Headlights Burning out Frequently

"You do realize that the optional LED headlights on Ford F-series trucks are a completely different housing right?" DUH....
Your engineering degree trumps mine...

 

Depends on from what university lol

 

Silverstars are the problem. Everyone knows they use a slightly thinner tungsten wire to achieve slightly higher lumen output. At the cost of having the bulb (and your wiring) running hotter than intended, resulting in burned out bulbs every couple months instead of every couple years.

The regular Sylvania and Osram bulbs are perfectly fine.

 

Same goes true with idiots driving around with their high beams on.

 

The reason I brought that up is that if you slapped drop in LED bulbs in the halogen housings, you wouldn't get the same performance as the optional LED housings - which were designed from the ground up for LEDs. (And there are no replaceable "bulbs" in the LED housings.)

 

You’ve made his point. You didn’t pay $1000 for optional bulbs, you paid $1000 for a completely different system designed for leds. If that were not true, you must really be slapping yourself in the head realizing you could have saved $960, and put the $40 Beamtech leds in the other housings and gotten the same results. You merely swapped one led for another into a housing designed for led lights.

 

For clarification purposes, a 2018 Ford F-250 with halogen headlights takes four 9008 bulbs. They serve as both high and low beam. If you order the optional LED headlights, there are no user replaceable parts.

 

How did he swap the leds then?

 

Must have been in another vehicle. The classic "apples to aircraft carriers" comparison - because they both start with the letter A.

 

O.K. a bit off the subject, but what can I use to get a bit whiter and brighter light from the headlights in an FJ Cruiser? I have LED fogs, but the color contrast between them and the stock Halogen headlights is pretty startling. I'd like a bit more light, since I drive on country roads quite a bit, but I don't need something that will burn the paint off someone's truck lid, just a bit better visibility. Any suggestions???

 

Just like oil filters,everyone wants bigger or brighter,stay with factory bulbs and filters and save yourself the trouble.

 

Your 2009 FJ Cruiser uses the exact same H4 / 9003 headlight bulb as a second generation Tacoma. That said, the bulbs that our resident expert recommends for a Tacoma would work just as well in your truck. In fact you might even be able to use his Ultimate Headlight Upgrade too:

https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/the-ultimate-headlight-upgrade-h4-not-led-or-hid.398066/

Even if you don't go the ultimate route, crashnburn80 lists a number of really good aftermarket H4 / 9003 bulbs in the above post that will give you the most bang for the buck.

 

My Ford Super Duty came with optional factory LED's.......yes, totally different headlights from the standard quartz incandescent lamp assemblies. My "opinion", the light out put on the Ford is superior to my Tacoma and my last GM truck with incandescent headlamps. I recently replaced the incandescent lamps in my Tacoma with LED's and have been very happy with the clearly defined cut off, total out put, color and I hope I get reliability and extended life. (Over the past few months since installation, I have NOT been "flashed" by any oncoming cars!) Notwithstanding contrary opinions on TW, my personal experience has been very positive! Some on here have not had the same experience, that doesn't make their opinions or experience any more or less valid than mine. Seems to be a lot of passion associated with this subject which started with the question of how to get longer life from headlamp bulbs. I believe the latest technology LED's are a viable alternative to old style incandescent technology. I certainly respect any other opinions to the contrary, especially if they reflect their personal experience, they just differ from mine.

 

You are right, that post is old and there have been significant improvements in LEDs since then. I've largely stopped maintaining that post because there are constant LED releases that people think will be drastically different than the one before, even though they share the same design flaws, and glare is actually not the easiest thing to photograph. While a few companies actually work toward viable LED replacements for halogen assemblies, the most difficult by far is dual filament bulbs like the 9003/H4 in a 2nd Gen. No company has been able to get this to work within SAE compliance limits that I am aware of. Philips is widely regarded as the best out there. Below is the Philips H4 LED pattern of their latest LED release. It is brighter than stock. But pattern distribution is poor, and not at all uniform. The 'cut off' does not really match stock, and is not flat and level like the stock pattern.

Latest Philips H4 LED


Stock Osram standard H4


There is no question that the halogen provides a superior more consistently even beam pattern over the LED, even though the LED may have a higher peak intensity. But this is a stock halogen, what if you could double the halogen output in the exact same patten, with the same pattern saturation and even distribution, but just drastically brighter? Far brighter than the LED. That is the halogen upgrade that has been referenced multiple times.

And BeamTech is a poor product, significant loss of focus and increase in foreground light leading to the perception of increased output. There are many far better product options out there. Tested in 3rd Gen:

In single filament lamps, the LED replacement bulbs are easier to get to work within compliance, however pattern saturation and focus are still a challenge. You want the pattern to be smooth and uniform out from the hotspot.

 

Hey, sorry if I (maybe we) were a little rough on you. As my late dad used to say, "I may not agree with what you say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it."

My personal experience with drop in LEDs has been horrible. And all of the true scientific data I've seen on these bulbs proves that although they've come a long way, they've still got a long way to go. That said, I truly doubt that drop in LED bulbs for halogen housings will never really overcome the hurdles in front of them. True replacement LED headlights (complete replacement housings with LED light sources) on the other hand show some real promise.