Thread: LED Hi Beam

LED is awesome, light up faster than halogen. Only trouble is aiming them.....

Originally Posted by garrycol

A few years back I put 55w HID globes into my RRS low beam and hi beam. The low beams work great I have had no issues, however because of the light up time when switching to hi beams I removed them in Hi beam and went back to halogens. Lighting is poor, no where near as good as the HIDs but at lead when you switch hi beam on you get instant light rather than 5 secs later.

Is LED technology good enough for hi beam globes? Has anyone put LED H7 globes in their Hi beams in their Disco or RRS? If you have fitted them how does you Hi beam compare to standard halogens? Which globes did you get - lumens etc?

Thanks

Garry

I put LED H4 in my D1. Low beam is awesome. High beam? Only way I know it's on high beam is the little blue light. That is H4 though. Useless without auxiliary lights.

I think a lot has to do with the reflectors and lenses too?

Originally Posted by johntins

I put LED H4 in my D1. Low beam is awesome. High beam? Only way I know it's on high beam is the little blue light. That is H4 though. Useless without auxiliary lights.

I'm like John. I put Philips H4's in my D1 and they're much more awesome than awesome (awesome squared, maybe! ) .. high beams are better too.
Aiming them was simple .. didn't touch them and cutoff is perfect .. maybe a little down(as the back of the car is higher than std too tho).

I thought about getting cheaper Chinese stuff, but all reviews were so variable, and I've seen obviously cheap Chinese LED shot cars on the road where the spread/beam is obviously crap .. so I went with the much more expensive Philips for peace of mind.
Payed off in terms of quality.

My major problem who was that I got a pretty good LED light bar, which worked well when I had the H4s installed. Since installing the LED H4s tho, the LED light bar seems to be less effective(by comparison). It's still gives more depth in terms of lighting, but since the LED H4 high beams install, the light bar doesn't appear as good as it used too.

I'd say that if you went with a quality H7 LED, and don't automatically opt for a cheap one, you should(will??) get good high beams.
And as already said, the more instantaneous on/off workings of LEDs is also a nice feature too.

I also got my dad a pair of cheaper H4 LEDs for his Ford Exploder, and while they were better than the halogen H4s they replaced, I think my option for the Philips H4s ended up being justified.
Those cheaper LEDs werent' the cheapest either .. just cheaper(about $80 vs $200 for the Philips) .. and you can get really cheap LED with zero info as to their workings. But the cheaper LEDs I got for dads Explorer did come have a set of specs comparing to the standard H4 specs so I went with them. They have the proper shielding guard to eliminate against random light output, and hence control the beam spread .. but still not quite as good as the Philips.
The caveat tho is that dads explorer's headlight adjustment mechanisms were all up ship creek so had to push/pull/wedge the lights till the beam spread didn't annoy oncoming drivers(all done in the safety of his long driveway tho .. not on the road).

so my recommendation is as the saying goes .. you get what you pay for.

Halogens ain't halogens either. Philips diamond whites are twice as good as most factory halogens.

Thanks for the input but before I fork out big $$$ I would like to hear if anyone has put them in their D3/D4/RRS and how they found them.

cheers

Garry

Originally Posted by garrycol

Thanks for the input but before I fork out big $$$ I would like to hear if anyone has put them in their D3/D4/RRS and how they found them.

cheers

Garry

A general point.
This month I tested 3 Hyundai i30s each with different headlights, the new i30 is touted as top of the range, with LEDs, but it was worse than the halogens. I tested them by lining three cars up against the dealers wall at night.
Also a few weeks ago compared our D3 2007 xenons to 2014 D4 halogens on a rural road, side by side.

The D3 xenons blow all of them out of the water, in both lumens and beam shape.
The projector design differed with each of the i30s. As difficult as it is, testing is the only way to evaluate.
Headlights should be part of the safety criteria rating.


Mjb