LED Headlight bulbs

Where/What brand is the best to buy LED Bulbs? Fill me in. Looking to swap to LED bulbs in my headlights but I'd like to know the legality, Cost, Effectiveness, And the bottom line: Is it worth the hassle? FYI: I live in VA (for legality issues)

Thanks!

 

I got my H4 LED headlight bulbs from AutoAnything. They were marketed under the Plasmaglow brand. Lifetime LEDs sell the exact same product with a lifetime warranty and a better price. I bought my H11-F LED fog lights from Lifetime.

There are a few threads on here reviewing them. Here is one: http://www.tacomaworld.com/forum/2nd-gen-tacomas/324467-lifetime-led-install-review-progress.html

I live in Virginia as well and did not have any trouble with my truck passing the State Inspection.

 

How good are they though? I'm reading mixed reviews on all LED headlight bulbs, particularly with the distance that they don't reach out in front of the vehicle. I'd like to switch to LEDs as well, but I'm skeptical about reach especially with high beams.

 

I have to say that the stock halogens do seem to be more effective at throwing a beam of light at a wall (as shown in a post in the above thread).

I live in a large suburban area and rarely drive out in the deep dark country so I might not notice any limitations that these bulbs have in that type of setting. For the driving I do, where I drive, these are much better than the stock halogens. I may have to go out on some isolated country roads to see how well they perform there in the near future.

By the way, this past week/weekend, I was driving a New Ford F-350 with the dim factory halogens for about 400 miles, some of that through VERY dark roads. I know for a fact that the LEDs on my Tacoma can out perform them. I still say the halogens suck!

I'm kind of curious about how the wavelength of the light emitted by halogens and LEDs might carry differently. I know that radio signals with longer wavelengths carry much further than one with shorter wavelengths with the same wattage. The same might be true with visible light. This may not be as apparent because the visible light portion of the electromagnetic spectrum is much smaller than radio waves which span anywhere from the KHz range measured in meters to the Ghz range, measured in millimeters. Visible light is only measured in nanometers.

It would stand to reason that longer wavelength light such as red and yellow would carry farther than shorter wavelengths such as blue and violet. Halogens put out quite a bit of yellow light not to mention the huge red and infrared(heat) components. White LEDs typically have a rather large blue component to the light they emit. This could make a difference in how far the light is transmitted with the same wattage.

 

As with anything, go with a good brand name and you will be ok, im sure there are 1000 Chinese ripoffs for every 1 good manufacturer

 

I'm interested in LED headlights too, especially after having a 2014 Corolla that has them. Everything that I have read so far is that the after markets LEDs are junk, guys are pulling them back out! Some have fans built into the bulb to keep hem from burning out, some are weird wavelengths that make it hard to see, some don't project far enough. What to do, what to do?