I have an 03 XL with the old fashioned sealed beam head lights. (where you have to replace the whole light instead of just a bulb) I know I'll never get the kind of light output from them that you do with the newer lights but is it worth it to use the 'upgraded' lights? I've seen Sylvania lights claim a better light output but don't know anybody that's used them. I know $20 a peice ain't much money but it's twice what the standard output lights cost so I'd like to get some feedback before spending/wasting the money. Thanks guys.

 

I've tried the Sylvania Xtravision lights before, and they are noticeably brighter than the stock ones.

Give them a try, I think you'll like 'em!

 

I have silverstar ultra's in my trailblazer and they are awesome. A lot better than stock.

 

i used the ultras in my jeep cherokee... they were brighter, but i don't know if they were 2x brighter. Certainly worth $20.

 

If your gonna get the ultra just search ebay. type your bulb number then silverstar ultra. I got both highs and lows for 35 shipped! Here is a good site to tell all the bulb numbers for most vehicles

OSRAM SYLVANIA - Replacement Guide - Start

 

DO THIS CONVERSION, IT IMPROVES 100%
2005 Ford F250/F350 Superduty Headlight Conversion Kit for 1999-2004 Trucks
DON'T BUY FROM THEM THOUGH BUY ON EBAY (HUGE PRICE DIFFERENCE). I'M AT WORK OR i WOULD GIVE YOU THE EBAY LINK. JUST TYPE IN SUPER DUTY HEADLIGHT CONVERSION KIT. I DID IT ON MINE AND LOVE IT. SINCE DOING THE CONVERSION I HAVE NOW CHANGED LAMPS TO HID.

 

I replaced the sealed beams on my snowplow w/ silverstar ultras and they are a lot brighter.

 

I replaced the sealed beams on my Dad's '00 XL with some aero ones and they are much much better... has Silverstars in there now and they're pretty decent.

 

Silverstars are joke. They play on the perception that whiter light is brighter. Xtravisions are much better. If you upgrade your wiring harness too, you get much better results. Standard halogen light is the safest light at night, it improves your vision without excessive glare. The Silverstars are the same thing as the Xtravision, but they have a colored filter that removes some of the yellow light, making the bulb appear whiter. This change in color causes a change in the perception of the brightness.

Kinda makes me laugh. I don't doubt that a Silverstar is brighter than stock, but it is not the best you can do, not by a long shot. With my Xtravisions with an upgraded harness, I can see reflectors as far as 1 mile away light up in my headlights. And yet I do not have problems with glare, they cut right through mild fog, I can see the road lines when the road is wet.

don't waste your money on HIDs either. Halogens have proven they are the superior lighting. Sure HIDs are brighter, and consume less power, but they also do not produce a full spectrum of color, and color is a very important part of how we see. Before you even think of buying on of those total waste of money HID kits, look at this video.
YouTube - Illegal HID Convesion Kits Explained
As explained in this video, part of why many people say they can see better with the HIDs is because they are scattering the light all around, rather tan focusing it into a well defined beam. this creates more foreground light around your car, but you actually cast less light down the road, which is what you really need if you are moving at normal road speeds.

A proper HID light, like those found on many import cars and some domestic cars, have special reflectors and projectors designed to capture the light and put it where it needs to go. Likewise, and halogen reflector is designed to do the same with a halogen bulb. But when you put an HID bulb into a halogen reflector, the beam is not properly focused because the light sources are so different. As stated in the Daniel Stern articles, this is like putting on someone else's glasses. If they are not made to focus perfectly with your eyes, they do not improve vision, and in fact can make it worse.

the best thing you can do, and my experiences verify it, is to first, upgrade your harness with a proper relay kit. This alone can sometimes up to double the light output of even the stock bulbs. This is because the way the OE system is wired to run through the switch introduces a lot of unnecessary resistance, and this dramatically reduces the bulbs output. I have a relay on mine, and even before I replaced my bulbs it made my low beams almost as bright as what my high used to be. My high beams are now amazing. When it came time to buy new bulbs, I got the Xtravision. They are much brighter than stock, but still within legal limits. I skipped past the Silverstars, largely because they are hyped up. They exploit the way our eyes perceive color temperature to be increased brightness. The Silverstar is technically an Xtravision bulb which has been dipped in a special coating to filter out some of the lower frequency light. Because the remaining light is slightly bluer, it creates the illusion that the light is brighter. But removing some of the light with a filter never actually increases brightness.

 

Check out DDM Tuning. You can get their 55W slim ballast setup with an H13 Hi/Lo bulb in 5000K (white, not blue) for $105. Includes a lifetime warranty, and they actually have a phone number you can call about it.

If you've ever driven in the UK, you know how painful it is to be a driver there. You think Californian nannies are bad, you haven't seen control freaks until you drive across the pond. And then tighten up that sphincter to its maximum setting before puttering around Germany, which is even worse.

 

subscribing.......

 

I agree with you bear river, on the color deception. I bought "white" LED's for dome lights in my trailblazer and they were substantially brighter untill i needed them to select a cd at night. I turned them on and all the light looked blue. Not only was it blue but it changed the colors of everything else so much that it was hard to read. They look really white in the daytime though.

 

LED lights are by their very nature monochromatic, so basically the emit only one wavelength (or color) of light. White LED's are usually just a mixture of yellow and blue light (basically 2 LED's glued together)

You see things because light from a source is reflected off of the object and into your eye. If the light from the source is only one wavelength and the object does not reflect that wavelength then you will not be able to see it no matter how bright it is. This is why your LED dome lights do not "illuminate" as well as the incandescent ones, especially on multicolored CD art and text. Regular old light bulbs emit a broad spectrum of wavelengths so they appear to illuminate better even though they may not be as bright.

wow, that was too much thinking this early in the morning. off to find another cup of coffee.

 

WOW. I am no longer worthy of giving advise as long as you are here gunner. Impressive. I knew some of that but that was very detailed. Thanks I feel smarter already.

 

I like your LED explaination. HID lights have similar weaknesses. They emit enourmous quantities of light, but much of that light is in specific wavelengths, and they produce relatively little light outside that. HIDs are dominantly bluish white in appearance. When you light up an area, the area seems to be well lit, but you will get poor color rendering. As an example, you can try the jellybean test. Hold up something pink and something yellow and something orange and maybe something red in front of an HID headlamp. Hard to tell the difference isn't it? HIDs have gotten better over time, by adding different gases, you can increase the color variation they produce, but they still end up with peaks of specific colors and little light in between.

Halogens in contrast are like brighter versions of normal bulbs, and they produce adequate amounts of all colors by nature. They don't need special gases or coatings to do that. They do not produce higher frequency lights as well however, and the majority of the light they do produce is in fact invisible to the human eye. But in there defense, what colors are our warning lights? Red? Yellow? Orange? White? They are not blue, nor are most other things we would need to see at night. So what you need are bulbs that produce a lot of the colors that you actually need to see. Halogens excel at this.

Most OE setups have problem in the wiring. Typically, you have the bulbs wired in series with a switch, with long runs of wire going from this switch located in the dash, over to the bulbs. There also has to be a long run of wire running from the battery to the switch. Every inch of this wire creates additional resistance which decreases the brightness of the bulbs. Furthermore, most OE wire is slightly small, limiting the amount of current that can be delivered to the bulb. And thats not even starting with the switch itself. The factory switch introduces a lot of resistance, which eats up the potential brightness the bulb could otherwise produce. Most OE setups also have a poor ground. All these factors combined can decrease the brightness of the bulbs by more than half. The solution is to use relays to handle the load of the lights, allowing you to place them s close to the batteries as possible, reducing the length of the wires that supply power to the bulbs. You can also use heavier gauge wire. This is the single best upgrade you can make to you headlights on most cars. I installed a relay harness on my own vehicle, and that made a huge difference.