yet. (I do need to adjust things though-to low).
Check them out.

turbovan+tdi · Jan 6, 2017

TdiRN said:
Link to said bulbs?

Sorry, missed this, I got them locally at an LED store.

VincenzaV said:
turbovan+tdi
(night) Pics from driver's perspective? I have custom HID retrofit I did and would love to see how LED's compare...Thanks!

Hi, I don't have the car anymore, I sold it almost 2 years ago. I think I took pics, I"ll see if I can find them.

Roishe Cheng · Jan 6, 2017

VeeDubTDI said:
Toyota Corolla (weakest of the bunch), Toyota Prius, Cadillac Escalade, numerous Audis, numerous BMWs, numerous Mercedes-Benzes, numerous Lexus models, Mitsubishi Outlander, Honda Civic, Ford F-150, Ford Explorer, VW e-Golf, Volvo XC90, Nissan Leaf, Freightliner Cascadia class 8 trucks, New Flyer Xcelsior buses, and many more.
I'm constantly seeing more and more models on the road with LED headlights, some plain Jane, and some beautiful.

Yes, more and more cars are coming with them stock. My 2017 Q50 3.0T has a full LED front stock (there is no HID option), it's nice looking and functionaly, from the 7.5W "cat eye" DRLs, the 23 watt LED headlights and the 13.5 watt LED foglights along with LED tails, LED mirror shell turn signal and interior LED map lights.

I don't know who makes the emitters, but I feel CREE might have some skin in this game.

coronan · Jan 18, 2018

Has anyone tried HELLA H71070307 Optilux Extreme White???
100 watts!

https://www.rockauto.com/en/moreinfo.php?pk=4824852&cc=1375455&jsn=2

Fixmy59bug · Jan 18, 2018

I would NEVER run a 100 watt bulb in a stock headlight.

The OE wiring is barely sufficient to handle the stock 55 watts. If you double that, you will burn up the wiring in a VERY short amount of time.

Rob Mayercik · Jan 18, 2018

The one thing I've never understood is how, with the big heatsinks or heatsinks/fans on the LED "bulbs" (the ones that claim to drop into a standard H4 housing), are we supposed to get that little cover back on that seals the back of the lights up and keeps the dust out?

There's not that much clearance between the bulb terminals and that dust cover when dealing with a halogen bulb, and the LED units I've seen look like they're at least an inch longer (meaning the harness plug would be too far out to put the dust cover back onto the light, which doesn't seem like a good idea). On the flip side, if you CAN get the cover back on, then there's no way for the heatsink/fan to get the cooling air it needs.

What am I missing here?

turbovan+tdi · Jan 18, 2018

DO NOT put 100 watt bulbs in as said, you will melt the wiring.

Rob Mayercik said:
The one thing I've never understood is how, with the big heatsinks or heatsinks/fans on the LED "bulbs" (the ones that claim to drop into a standard H4 housing), are we supposed to get that little cover back on that seals the back of the lights up and keeps the dust out?

There's not that much clearance between the bulb terminals and that dust cover when dealing with a halogen bulb, and the LED units I've seen look like they're at least an inch longer (meaning the harness plug would be too far out to put the dust cover back onto the light, which doesn't seem like a good idea). On the flip side, if you CAN get the cover back on, then there's no way for the heatsink/fan to get the cooling air it needs.

What am I missing here?

They fit in the factory housings and the cover will go back on. I have LED's in my Getta with Golf headlights and my first MK4 Jetta.

Anyone find good LED headlight bulbs?

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