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My halogen bulbs (9006s) are very bad and not powerful enough (for my eyesight!) Short of installing xenons is there an alternative bulb on the market that will improve road visability. I know that there are a lot of bulbs that say that they look like xenon (ie are blue) but are these just cosmetic changes? I know that PIAA make a bulb that costs about £90 the pair but do not want to spend this if they do not work. Can anyone help?
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Try www.powerbulbs.com.I've fitted the Philips Premium Xenon to my Honda Accord. The difference is quite noticeable. At £20 for a pair I consider them a very good investment.
Andy
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I fitted Philips Vision Plus bulbs to my Synergie also from powerbulbs.com and am pleased with the result. Have a look at previous threads on headlights by searching on "powerbulbs".
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Had you eyes checked lateley?
Eleanor
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The bulb is rarely the problem. With the right reflector design any 55w halogen bulb can produce a superb light.
What is the car?
David
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Car is a 530d touring - as to those worrying about the eyes i think that there might have been a bit of sarcasm involved
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Thinking laterally on this one.....I once had the same problem with my car when I had inadvertantly turned the adjustable headlamps down to their lowest setting. Easy to do when you are fumbling around the dash and not too obvious once you've done it. Also the 5 series has a switch behind the headlamps to switch the beam left to right (I think). Check it's set to the correct direction.
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On a similar note:
I have noticed an inordinate amount of crud on the roads lately, and my headlights are getting covered which reduces the brightness. Have you checked this out?
Jonathan
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Had the dealer check on alignment of lights.
Lights not lowered by the switch on the dash
Covers are clean from salt and other crud.
Some people say that these lights should be great and some say that they are well known for being awful.
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Xenons are supposed to give 30% more light than halogen, although some reports say that bulb life is shorter. As Andy P says, only £20 a pair.
The comment "for my eyesight" will worry a lot of people on here, as it obviously has Eleanor.
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Auto express ran a test on bulbs recently and found a huge variation with no correlation to price. Some bulbs did not meet specifications and should not have been on the market. Phillips bulbs came out consistently well but I have not tried them yet. Might be worth a look on the auto express web site. From memory the Phillips bulbs at about £25 were better than much more expensive options.
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last year WhatCar did a bulb review and reckoned Halfords own Xenon bulbs were 90% as good as factory fitted Xenon's - and they were only £9.99
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Fitted Halford's own Xenon's to a Saab 9000 last month-v. impressed, definate improvement.
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I have just fitted a pair to my 1987 9000i and can't see any improvement worth talking about - the light is whiter but, somehow, it doesn't seem to light the road any better. Have you done anything else to improve them? What year is it? There was another comment re earthing. Have you tried that as well? I have tried earthing mine directly bac to the battery negative with no improvement. Although the spread and pattern is excellent the actual illumination is poor.
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Who makes Halfords bulbs-does anyone know please?
Simon
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Who makes Halfords bulbs-does anyone know please?
Simon
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I'm not steering this towards the chevrons again, but I've fitted the Halfords Xenon bulbs to my Xantia (93), a car that's been discussed here on many occasions as having very poor dip beam.
Given I've already got the Halfords Xenon bulbs, would I see any benefit from fitting Vision Plus bulbs? Or are they the same thing?
More directly to the thread, I noticed that any salt on the glass makes a big difference to the brightness, it's worth cleaning them often, each time you get out of the car in this weather.
Lee.
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If the lights seem dimmer, check all connectors and above all the earth connection. No point in connecting fancy bulbs through a resistor!
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Halfords bulbs are 30% brighter than normal, whilst Vision Plus are 50% brighter. Had both set fitted to my car, and Vision Plus are the ones to buy!
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Depends what Halfords and Phillips define as 'normal'. However, my Vision Plus bulbs arrived in this morning's post and are now on a BX previously fitted with French bulbs under the name 'Norma' which were causing me some concern in lack of brightness. Non-technical examination of one of each installed suggests the Vision Plus are brighter. Roll on tonight and I shall see if they were worth getting.
David
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After 30 miles last night on a rather dingy and wet Fosse Way, the Vision Plus bulbs are a definite improvement and £19.50 well spent. The main benefit comes when meeting other vehicles on narrow roads. Whereas it has previously been quite difficult to 'see' past the lights of oncoming vehicles, there is now almost a cancelling effect from the Vision Plus beam which means I am not being dazzled on dip beam. Thanks to whoever in the Back Room originally recommended these.
David
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You can get 80/100 watt bulbs from anywhere including Halfords which are cheaper than the fancy stuff and MUCH brighter. They are legal on older cars. Who is going to check anyway? For the BMW there is a problem as the single filament bulbs only come in 100 watt. This is too much for the BMW closed in lights as they get too hot and leave a black mark on the reflector above the bulb as well as making the plastic round the wires close to the bulb begin to melt. They are ok on main beam.
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CM
The comment from Eleanor re having your eyesight checked may have been a bit tounge in cheek. However seriously I can speak from experience on this one.
As regular contributors know I have confessed to being a Police Officer - it's a mucky job but someones got to do it. I am 45 years of age and considered my eyesight reasonable. I have always passed the subscribed tests to drive Police vehicles but noticed that they were getting a bit harder and I was having to get nearer signs etc to read them. Anyway I decided to get the eyes tested and sure enough came out with a pair of 'Police Approved' specs - not rose tinted or glamerous to boot. Diagnosed as slightly short sighted. ie struggle with distance vision.
Anyway my uncorrected eyesight is still well within limits and I only were them on occasions I deem appropriate although I carry them all the time. For a time I was working in a small dedicated unit which consisted of 2 marked cars. The first being an Impreza and the second an Omega carrying a dog. We received a call and off we went. Both cars should travel in close proximity. We were travelling down a straight, wide, street lit urban road and allowing for the difference in performance the lead car was pulling away from me.
I had forgotten to slip my specs on which I had left on the dash top. As a result the constant hazard assesment being done at speed was being done slower and later to ensure a safe passage. Specs back on and away I went my speed increased as my vision and danger assesment improved.
So after all that the moral of the story is that don't let vanity prevail, if you are having trouble seeing, in your case you are convinced its your lights, have your eyes checked. You could be suffering from night mytopia where your vision is OK during the day but at night your vision deteriorates.
Andrew.
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I have just dug out the Auto Express bulb test (I kept it as I thought it would be useful). PIAA is the one manufacturer that gets a special mention; I quote
"Sadly there are plenty of names to avoid but special mention must be made of PIAA. It has a good reputation in motorsport which is simply not borne out by what we managed to buy - at a hefty premium"
The top 5 bulbs (from a large total) were as follows
H1 type
Philips Premium, Ring Xenon Plus, Halfords Brilliance, Philips Blue Vision,Osram Super
H7 type
Philips Vision Plus, Philips Premium, Philips Blue Vision, Ring Ice Blue, Halfords laser Blue.
Hope this helps.
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My only(to date, touch wood, don't press your luck, where's the rabbit foot) car accident was when I was in my teens about a year after passing my test, when at dusk, I failed to see a bend on an unfamiliar country road and bent the bumper of dad's car on a farm gatepost.
I got my eyes tested and found that I needed distance glasses.
I had not had an eye test until then and assumed that number plates at 25 yards was adequate.
I wonder how many drivers are in the same position as I was then?
Which is why I advocate regular eye tests as a prerequisite to retaining a licence.
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> I had not had an eye test until then and assumed that number
> plates at 25 yards was adequate.
When I did my test I cuoldn't believe the distance you have to read a number plate at.
When the Examiner asked me, I read the number to him, and he got confused and said I was totally wrong. Turned out, I was reading a plate of a car some distance away, which was the one I assumed he meant, where he actually meant the one very close to us.
Anybody who fails their test on this, bearing in mind glasses/lenses are permitted, should not even be out alone.
However, passing this requirement proves nothing.
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****So after all that the moral of the story is that don't let vanity prevail, if you are having trouble seeing, in your case you are convinced its your lights, have your eyes checked. You could be suffering from night mytopia where your vision is OK during the day but at night your vision deteriorates.
Andrew****
At about age 50 I found that I was having a problem reading street signs at twilight I went to have my eyes checked and was given glasses for driving at night due to just this night myiopia problem you mention Andrew... I was told that it was most often seen in folks like me who in their youth has the 'eyes of an eagle' or much better than normal distance vision... my daytime vision is still 'normal' on a test; but I find that the grlases are a help on cloudy dark days as well
~R
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