Philips LED H4 Headlight Bulb Review

PaulK · Nov 14, 2015

I finally installed my Philips bulbs last night, and they work really well. Much brighter, pure whiter color, and the light goes where it's supposed to. They are true instant-on units, and they snap immediately between low-beam and high-beam. I was able to find unused 3/8"ish holes in the core support on each side, and secured the control boxes with some small bolts and big washers. A little thread locker and I don't expect any problems. The only complaint I have is that now my fogs look yellow. Philips offers H11 bulbs too, but I'm running much brighter H9s and they don't have an H9 LED replacement. Still deciding if the LED H11's are what I want to go with.

Thanks to the OP for starting this thread!

05Moose · Nov 14, 2015

Hey Paul, can you snap a couple pics of you ballast mounting? I still haven't permanently attached mine (still zip tied). And I agree on the fogs. I just ordered some LEDs for the fogs and will be testing them this week.

PaulK · Nov 15, 2015

05Moose[OP] said: ↑

Hey Paul, can you snap a couple pics of you ballast mounting? I still haven't permanently attached mine (still zip tied). And I agree on the fogs. I just ordered some LEDs for the fogs and will be testing them this week.
Click to expand...

Here you go...

Passenger side

Drivers side

05Moose · Nov 15, 2015

Thanks. I'll have to check out those spots when the storms end.

sytfu510 · Nov 16, 2015

Mine have been good so far. Easy install, no "warm up" like HID. Time will tell.

PaulK · Nov 17, 2015

05Moose[OP] said: ↑

I just ordered some LEDs for the fogs and will be testing them this week.
Click to expand...

I can't wait to hear how the fogs work out. The color difference between the LED headlights and the halogen fogs is significant.

ARCHIVE · Nov 17, 2015

Thanks for the great review. I have been happy with Phillips XtremePower halogens in the past, lasted for a few years on a Passat with daytime headlights vs my bad experience with Sylvania (10 years ago). I will look into the LED option for the future

05Moose · Nov 17, 2015

PaulK said: ↑

I can't wait to hear how the fogs work out. The color difference between the LED headlights and the halogen fogs is significant.
Click to expand...

Good color match on the new fog bulbs. Not sure if they're dimmer, same brightness, or brighter. I'll see how they are on the road tomorrow night and post back. The bulbs I had in there were not OEM, so they might have been brighter than OEM bulbs (OEM burnt out a few years ago).

Halogen fogs:

LED Fogs:

05Moose · Nov 19, 2015

Well, the fogs "looked" nice. A lot more light scatter with very little on the road. Here's a comparison of just the fogs.

Halogen:

LED off Amazon:

So I'm going back to halogen for the fogs.

bacollier90 · Nov 19, 2015

05Moose[OP] said: ↑

Well, the fogs "looked" nice. A lot more light scatter with very little on the road. Here's a comparison of just the fogs.

Halogen:

LED off Amazon:

So I'm going back to halogen for the fogs.
Click to expand...

05Moose[OP] said: ↑

Well, the fogs "looked" nice. A lot more light scatter with very little on the road. Here's a comparison of just the fogs.

Halogen:

LED off Amazon:

So I'm going back to halogen for the fogs.
Click to expand...

What bulbs did you get? Are they Phillips?

Also, Thanks for the great review. Adding them to the list.

08TRDOFFROAD · Nov 19, 2015

These are the fogs Moose was running.

$25 JDM ASTAR Bright White 144-EX Chips H10 9140 9145 9050 9155 LED Fog Light Bulbs with Projector

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00LNNR9GG?ref_=cm_sw_r_awd_yS0rwb76S5SZW

jaddels · Nov 19, 2015

Awesome review 05Moose. Gonna pick up a pair of these for myself. My only concern is heat distribution as I live in Phoenix AZ and don't want the summer temps to kill them. Any info stated about max temps? Most things I've read say 150°C is max before potentially burning out the LED and I'm sure heat builts up in that housing.

05Moose · Nov 20, 2015

I asked XenonDepot about the heat. Their response was that Philips was pretty darn proud of their "Chimney Heatsink" and figures they probably accounted for varying environments. I wouldn't be worried about it with a 3 year warranty.

08TRDOFFROAD · Nov 20, 2015

I noticed when I installed mine they also look to have a thermal paste on the threads once the heatsink is removed. This will also greatly increase the amount of heat transfer from the housing to the sink, which is a good thing!

Djboi808 · Nov 21, 2015

05Moose[OP] initial post: ↑

Link to bulb: http://www.xenondepot.com/h4-philips-12953BWX2-LED-Bulb-p/12953bwx2.htm

I had the opportunity to test out a new Philips H4 LED Headlight bulb that XenonDepot carries. Philips claims that it’s a direct replacement for a halogen bulb and that it projects an identical beam pattern as a halogen bulb. The result: Philips’ claim is accurate. But this bulb is so much more than just a halogen H4 replacement!

I’ve had stock/OEM halogen bulbs in both vehicles (Highlander and Tacoma) and switched to a brighter (shorter life) halogen in the Tacoma about 7 years ago. With their shorter life, I’ve gone through several sets. Knowing that the brighter bulbs have such a short lifespan, I turned to trying out LED headlights in the last year. Note that I’m using my stock headlight housings with reflector bowls from the factory designed for halogen bulbs. The last LEDs I tried didn’t have a proper cutoff line and casted a bright beam at vehicles on my right. I removed them a short time after installing them for that reason alone. I shared that because I don’t appreciate being blinded by glaring headlights, and I won’t blind others out of respect. Thus, when I review a bulb for glare, it better live up to my expectations.

As luck would have it, an opportunity arose to test out Philips’ new H4 LED bulb. I will say that I had my doubts after trying out the last set of LED headlight bulbs. Once I received the bulbs, I studied them to see how they handled the cutoff beam problem. This led me to inspect the H4 halogen bulbs more closely to see how the cutoffs were accomplished (no, it’s not all done in the reflector of the headlight). Halogen bulbs have a shield under the bulb tilted down on the driver’s side that allows light to reflect higher/further on the right side of the vehicle (here in N America, anyway). Philips added shields along/below the low beam LEDs on their bulbs to produce an identical cutoff as the halogen bulbs…even placing the shield slightly lower on the driver’s side to replicate the halogen shield height. And let me add that these are not cheaply made bulbs as you can probably tell from the pictures. After analyzing these, I started to get excited even though I was still reserved from my disappointment with the last generic LED headlights.

So it was time to install them and go for a ride (I’ll get to the install further down since they’re basically plug n play). Turned the headlights on and they were as white as could be, or so it seemed to me. And that cutoff pattern looked identical to the halogens. More driving just led to more excitement. These are the brightest H4 LED, and certainly the whitest H4 LED bulbs I have ever tried. I will also say that the pictures (via iPhone) don’t really do them justice. They are much brighter than the bulbs I was previously running.

Color/Kelvin

The kelvin value to me is misleading. I’ve heard that Philips bulbs with higher kelvin values appear whiter than other bulbs, and now I believe it. The generic LEDs I tried before were 6000K and did appear bluish on the road (and shows in the comparison pics). The Philips are 6200K, yet they appear more like 5000K IMO. And I won’t even mention the color comparison to the yellow OEM bulbs other than to say the pictures speak for themselves. There really is no comparison to describe the vast difference between OEM halogen bulbs to the Philips H4 LED.

Pattern/Cutoff/Glare

The biggest claim by Philips is that these bulbs reproduce the beam pattern of a H4 Halogen bulb. Not only did I find that to be completely true, they also appear to have a sharper cutoff with less glare than OEM halogens. The beam pattern on a wall only shows half the story. On the road, it becomes very clear.

Review Conclusion

I see no need to ever get HID bulbs and retrofitting a headlight after using the new Philips LEDs. What a perfect plug n play solution!

Pics Here

Beam Pattern:

Low Beam:

Low Beam:

High Beam:

Comparisons with generic LED – Low Beam:

Comparisons with generic LED – High Beam:

Generic LED at 6000K:

Philips LED at 6200K:

Shots of the bulbs themselves:

Install

Install was easy. The package contains the two bulbs with removable heat sinks, two control modules, and a bunch of black zip ties (as seen above in the pics).

H4 bulbs are placed in the headlight housing (can only go in one way due to 3 tabs positioned on the base flange), held in place with a clip mounted to the headlight housing, have a rubber cover that goes over the bulb base and slides onto the headlight housing, then plugged in via the standard 3 prong headlight plug.

To install the Philips H4 LED bulb, the heat sink unscrews from the bulb and is removed completely by sliding it off the bulb wire.

Install the bulb in the housing and clip in place:

Slide the rubber boot over the wire and install on the housing. Note: install it with the little rubber grip fins on the sides to prevent blocking the air flow through the bottom and top of the heat sink.

Slide the heat sink back over the wire and screw it on until it’s tight. Two things to note are that the threads are fine, so you’ll be screwing it on a while. And when you tighten it (hand tight), it will be situated with the heat sink openings at the top and bottom (as designed by Philips).

Next is to install the control module. For now, I simply zip tied them where I had room. Because I ran the zip ties around the front cross member above the headlights with somewhat thin edges, I installed some thicker duct tape to make those edges a little duller. No idea if the zip ties would have eventually been worn through, but I felt better about it by softening those metal edges. Might find a more permanent mounting solution, but for the time being the zip ties serve their intended purpose.

The last step is to simply plug the vehicle’s headlight plug into the matching control module wire and plug the other control module lead into the headlight plug (push them together then screw the nut over it until tight…self-explanatory when you see them.)

Test to make sure you got everything connected. And you’re done!

Note: For the Tacoma, I removed the water bottle on the passenger side to give me lots of room. On the driver’s side, my battery left enough room to work next to it without removal.
Click to expand...

I just pulled the trigger on a set of these.How do you like them so far?

05Moose · Nov 21, 2015

Djboi808 said: ↑

I just pulled the trigger on a set of these.How do you like them so far?
Click to expand...

I'd put a second set in our highlander if I could afford it. Had them in 3 months as of today and still like them. Best part is that I don't flip the headlight switch on each morning wondering if a halogen will have burnt out (from running hotter, brighter halogens with shorter lives).

jaddels · Nov 21, 2015

05Moose[OP] said: ↑

I asked XenonDepot about the heat. Their response was that Philips was pretty darn proud of their "Chimney Heatsink" and figures they probably accounted for varying environments. I wouldn't be worried about it with a 3 year warranty.
Click to expand...

08TRDOFFROAD said: ↑

I noticed when I installed mine they also look to have a thermal paste on the threads once the heatsink is removed. This will also greatly increase the amount of heat transfer from the housing to the sink, which is a good thing!
Click to expand...

Thanks for the feedback gents!

el topu · Nov 27, 2015

Just installed mines, verry easy install
I'll wait for dark to see the diference

Djboi808 · Nov 27, 2015

I'm loving mines

el topu · Nov 27, 2015

^ What fog lights are you running @Djboi808

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Philips LED H4 Headlight Bulb Review

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Philips LED H4 Headlight Bulb Review

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