Life expectancy for Halogen headlight bulbs

I think one of the biggest issues with short bulb life is using the headlights on auto modes, where they turn on and off regularly. They never get a chance to get to temperature before turning off again. You see it everywhere when vehicles go under bridges etc, where the headlights turn on for 20 seconds or so... And when I come home in to the garage, the headlights turn on, only for me to turn them off after 10 seconds when I kill the engine...

With older vehicles the lights were either on or off for longer periods.

Chris

I used to by the high output ones. They seemed to last not very long at all.

I've just put Narva LED replacements in. Great upgrade. They say they last a long time.

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Originally Posted by Captain_Rightfoot

I used to by the high output ones. They seemed to last not very long at all.

I've just put Narva LED replacements in. Great upgrade. They say they last a long time.

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But, as discussed earlier, not legal unless the reflector is designed for LED's.


Colin

I just did a quick comparo of H7 lamps (because that's what the D3 uses and I have handy). Rated lifetimes seem to be between 350-450 hours.
I do ~12,000km a year at an average speed of about 60kph, so about 200 hours.

I probably do a 60/40 city / country split and I'd say 20% of the city is at night. So 64% of the time I have the lights on, mostly low beam. That's about 128 hours on the low beams per year. Using a 450 hour rated lamp (like the one I have in the car) that gives me about 3.5 years.

Last set of bulbs were replaced in late 2022 and they lasted about 4.5 years from install in early 2018. Now 2020 I was in Melbourne for 6 months, so my folks had the car and didn't drive it much. Due to stuff across 2019-2021 we did far less in total and very little country driving. If I look at the K's and estimate they probably should have gone another 6-12 months, but near enough for AULRO.

Interesting my D3 has HID's for the low beam and H7's for the bright and IIRC I've never changed the brights, as they probably only get used on the weekends. I did change the LH HID once, as a kangaroo's tail hit it, very expensive, so that adds to the shock and vibration argument.

Brights! I hate the way US parlance is taking over our language. :bat:

Me too, it's amazing how it creeps in, my pet peeves lately are how people say lick of paint instead of coat and bunch of whatever instead of a lot of.

LED lights might make crash investigation more difficult as forensics could tell a lamp was lit when damaged as the filament would burn out in air, and a hot filament would stretch under sudden deceleration.

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Originally Posted by gromit

But, as discussed earlier, not legal unless the reflector is designed for LED's.


Colin

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It's interesting .. if you read the narva blurb.. they are designed to be identical to halogen bulbs. The light they throw is the same. It's just the regs only describe filaments.

10 years ago you would have stood out but these days I doubt anyone would know. Do make sure your headlights are aligned and you aren't shooting possums.

Best upgrade I've done in a while. Not just low beam either. Really filled out high beam. The LED bar is great but now the both are better. Plus less load on the electricals.

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Originally Posted by Captain_Rightfoot

It's interesting .. if you read the narva blurb.. they are designed to be identical to halogen bulbs. The light they throw is the same. It's just the regs only describe filaments.

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The laws of physics disagree. A filament provides a 360 degree light source of a specific length in a specific location and the manufacturer of the housing and reflector has designed around that. It is impossible for a LED to provide the same light in the same location. At best they can provide one LED element with up to 180 degree of emission in approximately the same location, however any LED placed to emit the rear half of that 180 degrees is going to be necessarily displaced by the thickness of the LED, PCB and heatsink. That offsets the light source and its reflected output is going to move vs the approved filament. Also, while it is theoretically possible for a LED to emit 180 degrees of light in practice the light is often weaker toward the extremes due to the encapsulation.

The Narva bulb I just looked at has part of the heatsink as a "shade" to try and provide some shaping of the beam, which is great for they reflectors they designed around but will be different for others.

They are not ADR approved because they can't be. I guarantee if someone could produce a drop in LED upgrade that could be made to comply they'd have them tested and approved because they'd clean up the market. They are illegal for a very good reason.

I'm not sure all LED bulbs are illegal in Australia, but it might be hard or expensive to get ones that are.

Often requiring a completely different reflector assembly, self leveling suspension or self leveling lights.

This is not the ADR website but gives a reasonable overview:

LED Headlights Conversions is Legal in Australia?


And expensive ish:

https://ebay.us/m/RJjsba