Halogen vs HID vs LED

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What do you run for your headlights?

  • Factory housing, Factory Halogen

    Votes: 1 33.3%
  • Factory housing, Factory HID

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Factory housing, Factory LED

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Aftermarket housing, Halogen

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Aftermarket housing, HID

    Votes: 1 33.3%
  • Aftermarket housing, LED

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Factory housing, Aftermarket HID Conversion

    Votes: 1 33.3%
  • Factory housing, Aftermarket LED Conversion

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    3

FlyingFischer5

Rank V
Launch Member

Enthusiast III

2,578
Spokane, WA
Member #

15382

Do you run Halogen, HID or LED? Factory or Aftermarket? Please feel free to vote and/or post what you got!

I've been running HID headlights for about 6 years now in factory housing. Never had a problem(burnt out bulb,dead ballast), pattern is tight like factory with very little light bleed, and bright AF.

I worked at a truck accessory shop for 10 years and for the last 2 years all we sold were LED. No one wanted "old technology" HID's. With my experience LED's are only brighter in a housing made for them(factoryLED headlights) and any conversion was complete garbage. With HID most factory housings could take the conversion and still have a decent pattern.

What do you run in your housings and have you tried any of the other options in your headlights?
 

smritte

Rank V
Launch Member

Member III

2,827
Ontario California
First Name
Scott
Last Name
SMR
Member #

8846

Ham/GMRS Callsign
KO6BI
With my experience LED's are only brighter in a housing made for them(factoryLED headlights) and any conversion was complete garbage.
You hit that right on.
The first thing that needs to be said is, it's not how bright but, how the light is focused. Different bulb types throw light off in different ways. If your running a housing built for halogen, putting an LED or HID will be brighter but the housing isn't optimized for the other bulb. People see bright and they think good. They also get caught up in "how many lumen's". What they need to look for is Lux. That's usable light. If the bulb doesn't match the reflector and the lens, the light scatters.
Ive played with different housings, Halogen, HID and LED. What Ive settled on are HID projectors. Im still not sold on LED's. Put in a proper projector, LED's are real good but, I still like the options for HID better. Doing a good projector retrofit, the lux on hid is still a bit better than led. That wont take long to change though.

People aren't willing to spend what it takes to do a proper retrofit and some of the factory lights aren't that great.
If the housings will accept them, you can retrofit a set of Morimoto projectors for $400-$600 for HID or LED. What people want is a $50 LED bulb.

Scott
 
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