Best bulb for HIGH beams

All the discussion is around the low beam projectors. What’s the best high beam bulb?

 

Great info here: https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/3rd-gen-hid-vs-led-vs-halogen-h11-projector-headlights.589465/
and here: https://www.danielsternlighting.com/tech/bulbs/bulbs.html

 

whole forum devoted to lighting on here. Ski

https://www.tacomaworld.com/forums/lighting.60/

 

I put HID's (those $20 ones) in my high beams back when I had an old accord. sure they don't immediately come on if they've been off a while but man did they light up the down the road after a few seconds...literally took like 3 seconds if they'd been off for a long time...since they were high beams them not having shields wasn't an issue. Now if you turned them back on shortly after turning them off they didn't have to charge to come on. In fact...when no one was around, emphasis on that, I'd get a cool strobe effect because they were almost instant on when you flicked them on and off. so if someone was approaching I'd kill the hids, then right after I passed they'd almost instant on when I reactivated them. never had any problems with them.

Led's don't actually illuminate DOWN the road, they look blinding when you're staring one down....admittedly I don't have a light bar so I can't say how to illuminate down the road honestly...but my morimoto led headlights sure as hell didn't so when I upgrade my high beams again I doubt I'd just rely on led, just my personal opinion.

Just PLEASE make sure their relay is wired into your high beam switch so when you kill the high beams your additions also deactivate. There's a jeep around my area that just runs with the light bar on, they kill their high beams but you're still being blinded by the damn bar. Maybe the light bars do light up the down the road...all I know is my led headlights LOOKED bright as hell when I stood 50 feet from my truck and looked at it but inside the truck down the road was not lit up...just like 5 feet in front of the truck. again, I don't have a light bar, and I just personally don't like led headlights.

guess the best thing would be what halogens do cars with factory low beam hid's use...maybe the most expensive sylvanias. They do what they say they do, I've seen them be independently tested and confirmed so not just a marketing ploy making the brightest ones more expensive. I use the mid grade halogens in my camry's low beams and they are brighter than what was in before...but of course...one of those original halogens burned out so coulda just been old. but the color on the new ones was whiter and they were brighter down the road.

just my take on the question

 

The best bulb for the halogen high beams are the H9 halogen bulbs that it came with. Those high beams are really quite good. If you want an overall improvement, then upgrade the whole assembly to the factory LED with LED low beams and high beams. And yes, LED's when designed properly "throw" down the road as well as anything.

 

Best bulb is stock. If you take a look at the headlight thread already linked, you’ll see that the best performing bulb for that base is the German Philips H9, which is what Toyota supplied.

OEM LED assemblies have superior low and high beam, that is the cleanest solution, but expensive. Again all the data is in the linked headlight thread.

To improve high beam with the factory halogen assemblies, you need aux driving lights (high beams). Note that real driving lights are very different than what many light bar companies will call a driving light. Thread on many tested options and good place for discussion here:
https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/the-sae-j581-aux-high-beam-thread.696597/

 

Not a fan of aftermarket LED bulbs, just the fact that they have a cooling fan is a hard pass for me. Keep the halogens.

 

pretty sure morimotos are properly designed...seems that linked thread actually says what I'm saying...when I was upset with the led headlight performance several folks said I must not have paid attention to it. whatever, not my truck, not my eyes

 

Actually they're not properly designed, and there's no way, as of yet, to do so. The filament in a halogen bulb has to be within about a third of a millimeter in size and in placement to work properly in the reflector housing - to be at the optimum focal point for proper dispersion of projected light from the headlight. It's impossible at this point in time to design an LED array that is that small, has 360 degree dispersion and has the required luminance to perform at the same levels as an H9 bulb in your stock high beam reflector. So, no, the Morimoto's are not "properly" designed and simply can't be with today's technology.

 

And a lot of LED bulbs don’t get hot enough to melt off snow when you are driving. Which causes other problems.

 

^This is correct. The Morimotos do not accurately replicate a halogen bulb, which is not possible with the LED technology today. Out of all the replacement LEDs on the market, the Morimotos do a better job than the rest.

 

they don't go into the stock reflector...they are fully designed NON-stock units...they only fit into the space a stock unit goes in but the entire thing is designed...the projectors they use are not put into stock units, only the outter plastic shell is the same for fitment. go take a look at them before trying to bash them. there is not one single stock component on them. And how can you claim they can't be properly designed due to technological limitations AND THEN SAY oem led units are? you aren't making ANY sense!

Look NO led unit is going to put light down the road like HID's, that thread you so liked to post actually states that...use them if YOU like them but don't sit here and type something that disagrees with what even YOU said earlier...which is exactly what you did. I don't care that OEM is going led, don't care one bit...led is inferior to hid. that's not just my 0.02. if you want to say YOU just like them fine, that's pure opinion but fine, I can't argue, but they are NOT FACTUALLY better than hid's...not opinion. if you weren't contradicting yourself I'd have let it go but seriously? did you even read what you type before hitting "post reply" morimotos are NOT put into stock units...the hid's are, and those DO outperform stock halogens and led's and match stock hids. their led headlights are in NO way stock units in ANY way...I know because I BOUGHT THEM and after a deer cracked one open I inspected it's internals thoroughly.

 

You’re talking about two different things.

 

how so? we're talking fully designed and developed FULL on housing led's...no different than an oem unit...compared to...well...any hid. shrug, I fail to see...but...ok. I've said my peace take it or leave it, appears leave it...so I'll say this and leave this thread;

may the car gods always smile on you

 

He’s talking about drop-in halogen bulb replacements. You’re talking about full housing replacements. Morimoto makes both.

 

Would it be any advantage to replace the original 2017 H9 high beams with new Philips H9's? I thought I read somewhere bulbs become less bright over time.

 

See post #2693. The Philips H9s lose 25% of their output by end of life. If you use your high beams a lot, and they are older bulbs a fresh set could give you a performance bump. And they are pretty cheap. Most don't use their high beams very often to accumulate heavily logged hours though to where it might be a noticeable difference in a somewhat newer vehicle.