Philips LED H4 Headlight Bulb Review

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.

 

Very informative, thanks for the review.

 

How much? Where did you get them?

 

Link's at the top of the first post. They're getting a very limited number of them in October.

 

hmm...thanks for the review, will have to look into these.

 

Might order these too. They're having a 20% off sale with promo code " X20 " & Free Ship.

Brings the total to $215.

 

Thanks for the review. I had considered LED H4 bulbs before, but none of the ones I saw looked like they were quite there (either iffy quality or bad dispersion/cutoff). I have only bought Philips bulbs for the last few years. They seem to be the best quality and put solid design before wild marketing claims. Sure is tempting with that 20% off code and $215 out the door.

 

Awesome review. Thanks! Any thoughts on the H11 fog's ?

 

These led lights look great and it's tempting to get a pair, but are they legal in the US?

 

wonder how these compare to the xenon depot branded ones that also have philips leds at half the price.

http://www.xenondepot.com/H4-LED-headlight-kit-p/h4-led-hl.htm

 

I did the H11-to-H9 mod on my fogs, and they are MUCH brighter:
https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/2012-foglight-anytime-mod.186818/page-6#post-7268922

 

Thanks for the review!
Might have to grave a pair

 

Ordered a set. The "X20" coupon code still works for a 20% discount and free shipping. Unfortunately, they are back-ordered, so I'll have to wait...

 

I just order a set and it said that today was the last day for the 20% off

 

Yeah I'm not spending 200 on LED headlights until I see some longevity of more than a year.

 

A bit out of my price range, but I want a set!

 

If you have reflector headlights (2nd Gen), nothing except a halogen is legal in the US...even if you retrofit. It's how the law is written. So nothing but a halogen bulb is legal on a Tacoma.

 

Take a look at the comparison pics above. Those are the "generic LED" pics. Very blue/purple, not even as bright as stock, and glare out the passenger side is horrible. I had a set of those and yanked them after seeing how bad it was on vehicles on my right (even had vehicles get behind me to mess with me after I passed them).

 

3 year warranty

 

So then this is actually a good option for better lights because switching back to "legal" is as easy as changing the bulbs. I grew up in PA, where annual emissions and "safety" inspections are required. As hot rodders is was not uncommon for us to remove a modification, replace the factory parts, get the inspection sticker, and then put the modded parts back on. I'm currently in OH where they don't seem to care what you do to your car, but removing retrofitted projectors before a State inspection would be a real pain.