[2fast4u2013]

My Charger came factory with Xenon/HID low beams but my highs are the ugly yellow normal bulb. I am planning on replacing the high beam bulbs ONLY but I am curious if I should go to the Xenon/HID replacement or LED? I've searched the threads but could only find posts dated back in 2014 and I am sure we've had to come a long way since then? I was told the Xenon/HID's take awhile to warm up to their brightest potential which is why it isn't factory as a high beam but I was also told LED's are hard to concentrate the light. Please help before I pay $50+ for these bulbs. Also what would fit if I went with an LED bulb?

 

[that_guy]

Leds will provide nearly no useful light since they can't replicate the positioning of a filament in the reflector, and hids, as you said, have a warmup time. The warmup time is why you won't see any vehicle (barring bixenon projectors that just move a shield to expose more light) that have hid high beams from the factory. Going from the 9005 bulb to a 9011 HIR bulb will give you a nice bump in light output (about 2300 lumens from 1700) and since the 9011 bulbs have an identical filament position to the 9005 bulbs the optics won't be thrown off either. Now this won't get away from the halogen bulb color, but I'd put useful light over looks if it were me.

 

[Mangoman]

Ummmmm...... yeah no. LED headlights DO provide good light, better in fact then halogen bulbs but not quite as good as HID.
BUT you CAN NOT buy cheap junk ones! You HAVE to get a decent set so if you go LED be ready to shell out around $100 for the set. I went with OPT7 LED bulbs in my old G8 and the light output was just slightly less then the 35w HID kit I had. They are brighter then 35w HID but the light is more scattered the further away you go. The plus to LED'S are no ballasts and no need to drill the dust cover on the back of most vehicles headlights. I also had them on the high beams as well and in there they were BETTER then the 35w HID'S I had. Why? No warm up time! Hit the high beams and BAM they were on! Also had LED fog lights too. With the LED low beam headlights and
Fog lights on it lit up highway road signs almost 2 miles out! With the highbeams on it would easy!

LED headlights have come a looooong way in recent years and them not having good light output is a thing of the past. I can tell you this with 100% certainty as I had them on my car, my wife has them in her truck, both of my daughters have them in their cars so do their boy friends as do many of my friends.

For your high beams I say deff go for it you'll love them! Like I said before get a good set, I like OPT7 they're real nice but some newer stuff on the market may be brighter. Just make sure they have a warranty and aren't cheap ebay junk.

 

[that_guy]

Ummmmm...... yeah no. LED headlights DO provide good light, better in fact then halogen bulbs but not quite as good as HID.
BUT you CAN NOT buy cheap junk ones! You HAVE to get a decent set so if you go LED be ready to shell out around $100 for the set. I went with OPT7 LED bulbs in my old G8 and the light output was just slightly less then the 35w HID kit I had. They are brighter then 35w HID but the light is more scattered the further away you go. The plus to LED'S are no ballasts and no need to drill the dust cover on the back of most vehicles headlights. I also had them on the high beams as well and in there they were BETTER then the 35w HID'S I had. Why? No warm up time! Hit the high beams and BAM they were on! Also had LED fog lights too. With the LED low beam headlights and
Fog lights on it lit up highway road signs almost 2 miles out! With the highbeams on it would easy!

LED headlights have come a looooong way in recent years and them not having good light output is a thing of the past. I can tell you this with 100% certainty as I had them on my car, my wife has them in her truck, both of my daughters have them in their cars so do their boy friends as do many of my friends.

For your high beams I say deff go for it you'll love them! Like I said before get a good set, I like OPT7 they're real nice but some newer stuff on the market may be brighter. Just make sure they have a warranty and aren't cheap ebay junk.

Purpose built led headlights can work well, but dropping led "bulbs" into a reflector made for a halogen bulb will not produce a good light pattern. The led emitters cannot replicate the thin and narrow light source of a halogen bulb's filament. You can have the leds be twice as bright as the halogen bulbs, but if they're not putting the light in a useful place in the beam, you still won't be able to see well. An example of this is why fog lights turn off with your high beams, the extra light up close to the vehicle (foreground) causes your pupils to constrict and decreases your distance vision. What you want is the bright light to be projected down the road where it's useful. When you start screwing with the light source the optics were made for, who knows what you'll get.

This article does a good job of explaining why hids don't work well in halogen optics, and the same general principles apply to leds. Now obviously glare isn't much of a concern since you shouldn't be using high beams around other drivers. http://www.danielsternlighting.com/tech/bulbs/Hid/conversions/conversions.html

 

[Mangoman]

All I can tell you is how the OPT7 LED bulbs compare in the real world vs halogen and HID bulbs.

Not trying to argue with you or the article but since I had started with halogen (stock) bulbs, went to HID and then switched to LED all on the same car with same headlight housing I can tell you from personal experience how they look and how well they work.

 

[that_guy]

I'm not trying to argue either, but you can't avoid physics. An led can't replicate a filament. It might seem ok without anything to compare it to, but once you see a proper hid or led setup the difference will be night and day. What's even worse is that if you're running them in low beams you'll be blinding other drivers and hurting their vision too.

 

[Mangoman]

Low beams are projectors the cut off line remains the same this I can tell you with 100% certainty. I measured the cut off line on my garage door in my driveway with halogen, HID and OPT7 LED bulbs installed. At 30 feet out the cut off line never changed at all.

I did not like HID high beams because of the warm up time. I NEVER have highs on when on coming traffic is around so no issues there but turning them off and on and then the warm up time sucked. I tried PIAA bulbs for high beams but didn't like the blue glass they used. When I switched to LED low beams I also installed them in the highs and they worked very very well. Now I'm not sure if it's due to how the LED'S are arraigned in the OPT7 bulbs all I know is how we they worked there.

 

[Mangoman]

Oh I almost forgot! They did cast an odd "H" shaped shadow on the lens but it was nothing that could be seen while driving.

Beyond this little oddity I can't report anything else then I already have.

 

[that_guy]

Yeah, at least with projectors you won't be blinding other drivers much due to the shield in the projector cutting off the beam instead of relying entirely on a reflector. Still though, if you really want to have the best possible low beam lighting, you should look into an hid projector swap (led projectors are starting to show up, but can't quite match a good his setup yet).

And you're right about the tinted halogen bulbs being crap. The way light filters work is by only (not perfect in practice) letting pass the desired wavelengths of light. In the case of a halogen bulb the bulk of the light produced is in the 3700 kelvin range, so when you try and only allow the bluer light in the 5000 - 6000 kelvin range pass, you block a very significant amount of your bulb's light.

 

[Mangoman]

HID or LED into normal old halogen housing won't work as well if they went into a housing made just for them no doubt about that! But I think the OP was asking which route to go HID or LED and why, that's why I answered him as I have done what he was asking about doing.

IF there were an aftermarket headlamp set up that were designed for HID or LED that would be the ideal but I'm not aware of any. I wonder if the retro fit source carries anything but then that will require custom building the headlamps which not too many people are keen to try and tackle. It's not as easy as it can be made to look building your own headlamps believe me when I tell you this as well. Don't ask me how I know unless you want a book

!

But for what the OP wants (or rather what it seems like from his question) the LED headlight bulbs will work just fine. Odd little "H" pattern on the lens but that's about it.

OP as I said before get a good brand, I've had good luck with OPT7 LED headlight bulbs and those are who I'd recommend to you.

Unless you want to build some dedicated LED headlamps and then it'll be a book! LOL!

 

[that_guy]

Most of the LED parts that TRS usually gets in are low beams. Most cars that have led or hid low beams still are using halogens for their high beams, so that's probably the reason for it.

I know what you mean about the custom headlights too, that's the route I went with the headlights on my Durango. I have FX-R projectors for the headlights and BMW led fog lights in housings I designed and 3d printed in it. So far I've been pretty happy with the Charger's headlights. The high beams seem fine, but I do think the low beams are a little on the lacking side.

 

[Mangoman]

I got a 2016 with factory bixenon HID, it's not bad but the 3 LED fog lights on each side are lacking. I'm going to try to upgrade them when I get home in the next few days.

I know you doubt me but the aftermarket LED'S I ran in my G8 were really very good, I wish my Charger had normal fog lights do I could use them again. I do plan to swap to an SRT front clip and then I can upgrade them but right now I think I'm stuck.

 

[Nitemare]

Please, do not deviate from the bulb type designated for a particular housing. It was engineered/designed for that purpose. These aftermarket lighting companies are selling you useless shit unless you do a total retrofit or install a new headlight all together.

Ummmmm...... yeah no. LED headlights DO provide good light, better in fact then halogen bulbs but not quite as good as HID.
BUT you CAN NOT buy cheap junk ones! You HAVE to get a decent set so if you go LED be ready to shell out around $100 for the set. I went with OPT7 LED bulbs in my old G8 and the light output was just slightly less then the 35w HID kit I had. They are brighter then 35w HID but the light is more scattered the further away you go. The plus to LED'S are no ballasts and no need to drill the dust cover on the back of most vehicles headlights. I also had them on the high beams as well and in there they were BETTER then the 35w HID'S I had. Why? No warm up time! Hit the high beams and BAM they were on! Also had LED fog lights too. With the LED low beam headlights and
Fog lights on it lit up highway road signs almost 2 miles out! With the highbeams on it would easy!

LED headlights have come a looooong way in recent years and them not having good light output is a thing of the past. I can tell you this with 100% certainty as I had them on my car, my wife has them in her truck, both of my daughters have them in their cars so do their boy friends as do many of my friends.

For your high beams I say deff go for it you'll love them! Like I said before get a good set, I like OPT7 they're real nice but some newer stuff on the market may be brighter. Just make sure they have a warranty and aren't cheap ebay junk.

Post some before and after pictures then. All my experimentation, albeit about 2 years back, proved useless with LEDs in halogen reflector housings. They were not cheap junk. They were from VLEDs. Also, some LEDs do have a control driver which will probably require you to drill holes in the headlight dust cover. Additionally, they need cooling airflow - another thing the dust cover will block. They just do not work out most of the time. And ALL those people you mentioned have LED headlights? I doubt it dude. You must have installed them yourself, because people aren't dropping those things in like it's nothing. Most people can't even change their own damn bulbs. LEDs in reflector foglight housings also cause a shit ton of light scatter. It's dangerous and ineffective.

Low beams are projectors the cut off line remains the same this I can tell you with 100% certainty. I measured the cut off line on my garage door in my driveway with halogen, HID and OPT7 LED bulbs installed. At 30 feet out the cut off line never changed at all.

Projector cut off or not, if the light output CHANGES. LEDs do not replicate the light output area from a filament or HID bulbs! Try installing a HID bulb in SLIGHTLY askew/loose/incorrectly. The light output TOTALLY changes and sucks.

Oh I almost forgot! They did cast an odd "H" shaped shadow on the lens but it was nothing that could be seen while driving.

Beyond this little oddity I can't report anything else then I already have.

Anything cast on the lens is going down road whether you see it or not.

 

[Mangoman]

Mr.Nitemare, before and after each bulb test photos can be found on G8 board showing the cut off line being measured. It's not just me installing these in the G8 and posting pics, many members have done so. I would invite you to go there and see these pictures for yourself

I did mine first, my wife liked how it lit up the road so well so I did hers next, she drives a Mazda CX5 with projector headlights and her truck has LED'S installed in her fog lights as well. My kids wanted theirs done, they were next. My oldest daughters BF did his after that. My youngest daughter has told me her BF just did his Jeep but I have not seen it in person yet. My friend Derekprz from G8 board did his (his pics are available to view as well on the above named site) after him came many more G8 owners, some didn't care for them while others love them. I think it all comes down to personal preference.

I'm really confused as to why you're calling me a lyer, do I know you sir? Have you been given some bad or false information from me that I do not know about? Have I wronged you or caused you any undue problems? If so I do apologize to you sir and would only ask of you what I did to deserve such a label and treatment from you. But what you have done is to provide not a very good impression of yourself towards a new member I must say.

Yes all LED lights need air to cool them this is very true but in my testing using a hand held laser temperature gauge I only noticed an increase in the temperature of the headlamp housing and the air inside using an independent AIT sensor of no more then 42 degrees on a 90 degree day running the headlights for 6 hours. The heat generated by the LED headlights never exceeded 42 degrees hotter then an HID or halogen bulb installed in the exact same housing. The volume of air contained inside the headlight housing proved more then enough to keep the LED bulbs well within their normal operating temperature range specified by their manufacturer. I would greatly like to see the results of your tests that you conducted as to the temperature increase of the LED, the housings and the air inside the headlamp during your tests.

Further if you install a bulb incorrectly inside a projector housing of course it will effect the cut off line, it's silly to think it wouldn't. Which is why you always make sure you buy the correct bulb and install it properly.

Yes a shadow will be cast but if you put your finger or a pencil in front of your headlight how noticeable is that shadow on the road at say 50 feet? 100 feet? During driving neither I nor any of the other people using the OPT7 LED headlight have ever noticed or complained about it causing any problems. Well none that I know of that is, I can not speak for everyone who has installed this brand of bulb.

As a note all tests done by me were done using the stock GM headlight housings found on my 2009.5 Pontiac G8 GT. I can not tell you weather or not the volume of air inside a Dodge Charger headlamp would provide equal, better or worse cooling as I have not tested them nor compared their internal volume to that of the G8. My tests were conducted in my driveway during the day as to not have the cooling effect of the night.

VLED's are one of the brands I would advise not using as they do not take into account the loss of lumins due to the increase in the temperature of their LED bulbs. You must find brands that specify this drop in lumins so you can get an accurate comparison. LED loose lumins when they heat up, heat is a by product of them being turned on. The hear sink and it's ability to cool the LED as well as the quality of the LED itself matters greatly. Which is why I #1 said don't buy cheap and #2 gave a name brand I know to work well. As to the little control box they fit inside the housings of the cars I've done as they are not that big. Maybe an inch wide by a couple inches long by a half inch thick. If you leave the dust covers off you get lots of condensation inside the headlamp housing, or at least this is what I found after only 1 week without them. It was then that I did all my testing because I needed to use the dust caps against the manufacturer recommendations.

It's quite clear you do not like LED bulbs and again this is your personal preference and I would certainly never tell you you are wrong for liking what you do.

 

[BadAV]

Drop-in HIDs are a bad idea for high beams. You typically cycle high beams on and off a lot of times; this will considerably shorten the life of the HID bulbs and ballasts.

While I agree in principle about LEDs not being a good idea in housings other than those designed for them, the most-current crop of quality drop-in LEDs do produce good light output in halogen housings. I have a set of the heat sink ribbon bulbs in the high beams on my 2015 F150 and they have decent white light output; they are at a minimum as bright as the dingy yellow halogen bulbs. I rarely get to use them because I drive in mostly urban areas. I also have a set of 3-bulb LEDs with cooling fans in the fog light housings and these put out an incredible amount of light. I had to adjust the beam down a little bit because they projected the light further down the road than the OEM halogen bulbs. I run the fogs all the time and have only been flashed once in the 7 months the bulbs have been in service. My experience with both drop-in HIDs and LEDs is that as long as you properly adjust your housings to put the light where it should be you don't have a problem with scattered light output and people flashing brights at you all the time.

 

[that_guy]

Mr.Nitemare, before and after each bulb test photos can be found on G8 board showing the cut off line being measured. It's not just me installing these in the G8 and posting pics, many members have done so. I would invite you to go there and see these pictures for yourself

Can you share any of your pictures as examples? All of the pictures I'm finding there are either glare factories or have massive deadspots right where the hotspot of the beam should be.

Drop-in HIDs are a bad idea for high beams. You typically cycle high beams on and off a lot of times; this will considerably shorten the life of the HID bulbs and ballasts.

While I agree in principle about LEDs not being a good idea in housings other than those designed for them, the most-current crop of quality drop-in LEDs do produce good light output in halogen housings. I have a set of the heat sink ribbon bulbs in the high beams on my 2015 F150 and they have decent white light output; they are at a minimum as bright as the dingy yellow halogen bulbs. I rarely get to use them because I drive in mostly urban areas. I also have a set of 3-bulb LEDs with cooling fans in the fog light housings and these put out an incredible amount of light. I had to adjust the beam down a little bit because they projected the light further down the road than the OEM halogen bulbs. I run the fogs all the time and have only been flashed once in the 7 months the bulbs have been in service. My experience with both drop-in HIDs and LEDs is that as long as you properly adjust your housings to put the light where it should be you don't have a problem with scattered light output and people flashing brights at you all the time.

I'm sorry, but that last part is not true at all 99% of the time. You can't just make the glare from hids or leds in halogen reflectors disappear by aiming the lights down.

 

[BadAV]

Can you share any of your pictures as examples? All of the pictures I'm finding there are either glare factories or have massive deadspots right where the hotspot of the beam should be.




I'm sorry, but that last part is not true at all 99% of the time. You can't just make the glare from hids or leds in halogen reflectors disappear by aiming the lights down.

You made your feelings abundantly clear in this thread already. Others are presenting their experience as well. While I understand your continued comments based on your beliefs, it's starting to become more like you are the HID/LED Nazi.

 

[that_guy]

You made your feelings abundantly clear in this thread already. Others are presenting their experience as well. While I understand your continued comments based on your beliefs, it's starting to become more like you are the HID/LED Nazi.

I'm sorry that you don't think physics apply to you. Just because you want to advocate running around endangering others doesn't mean everyone else wants to.

 

[NoMoRaM]

HID's in HI beam location is a waste of money, really. They take about 15-18 seconds (depending on outside temps) to "warm up" fully, and while driving out in the country/desert that wouldn't be an issue. But for most folks, you turn on your HI beams because you need them THEN and waiting for them to warm up to full light isn't an option.

I recently received an email about new LED bulbs, that I would use for HI beams, but I don't like how my Charger doesn't have correctly aimed HI beams. The HID (OEM) LO beams are aimed just right. But the HI's tend to go up and left too much to shine down road correctly. I can push on the bulb in the socket from behind and it aims better but returns to it's "off aim" position.

So I won't justify the nearly $100 for the LED's here...

http://retro-solutions.net/product-info.php?Super_Bright_LED_Headlamps-pid2154.html

But you can try if you want?

 

[Mangoman]

I'm at locomotive engineer training school with work right now no access to a computer that isn't company related, my phone doesn't (or rather I don't known how to link photos from the other site, sorry)

Not everyone is concerned about trying to replicate daylight, some of us just want highbeams that match our low beam headlights a little better and don't need to warm up. Blue glass PIAA bulbs turn the whole reflector into blue, ok if you have a blue car or like that look but if not and you don't want yellowish high beams, HID need warm up time, what do YOU suggest the OP use?

We've all heard you and Mr.Nitemare scold me for suggesting LED bulbs but I don't believe either one of you offered the OP an answer as to what he should use and at this point I would love to know what you or Mr.Nitemare would suggest using as a simple drop in that can produce light close to that of the HID low beams.

Saying NO, NO, NO, if something isn't good is great but you do need to counter with what you should use to accomplish the goals asked for by the OP.


*NOTE : response edited cause I came off WAY too dick like for my taste. Apologies for anyone I may have upset.*