Lifetime LED Install and Review In Progress

they aren't. But they aren't what Toyota used when they designed the headlight reflector. To get the best performance out of these lights they need the housing designed for their use.

 

I agree. But with my experience with the lights I think that Lifetime LED did their homework with the reflector and how it works with the reflector assembly. It works both ways.

 

I agree. I don't think the engineer that designed these bulbs just randomly picked the locations of the LED emitters on the bulb. They don't have a random "scatter" pattern like many LED bulbs with many elements all over the bulbs. These have the high and low beam emitters purposely placed to closely approximate the positions of the high and low beam filaments in a typical halogen bulb.

If you take a look at the design of the fog light bulbs you will see they do not have the same offset between the two elements. This is because they are designed specifically for fog light reflectors and are not meant to be used in high/low beam headlight housings.

The design of the LED head light bulbs might be able to be improved but they seem to work just fine for me.

The bottom line is: If you like them, buy them. If you don't, well that's fine too. Go buy something else.

If you look at the drawings below, you will notice that the low beam emitter is further away from the base of the bulb, just like a typical halogen bulb. The drawing is actually upside down relative to how the bulb is positioned in the housing. I just took one of my LED bulbs back out to compare the position of the LED emitters to the filaments on the stock halogen.They are centered exactly the same. I also plan on taking pictures of the low and high beams on a wall at several different distances later tonight to do a side by side comparison.

 

Ok, I went out tonight and took a few pics of the high and low beams on a wall at a distance of 80 and 240 feet. This is probably not the best test as most of us do not drive towards walls at high speed, but it is the best way to get an idea of how the beams of light are directed. For this test I reinstalled a factory halogen bulb on the passenger side.

The first two pictures show the low beams at 80 and 240 feet. The LEDs and halogens look very similar. The halogen appears to be a bit more focused and has a sharper cutoff, While the LED is a bit more diffused, there may be a slight advantage to having the more diffused light of the LEDs as this appears to spread out more side to side in a flood pattern. The LEDs also appear to light up the road better.

The next two pictures show the high beams at 80 and 240 feet. The halogens do appear to throw a more pronounced spot pattern on the wall while the LEDs are more diffused. This makes sense if you consider how each of the bulbs are constructed.

The halogens have a shield under the low beam filament which blocks the light to the bottom half of the reflector. This causes the bulb to give off light in a 180 degree pattern and is what gives the sharp cutoff. The high beam filament is closer to the base of the bulb and gives off light in a 360 degree pattern. Normally only one of these filaments is on at a time.

The LEDs have two emitters. One on top for the low beams and on the bottom for the high beams. With this design no shield is needed to create a low beam cutoff. There is a disadvantage here though. Because the high beam emitter can only emit light downward with a maximum angle of 180 degrees(probably closer to 160), only half of the reflector bowl is reflecting the light. To compensate for this, the low beam emitter stays on when the high beams are on. This reflects light off both the top and bottom of the reflector bowl but the disadvantage is the low beam and high beam emitters are at different focal points where on the halogens the single high beam filament radiates light 360 degrees at the same focal point.

I'm not trying to take everyone to school here but I thought it was important to explain how and why the bulbs perform differently.

End result: I still like my LEDs better than the halogens. I live in an urban/suburban area where the wider pattern and whiter light is more conducive to my driving conditions. The pure white light is like high definition and really brings out details. I'll be reinstalling the passenger side LED bulb as soon as I can.

 

Lots are expected to be back in stock around the end of the month. Well keep thread posted

 

They work in muddy water just fine. Had em on when I was at Rausch Creek for FJNE '14 and they didn't so much as stutter.

 

They look reversed but I zoomed in on the wall for the 240' photos.

That's pretty impressive. I don't think I'll be subjecting them to the same torture test, but it's good to know they are that rugged.

 

FYI, as I mentioned in a few posts back, I had a 9004 bulb die within a week of use on Dad's Dodge.
I sent an email to Lifetime LED on Friday and they already have the new bulb in the mail as of this morning.

 

So I talked to lifetime, there was such a demand for the H4/9003 bulbs that there is still about a 2-3 week lead. Sorry for the delay guys. As soon as they are back I will post again

 

Here we go......

 

FYI, they were very responsive and helpful replacing my dad's faulty 9004 bulb. I had a replacement in under a week, postage was paid by Lifetime for both directions.

 

any discount codes? I wanna buy some

 

I recently purchased a set of Lifetime LED headlights and had them installed for about 2 months and started experiencing the flicker others have discussed. I contacted Lifetime last Friday and received a brand new set, postage paid, today. One thing I noticed about the new set is the heatsink is significantly larger, easily twice the diameter of my original Lifetime bulbs.
Initially the flickering would only happened when I would pull into the neighborhood after a long drive. This leads me to believe it is an overheating issue. The larger heatsink further confirms this. Eventually before replacing the light my driver side light went out completely.
I have been very happy with the performance of the lights and with the Lifetime customer service. Time will tell if this is just a problem with a run of CREE chips. I have attached a video showing the flickering.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PoYTRoeINXk

 

I really want a set of these but I'm also worried about the heat problem, especially down here in the Texas heat.

Hopefully the larger heat sinks will fix it.

Totally teetering on the edge of getting some though.

 

Still no problem with mine so far. It has honestly been one of the best improvements that I have bought for the truck for the price. Some on here have better luck than others and as mentioned before it seems that they work slightly better in the 12+ headlight assembly as opposed to the 11 on back.

 

I'm in some pretty brutal CA heat and mine are still working great. In fact I was off-road last weekend and they held up just fine. Still loving these!

 

Almost 4 months for me and no issues yet.

 

lots of pages to read so sorry if it's been asked but can we get these for the 1st gen

 

Yes sir you can, but they look out of stock right now: https://www.lifetimeledlights.com/led_lights/led_headlights_h49003_highlow

 

They are back in stock. I am going to process all my outstanding orders today.