Just my personal opinion.

Like many things that are better, all it takes is a few people acting ignorant to give it a bad rap.

I also don't care what you invent, someone will find a way to abuse it.
To often at the expense of other people.


In your top picture, the low beam before picture has a dark spot to the left of the picture, where the low beam after has a hot spot there.

Wonder where that extra light is going to go when the road is wet?
Right up into the eyes of the driver of car you are meeting.
Or right up into the mirrors of the vehicle you are following.



Put those mirrors on your truck, then let a set of HID lights follow you for 20 miles, hanging back about 1/4 mile with the high beams on.

That was my first experience with HID lights, in a Mercedes if I remember right.

There are more and more of them out there every day, and a very large percentage are adjusted wrong.
Add in the ones that don't think they need to dim their lights or are not paying attention to traffic around them. I'm sorry but I think they should not be allowed on the road.

I don't think I should have to wear a welding helmet to keep from having little blue spots floating around in front of my eyes for the next 30 miles after I get close to a vehicle with HID lights (two electric welders on the front of the vehicle).

You found a problem with the light kit you installed, the bulbs were upside down.
What percentage of people that install that kit do you think would try to fix it like you did?

My guess, 1 in 10 or 10 in 100.
That leaves 90 out of 100, or 90% of those kits that are the exact reason I hate HID lights and think they should not be on the highway.

 

I'll throw in my opinion, and its the same as Dave's. I have excellent night vision, I rarely use my high beams, almost never have a reason. In the summers I can navigate most of the camp I work at without using a flashlight. Sometimes when driving on back roads, my eyes get really well adjusted, I'll have issues with normal low beams from approaching cars. People that leave high beams on, or any HID lights, I literally cannot see anything except two bright lights. If its a narrow twisty road, I just pray I don't go off the road or crash into anything.

My two cents, if you can't see at night with stock headlights, STAY OFF THE ROAD! I don't care what anyone else says, if I'm in my truck, which is pretty high off the road, and I'm getting blinded by tiny little cars, something is wrong with that picture, and its not my truck. I've actually had times at night, when I'm getting rather tired (and probably shouldn't be driving much longer), that I've put on sunglasses to cut the glare from bright lights.

 

I have one more thought on lights.

We see reflected light.

So looking at the pictures above, flat ground going on for a long distance.
So if there is nothing there to reflect the light back at you, you will not see anything no matter how bright the lights are that you install.

What are the white spots out in the distance in your pictures?

 

Wow ok I spend one day in the shop and got a couple big replys to respond to. That's ok though... no hating from this side of the fence, the whole idea behind this light project is to find out if I can do this upgrade better then most and work through the problems I find. So keep the posts coming good or bad you may very well point out a problem I missed or bring up a concern I had not thought all the way through.

So on with the reply....

That is why I am trying to do these lights right and prove that they can be a valuable asset while NOT causing a problem to my fellow drivers.


Good eye, I didn't even notice it the first time I drove in the truck. In that picture the adjustment is off on the drivers side light... now corrected. Will post more pics later in the week.

Guys like that make me want to pull over just to follow them and share some love.

Exactly why I am trying to find the problems, install and adjust properly and then educate as many people as I can. I have actually found more problems with this kit then just the bulbs upside down. Will be posting a full list of mods when I am confident they worked.

I would say you are a very lucky person with great vision. I was much like that in my younger years, I remember late night trips down the southern cali freeways wearing glasses at night to stop glare. But time catches us all and in my 40's my night vision is not what it was in my 20's.

I don't drive at 3am because I want to lol

I couldn't agree more and that's exactly why education is key. The more people I can talk to about proper light adjustment the better! I have personally taught 3 or 4 guys how adjust their lights and even helped a couple of them do the adjustment.

That is about the only spot I can really stop and take a picture that is flat. It's just the gravel road that goes between the two alfalfa fields that are at the bottom of the mountain I live on. The rest of my 25 mile trip to work is hilly, woodsy and curvy.

Again good eye Dave... man you really notice stuff!
I think those spots were being caused by the front reflector in the new clear lenses. It was almost touching the end of my bulbs and making that strange white spot on the ground. I think I got it fixed yesterday but will not know for sure until I can drive it tonight.

 

The spots I am talking about are say 1/2" up into the black on your pictures.
There in both the before and after pictures, with a few more in the after pictures.
Look like either distant lights or road reflectors to me.
Since there are more in the after pictures, I think reflectors.

Back when I was younger, bright lights did not bother me nearly as much as they do now.

I did force one car into a rest area one night, Chevy wagon with the rear bumper dragging on the ground crammed completely full of stuff.
Lights shining up in the air, so they could not see, and insisted on running the high beams to see better.
And since I was rolling along at a good clip, 15 feet behind my trailer was where they thought they should ride.
That was a 4 headlight system and it only took about 45 minutes and I had all I could take, 40 MPH still right there.
100 MPH still right there.

When I put them in the rest area, then circled them with my truck, I actually walked back with my tire thumper and told them if they could not dim the lights, I could.

So they got all aplogetice and dimmed the lights.

10 miles later, right back on my bumper with the high beams back on again.

I just went in the next truck stop and had lunch and a nap, which I really did not have time to do.

Back in those days( 70's and early 80's), I had a set of aircraft landing lights for driving lights.
But the only place I could ever use them was out in the back country of Colorado, Kansas and Nebraska running to out of the way meat houses on the skinny roads.
Back in those days you could run over 100 miles and never meet another vehicle in the wee hours.

Today, I don't even get to use my high beams very often even on the back roads here in WV.
Just to much traffic.
When I used to (1970's) drive from where I live now to where I grew up, basically one town in 120 miles where you would meet a couple cars.
Today, you meet a car or five every mile or so.

 

They look like distant city lights in his picture. Holy cow Dave maybe you should stay in after dark!

 

interesting words by all. However i see both sides, i prefer to see well, and with all the jackwagons out there with their "HID" systems it pains me to see at all with mys tock lights. I carry a 2.5 million candle power spot light and i blind the **** out of people who dont dim their lights. I have forced people off the road with it before, dont care. Their thoughtless *** clown behavior is upsetting to say the least. If it was properly adjusted i wouldnt care but i relentlessly attack those who ignore the safety of others. Watch the hell out, ill "bright you" if you act stupid. Im upgrading to the clear setups so i can see as well as stock new trucks, my lenses are crapped out from the inside, i tried a restore kit and it didnt work. When they are adjusted right, all is well in the world and the roads are somewhat safe. Everyone do your part.

 

Ahh I thought you referring to the 2 hot spots on the road that the lights were producing. What you see in the distance is the small community of Dairy, OR. It consists of a Feed store, a restaurant/bar and about a dozen houses. The only reflector that might be out there is the stop sign at the end of the gravel road.

Not exactly a city or a town.. just houses in the country.

Now I gots to get me one of those!

 

yeah well here on vancouver island where its hip to have civic with a "hid" system, they just dont get the point of being dangerous to all those around them. So i kindly make them aware by showing them the danger of not being able to see.

 

I'm smack dab in the middle on this, I passionately hate jackasses who improperly install HID's/run with them on high all the time. Yet I like warozz own them. I originally had them aimed down lower than stock aim for consideration, then I had to run into town out here after dark. Zero lights on the road, twisty roads, cliffs on one side, speed limit of 60/mph, and everyone and their cousin was running with high-beams on. Honestly the most stressful hour of my life The truckers usually had the consideration to dim them, but it's usually the jackasses in the little imports who would have them on full and I couldn't see a damn thing. So I aimed them back up. Been driving around the last week, had one guy flash me, during the day oddly enough, so I flashed him my high beams and he chuckled and nodded at me.

Wrechinball, I like you more after the flashlight comment, I'm tempted to keep one in the truck myself. All I do to those asses, is flash my high-beams at them, I know that ****s them up.

 

That is what I do as well, only in my case the button on the floor board actually brings the total forward-aimed light output up to about 1kW Which in turn is nothing compared to what my tractor has - almost 800W on just the overheads, and there are quite a few more of them daylighters in the bumper as well - c'mon ya'll import-drivin' jackwagons, hit 'em HID high beams, I dare ya

 

Yeah, I want more lights on my truck, not for road use per-say, but they would be handy in those situations. I spend more time off the road now, and I find the more the lights the better. Desperately need some back-up lights, the tiny little ones in the taillights get covered in sand nearly daily and become useless. Getting tired of wiping them off.

 

Oh yah, if I find myself using the big lights twice a month that's a lot - during normal driving I just run the factory lights and two 55W lights at the bottom of the bumper, I simply do not see the need of anything more powerful...

 

you guys and your electric headlights.
i just stick my head out the window and crank one of these;


i prefer manual crank for reliability.

sorry War.i couldn't resist.
(the electric challenged are not gunna like me for this one lol.)

 

You too?