Halogen headlight upgrade

I did a fair amount of research and talked to a few of you in other threads, and decided that I didn't want to upgrade to LED or HID. Instead I bought Sylvania 9003 Silverstar Ultra bulbs and installed them this evening.

I need to bitch for a minute about the little wire clips that hold the bulbs in place. Both of mine fell out during the install, and I don't understand why they're not designed to stay in place better. No big deal on the driver's side, but on the passenger side it's nearly impossible to get that little bastard back in place with the windshield wiper reservoir being so close. Took me a good 20 minutes of trying and cursing.

I installed one and then turned them on to compare old to new, and I wasn't super impressed. The new bulb was brighter and much whiter, but it wasn't earth shattering. Maybe my expectations were too high. Then I installed the other and went driving around to see what I thought. Usually I don't pay a whole lot of attention to what the illumination looks like, but driving around I was pretty sensitive to any inconsistencies. There is a sort of bright spot on the driver's side that's closer to the truck and has no corresponding spot on the passenger side. I went online and read that the driver's side beam is supposed to be pointed lower so as not to blind other drivers, no idea if this is true. But nothing seems drastically wrong with the illumination pattern, and I can notice the difference in brightness.

Anyway, just wanted to share and vent, and ask if anyone else has installed this same bulb and what your experience was.

Hope you all take a break from your builds and mods long enough to have a great Thanksgiving.

 

I didn't want to change the DOT certified correctly engineered OEM headlight assembly, or any wiring. I replaced both lamps with Volsa H4 + 100's http://store.candlepower.com/64205.html. halogen, big increase in light output, correct cutoff, correct color, not melting anything, not blinding oncoming traffic, road legal (it's possible to get a ticket for improper illumination).
Exact replacement for the Osram 70/65w Hyper H4 bulb, which is no longer available.

Service life for me is 2+ years so far, with an above average amount of night driving. Since I've just retired, the number will be skewed from here on, but I'm happy with them so far.

 

Any pics?

 

I have the same bulbs and, like you, only notice a slight improvement over OEM bulbs but it’s better than nothing. FYI they have a much shorter lifespan than stock bulbs.

I run the Sylvanias this time of year because of the shorter daylight hours and I’m looking for an edge in order to avoid an expensive run-in with Bambi. I switch back to OEMs in the summer when I rarely drive when it’s dark outside, I’m old and go to bed early...

 

Yeah I noticed tbey’re rated for 145 hours. That’s barely six months!!

I may fish my stock bulbs out of the trash and keep them on standby for the inevitable early burnout.

 

How many hours are they rated for, do you know?

 

Wow 2/$33, I may just go ahead and buy a set.

 

In your research did you find this thread?

https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/the-ultimate-headlight-upgrade-h4-not-led-or-hid.398066/

It really is the right choice.

 

Any idea as to their service life?

 

That was the main one I read. And then I got lazy and wanted to just buy something from the parts store and not wait for shipping. Mistake!

 

I had that kit from rally lights for my Jeep and it was a great kit. I currently run the phillip extrems 130 in stock housing brand new oem and im happy with the light output

 

Just bought a pair. Will report back.

 

these seem like a good upgrade and the price is affordable

 

I wanted to put the super bright Sylvania bulbs in my ‘08, but found a brighter, little more expensive, bunch whiter option at the parts store. I have LOVED the output and color. One thing i learned is that the whiter and brighter you go, the fewer service hours you should expect to get. Mine have not burnt out yet, but i do run my lights whenever my truck is running, so I chew into this life expectancy at every outting, even daylight hours. Changing halogen bulbs that you cannot touch is a pain in the bum! I am upgrading to Lumen LED lights. You can go to carid.com and input your vehicle info and it will show you available options. 5 yr warranty with 50,000hr expectancy. The complete kit comes with the plug n play cords that eliminate the potential for error codes and flickering.

 

I think everyone agrees about those clips. First time I struggled with it so long I wanted to burn the truck down. I've done it enough times now though putting them back on is no big deal, just a minor annoyance.

Sylvania Silverstars are not a performance bulb, and it is unfortunate they are marketed as one.

If you wanted a performance headlight, would you put window tint over the lens? No, of course not, because that would reduce output. But that is exactly what Sylvania Silverstars do to appear whiter, they put a tint over the bulb lens. What is worse, is the blue tint is designed to let blue light through and filter out the yellow/red light to make the naturally yellow halogen color appear bluer/whiter. But if you look at the halogen spectrum (shown below), you can see the majority of the light is yellow/red, so you are cutting out the majority of the light output so that the minority of the light output can dictate the color temperature of the bulb. What is even worse, is that these filters get hot from filtering light, which then causes the bulb to run hotter, which kills life.



If you want a performance bulb you can buy locally off the shelf, look for a store that sells Philips bulbs and buy a Philips Xtreme +100 9003 bulb. While the 9003 and H4 are interchangeable, the H4 European spec allows for more output than the DOT 9003 spec. So you can have a 9003/H4 bulb listed on the package, but if you want to be the very peak output, it will just be H4 (not 9003) which isn't carried by most autoparts stores. The Philips Xtreme +100 9003 is the highest performing 9003 I am aware of

Where things start to get a little tricky is going over the +100 rating when manufactures started adding blue coatings around the edges of the bulb to give the appearance of whiter light from the proximity of the beam without affecting the actual output. This works well on a single filament bulb, but in the dual filament H4 most end up covering the high beam filament with a blue coating (like a silverstar) which diminishes output. The highest rated bulb that does not do this is the H4 GE Megalight +120. However GE has since come out with a Megalight +130 version and added a coating over the high beam filament, and most everywhere caries the updated bulb, making finding the +120s a challenge. You can order them out of Europe on ebay and it will take a month for shipping (but it is cheap).

If you don't care about high beam, the +130 is one of the best performers I've seen yet for stock wattage. In comparing them to the Osram +150s on the H11 base, the GEs handily outperformed them in output by about 25%.
https://www.powerbulbs.com/us/product/ge-megalight-ultra-130-h4

 

Sorry you had to learn the hard way, Sylvania bulbs are junk, basically normal halogen bulbs with some tweaks that just make them burn hotter and makes them burn out faster. Only real way to do a true hi and lo beam upgrade is H4-4 HID. Other options are HID or LED projectors. But they do not use real hi and lo beam bulbs/filaments that actually produce more light. Just 'smoke and mirrors' and angles etc to make it appear that there is more light.

H4-4 and you never look back!

 

I followed that thread and came to the same conclusion.
I just haven’t gotten around to changing them. I will definitely look into 06tacooo choice

 

Do not get the LED bulbs with the fans. It is an absolute pain in the pants.
You will find it difficult to put the arm over to secure the bulb. This after you mess with the boot to fit over it(fan). .
I returned mine after 3 months due to flickering. Much research should be done

 

Led bulbs are not designed for our stock lights. You will blind oncoming traffic

 

I didn't want to change the DOT certified correctly engineered OEM headlight assembly, or any wiring. I replaced both lamps with Volsa H4 + 100's http://store.candlepower.com/64205.html. halogen, big increase in light output, correct cutoff, correct color, correct fitment, not melting anything, not blinding oncoming traffic, road legal (it's possible to get a ticket for improper illumination).
Exact replacement for the Osram 70/65w Hyper H4 bulb, which is no longer available.

Service life for me is 2+ years so far, with an above average amount of night driving. Since I've just retired, the number will be skewed from here on, but I'm happy with them so far.