3rd Gen HID vs LED vs Halogen H11 projector headlights

Yeah, i was talking about you. I saw you were new to the forum and my response was a tongue-in-cheek reference to forum veterans to not be an A-hole to a new forum member for not reading through the thread.

Sorry if that came across wrong! I'm on your team. Peace bro.

 

I understood where you were going. Glad that you and Crashnburn80 (kind souls) got to him first.

Frank

 

I can vouch for the hakari ultras. That's what I use.

 

Yes he was talking about you lots of dudes on here can be dicks. Lots of good guys with some good information too though. Good luck lol

 

I must have missed the Hikari testing results? Something about lights with Megatron in the advertisement just screams garbage to me lol.

 

Completely agree. I'm not saying they are a quality item, they feel cheap and their fans are relatively loud compared to more mainstream brands. Supposedly they don't have overload protection so they are more likely to fail if they get hot, though I haven't tested that as it would be a destructive product test. They are not viewed in the industry as a reputable brand. I tested them before creating this thread, but that was before I started doing extended distance projection testing to better highlight the shortcomings of LEDs in halogen assemblies. So I don't have the extended distance test data on them, just my shorter range standardized test.

 

I wasn't trying to be a dick. I just don't like it when people pile on new members and scare them away from the forum.

 

Yup. I totally got what u were saying.

 

I took a long late night road trip last week on a dark interstate. I could instantly tell which vehicles driving toward me had replacement drop-in LED's.

I also noticed that it's a growing trend for the long haul truckers to use drop in LED's. Lots of of old trucks on the road that certainly didn't come with OEM LEDs. They have them now and the glare is awful.

 

It is pretty easy to tell. Long haul truckers put crazy hours on their rigs, it is understandable to want a long lasting bulb for their use case. At 60 hours a week, the GE bulbs would only last ~2.5 weeks on a long haul truck if run as DRLs. Obviously a non-starter. However, truckers are not lighting experts, just like so many on these forums they get sucked into BS marketing claims and end up making the road way more hazardous for everyone else while thinking they are 'upgrading' their lights. What is frustrating for commercial trucking is there is a lighting market specifically geared toward long haul trucking, with commercial grade specialized SAE compliant products, even with heated lenses, for the best safety lighting possible in a commercial truck. And yet, some drivers cheap out and buy the cheap Amazon China LED lights and blind everyone else on the road, no different than the Tacoma drivers that chose to do the same.

 

I read the first portion of this forum and most of the middle then got confused. I was going to order the GE-130's mega light then found out these are low beams only.
Am I missing something...if I change the low beam with these bulbs, do I get two more for high beams???

Clueless

 

GE-130's are for low beams. I don't think they make them for high beams which are H9's.. Someone correct me if i'm wrong. I went with GE-130's because they dropped right in and you can see a big difference from stock. there is one that is better than the 130's but i'm too lazy to look for you lol.

 

The factory H9's in the high beam already perform well, and therefore generally don't need to be upgraded.

hope that helps

S

 

Factory bulbs are just fine in your high beams. No need to replace.

The GE Mega +130 is what you want to get for a drop in replacement for H11 low beam.

 

What am I missing here? The Phillips H9 in the low beams are brighter, much cheaper, and last longer than the H11 upgrades like the GE Mega +130.

Clueless 2

 

I've got H9s in both the low and high beams.
It's a simple, inexpensive improvement.

 

H9's require trimming of the bulb connector or an adapter harness as well as, for best fit, trimming of the center metal tab to fit in the housing correctly.

High performance H11's drop in with no modications. Not everyone wants to hack up a set of headlight bulbs to get them to fit, however minor the surgery may be to those of us willing to do the work.

The GE's are slightly whiter in color. I found that the GE H11's had a much "cleaner" projection on the road whereas the H9's looked "fuzzy" for lack of better terms, but that was before I trimmed my H9 bulbs. It hasn't been dark enough in AK yet for me to get a good feel for the newly trimmed bulbs night performance. There's also the issue of proper aim raised on the linked HIDPlanet post from a couple posts ago, that showed that the H11's were aimed better in the housing which should give better distance projection. There was also talk on that thread about the H9's losing performance much worse than H11's over their lifespan, to the extent that halfway through the H9's life it would have less performance than the stock H11's.

@crashnburn80, to test that last part, when I burn out one of the H9's and one of the GE H11's, would you be interested in receiving the bulbs for longevity performance testing?

 

Yes. But you need to buy the harness

$8 iJDMTOY H11 H8 H9 Extension Wiring Harness Sockets Wires Compatible with High/Low Beam or Fog Lights Use

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00TXRWOPA to use the H9's in low beam. You will still need to trim the harness to get the bulb to fit. Quite a few posts on this thread with pictures but i'm too lazy to look for you.

 

You do NOT have to buy the harness. Trimming the H9 bulb is free,
easy, and only takes a couple minutes.

 

Ha! Didn't know that. Thought you had to use the harness and still had to trim.