Putco LED Headlights

http://www.putco.com/products.cfm…

Anybody try these in your truck? Thinking hard about ordering a set, I love the overall design of these over others I've seen and they look easy to install. I like the cooling setup much better than fans I've seen on other LED kits, fans seem like a failure waiting to happen once they get so much dust and other debris sucked inside them. My boss bought these for his truck and I really like the looks of them but have only seen them in daylight so far. They seem like good quality for the price. I use high power halogens now which work good but I am lucky to get even a year out of them before they burn out and aren't cheap at all. Rather spend the money on some quality LED's that will last a long time to get my money's worth. Thoughts?

 

LEDs won't give you proper light distribution. The only ones that come close are the Philips H4 LEDs, but again, they only come close.

 

A guy I work with put these in his '16 4Runner. He loves 'em!

 

LED retrofits do not seem to give the same beam pattern as stock, Philips is the only credible manufacture that has really attempted to do so as mentioned above. That said the elimination of cooling fans is a light years advancement in LED technology, though the Philips mentioned also do not have fans.

Those are listed as 1250 lumens per diode, with a max of 2500 lumens per side. To me that means you have 1250 lumens low beam and 2500 lumens high beam. Pretty poor low beam performance for an upgrade. A stock wattage high performance halogen could better that low beam output. Lots of people will see the 6k+ color temp and think they are brighter than they actually are. I see 6k+ color temp and see it as a performance hit, not to mention drawing possible unwanted attention.

The latest Osram bulbs will put out 1700 lumens low beam and 2900 lumens high beam, while maintaining the correct beam pattern. Assuming you have the proper standalone harness, performance will not compare. However the halogens won't "look cool" with the high color temp.

All that said, it is true that your going to have to replace the halogens approximately yearly at best. I'd rather pay for superior performance and beam accuracy than subpar performance and inaccurate beam to save me the hassle of 10 minutes once a year to change my bulbs. You can get the latest high performance 100\90 Bilux Osrams for less than $25 shipped for a pair off eBay. At that rate you are talking about 7 years to break even with the LEDs.

You should upgrade your bulbs and put your bosses LEDs and beam pattern to shame.

 

Thanks for all the input guys, much appreciated! I've already placed an order for these, but if they don't work out for me I can return them for a refund, plus I get them at cost through my job.

But that said, something I didn't consider until tonight, how will they perform in winter? I'm not worried about them coming on or taking time to warm up to full brightness like HID's need. What I am concerned about is if they will generate enough heat in the headlight bucket itself to keep snow and slush from covering it? If they work the way I think they do, the LED chips themselves do not generate any heat at all, it's the ballasts behind them that get hot and need those copper braid heat sinks/fans to prevent them from melting down.
Anyone who lives in a snowy area with LED's have some input on this? Never was an issue with halogens, my SilverStar Ultras burn hot enough to where the outside lens is warm to the touch and snow never had a chance of blocking it.
I do my best to avoid driving distances in bad snowstorms, but some days it can't be avoided. Winters haven't been that harsh here the past few years, but who's to say this winter won't break the record books?

 

Interesting question. Keep in mind they don't need to be as hot as a halogen, they just need to be adequately warmer than freezing. Someone with an IR temp gun and LED headlights could give you an operating temperature. The rear LED drivers are unlikely to have much heat transfer to the front of the headlights since the headlight assembly is plastic, which is an insulator. OEMs are going the direction of LEDs, but they are using much smaller purpose built LED housings, which are likely warmer than the large open air housing of a halogen reflector with an LED.

 

The 7 in round LED replacements I have seen (like the GE and Truck-lite ones) use some sort of heater to melt the frost. I have read that in general LED bulbs do not generate enough heat to melt frost off the headlight lens.

 

The manufacturer (generally speaking) is not reputable for making high quality items. I'd expect these to last as long as every other LED headlight kit from Guangdong.. a handful of months.

http://dledauto.en.made-in-china.com/company-DLED-Electronic-Co-Ltd-.html

http://www.dledauto.com/