Reply With Quotestuck a set of Osram night breakers in the lads Citroen and its made a big difference. Been using them for years on all sorts of cars and theyre pretty goodOriginally Posted by MakeColdplayHistory
The headlights on my DS3 are pitiful (and everyone else's lights seem to be getting brighter).
Any recommendations for replacement bulbs that are a 'real world' improvement while remaining legal?
I'm not interested in HID conversion kits.
stuck a set of Osram night breakers in the lads Citroen and its made a big difference. Been using them for years on all sorts of cars and theyre pretty good
Philips LED bulbs have worked a treat on my Mercedes.
That'll do for me.
Ta.
Jeez, you want try an MX-5, they're like candles (even with Osram Nightbreakers in)
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/...0?ie=UTF8&th=1
Got night breakers in the smart, but dipped still remains pretty poor vs xenon / LED lights in my other cars. Don’t enjoy driving it at night too much.
I think these days there must be a lot of illegal car lights, i've been almost blinded many times from cars approaching from the front or from the rear while driving, even when walking the dogs in the day or when dusk next to a main road near me I have had to look away due to the brightness of car headlights.
My Avensis has rubbish head lights, I ask my Toyota AD if they could be upgraded but they said no or not legally.
I used Osram NightBreakers for years.
My hot tip would be to always hold a set of them in spare, as they don't last anywhere near as long as 'regular' bulbs. And when one blows, just replace the pair, as the one remaining usually doesn't have long left either.
I think it's just that standard headlights HID/LED have got a lot brighter/whiter over the last few years. It's definitely an arms race. My car's fine in the dark until there are other cars around.
Night breakers as others have mentioned, are very good, lifespan is about a third of a normal bulb if you are lucky.
My last few cars all have had Xenon or LED lights. The current A6 has LED matrix lights which are amazing, well, for me at least...... I'm not sure oncoming traffics is as impressed. That said, they have some wizardry that shields oncoming vehicles automatically from their uncanny ability to turn night in to day.
What's less impressive is the cost of a new headlamp when they fail.... I'd rather buy 100 sets of nightbreaker bulbs.
I'm sure it's an age thing, I don't enjoy night driving at all anymore. The joy of getting old.
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Auto Express do annual best buys for a wide range of car products. Here's a link to their 2023 headlight bulb tests:-
https://www.autoexpress.co.uk/produc...ght-bulbs-2023
Hope you find something suitable.
Yes the life is something I have noticed too.
Always keep a spare pack in the garage for the inevitable blown bulb. Although strangely the smart seems to eat brake light bulbs every 6 months or so, annoyingly.
M4 had LED matrix lights and they were the work of the devil, astounding visibility and not one flash from oncoming traffic. Amazed me and my most comfortable dark drives ever.
Today I visited the opticians and I mentioned the glare from oncoming lights and he recommended they have Eyedrive finish, if they work as well as the demo which took all the glare away I will be very pleased.
OK, not halogen, but replaced Halogen bulbs. I added Phillips LED bulbs to a 2018 Ford Focus I had and it transformed the night time driving.
Were Ultinon Pro - not cheap but I was so glad I fitted them and had to turn the HL adjustment down because of their amazing throw.
The bulbs were faultless for the 18 months I had the car. Not cheap but much better than the regular upgrade bulbs and don't burn out.
Apologies for the OT -My lease RS Megane came specced with full LEDs i.e. LED DRLs and LED low beam which no one flashes at coming the other way, yet when approaching from behind can annoy slightly higher MPV/SUV types to the point of brake testing to stand still/ crawl and them flashing when I overtake- after I'm past them I put my fulls on to show what they are like (similar to deploying the sun) and carry on. Completely factory, legal and MOT tested so alignment is fine. LEDs are brighter on area they cover but do have nasty straight line cut off (bit like those street lamps that used to be orange but now have LED bulb providing narrow slots of light on the pathway). The mrs Mazda and my previous MX5 as others mentioned I'm sure have energy savers / the same bulbs used to light the inside of the boot for headlights, BMW xenons weren't too bad.
I will have to look in to this, it's the glare that's killing it for me at night.
You'll have to keep us posted
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I will do, I was really impressed with the demo and the opticians (Boots) assistant (who is a friend) said they have never had a single complaint concerning the Eyedrive they also work in the glare you get in the wet.
Sounds good!!
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I've just had a look under the bonnet of my Avensis to check whats involved in replacing my headlight bulbs with some Osram Nightbreakers, after a couple of minutes of looking I shut the bonnet and decided to live with what I have, it looks like one of those jobs that once started would end up being nothing but regret and a nightmare :)
Unfortunately that's the case with many modern cars - the days of simply popping the back cover off the headlight and replacing the bulbs are long gone.
These days you need to have the hands of a 5 year old, which are double jointed at the both the wrist and the fingers and that's after you have dismantled half the components in the engine bay.
Id like to replace my halogen lights with LED but it seems its illegal in the UK?
Pretty sure that it’s no longer illegal. Certainly my car (with retrofit Philips LED bulbs) has never had any query raised at MOT time.
Not illegal as long as the beam pattern is maintained, i.e. the bulb needs to have the LEDs in the same place as the original bulb. I've just done my cheapo*, winter fun MGF and it made a world of difference.
*Not so cheap when I realised I'd forgotten to ask when the last came belt change had been. At least I remembered before the 7 year old belt failed!
Worth having a look in the user manual or on YouTube etc, often you can release a bolt or two and the headlight units slide out to give full access, without changing the aim etc.
There are some daft designs about still, but Toyota usually think about these things.
I think they would still need to be E marked to be 100% road legal, but most MOT places will pass them as long as the colour tint isn’t wildly off (not too blue etc), the aim is correct and light scatter controlled.
The MOT notes around LED/HID conversions was updated post Brexit;
Personally, I wouldn’t want to be hung out to dry by an insurer in the event of a serious accident where your car is checked for roadworthiness, so I’d always stick to the legal options.Section 4.1.4 now states the following:
“Existing halogen headlamp units should not be converted to be used with high intensity discharge (HID) or light emitting diode (LED) bulbs. If such a conversion has been done, you must fail the headlamp.”
I put night breakers in a mates car, they’ve been very impressed with the output compared to the OEM bulbs.
Last edited by Tooks; 13th December 2023 at 14:37. Reason: Added post Brexit MOT amendment covering conversions and failure
Not any more - it used to be a grey area as I had a proper HID projector installed on my bike inside the original lamp and that needed an understanding MOT tester.
Now it is just the alignment/cut off that matters - from the MOT manual (for bikes and cars) "A ‘light source’ means any bulb, LED or other means of emitting light".
So the last 2 posts contradict each other on LED.
My understanding is aligned to the first post following discussions with my mechanic / MOT person, who’s usually very clued up.
Love him to be wrong though & upgrade them.
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It is a bit of a minefield to be fair, and open to interpretation by we the public, although shouldn’t be for MOT testers.
This is the whole section on the .gov website;
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/mot-insp...ical-equipment
It’s pretty clear that fitting an LED or HID bulb in a headlight unit designed for Halogen lamps is a fail.
It does also say you can fit whole headlamp assemblies designed for LED or HID bulbs, suitably marked, to a vehicle that didn’t have them as long as all conditions in Section 4 are also met.
That is how I understood it, but looking at Phillips ultinon pro LED it is pretty tempting as the lights in the smart are still awful despite the upgrade. Insurance is an interesting one, can cover the no payout if required.
If non dazzling and therefore just brighter, can’t see how it’s a safety issue vs bureaucracy. It’s not like it’s Chinese xenon parts from dubious origin / compatibility.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Philips-Ult...rtwo+Coupe+0.9
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They do look pretty good, is there enough space inside and behind the headlamps you’ve got, and the clip mechanism will work?
Did any other versions of the Smart you’ve got have LEDs fitted as standard? If so, you could perhaps fit a pair of headlamps from one of those?
Not sure if the wiring would be different, but might be a good retrofit if you didn’t mind spending the cash?
Those are what I had in the Focus and they were really good - I did have to adjust the headlights down (using the load button on the dash).
Yes they were technically illegal my bike has a full HID projector in the Halogen shell which my MOT tester told me the new rules made perfectly legal.
I needed some adapters for the H7 in the Focus which I also brought from ABD who sold me the bulbs.
The focus was very easy to change bulbs so I would have no problem swapping them for the MOT and when I sold the car I took them out and a friend is using them now.
They did do an LED version, but it’s £1k of parts plus wiring and coding to get sorted, and very vague descriptions.
Seems lots of space to manage the fitment, plus Amazon say it will; if it doesn’t then it will be returned.
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Smart is very easy to change too, will have to look at correct height etc as driveway is on a slope.
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If your bike headlight has a suitably marked HID bulb sitting behind a projector lens that it was designed for in the shell of your original unit, then I can see under the regs how it could be deemed legal and pass the MOT, especially as they would also test the beam pattern etc. It’s how it should be done by the sounds of it.
A bit different to fitting an LED to a headlamp with a halogen reflector/lens to be fair.
Just to update... I fitted Osram Night Breakers to both dipped and main headlights and the different is remarkable, like... ahem... night and day.
I'm basically back to driving at night without constantly thinking about how crap my lights are.
Has requested, reporting back after two weeks of wearing with the anti dazzle/glare coating used while driving at night and in wet weather.
Not one iota of difference when compared to my previous glasses with no coating, quite disappointed :(
Dammit, I was hoping there'd be a difference, I'm due some new glasses. I too suffer from being blinded by oncoming traffic. Half the time Teslas with wonky beams or cars with automatic headlights failing to work properly but SUVs are a PITA. There's also nothing like sitting in traffic with the driver in front using the foot brake rather than the handbrake. Sometimes I'm tempted to leave my lights on full beam for a couple of seconds too long, just to pretend I have automatic lights too.
"A man of little significance"
Not hugely surprised TBH - always smacks of being a gimmick.
When you look long into an abyss, the abyss looks long into you.........
Just thought I’d add something I’ve recently noticed to this thread. I currently run 2 cars - both with LED headlights with auto dimming but slightly different in operation. The Fiesta ST has matrix led lights which are the more expensive option I understand, which bend the light around other users when on auto dip. They give a fantastic view of the road ahead and I’ve not once been flashed by another driver. You can see parts of the full beam blanking out as you drive - quite weird when you first notice it tbh - and it’s an excellent system imho. The other car is a Cupra Born with normal led lights which just auto dip and I’ve had a few people flash me recently, to the point I’m not really using the auto dip any more.
I will add I live in rural Norfolk with enough empty roads and a total lack of street lights. As a result I’m able to see what my lights are doing far more effectively than if I was driving in a built up area. I’ve also noticed SUV’s are horribly bright but the worst offender is any type of modern mini with LED lights - angled straight into the face of an incoming driver!
Had the matrix lights on my M4 and they were amazing, I’d hate to have to replace one though as they won’t be cheap!
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