are HID replacement bulbs worth the $$$???

[CFD911]

so I was jsut watching the news tonight and they had a consumer report special on testing those HID bubls that you can put in your car in replacement of stock halogen, and well results were a little surprising.they tested bulbs like the GE nighthawk etc... on 3 different cars, and they got a light meter and measured the brightness 20 ft. away in a dark garage. and every bulb they tested were either the same or even worse then stock halogen'sand when they set up posts at night every 10 ft, and tested how many posts you could see with each type of bulb, it was the same result. there was only a slight inprovement on one of the cars with one of the bulbs.so are these bulbs really all that great? Or so you have to change your whole headlight assembly to make the lights better?food for though before you go and by those $20 - $40 each Bulbs

[drunkenmaxx]

those bulbs don't do anything but make the headlights blueish.

[the1stacekiller]

I haven't seen the special.. but I swear my Silverstars are like 15-20% better at night than my crappy stock yellowish crap that came on the Contour.. but this is just my experience.. I am most likely going to put Silverstars in the Vibe since I am extremely happy with the silverstars.. but than again I didn't see the special..cheers

[mcgusto82]

the blue so called xenon bulbs aren't better. they simply make the light appaer like day time. mainly they sell because they simulate expensive hid lights. which do improve lighting significantly.

[1oldbanjo]

I put Silverstars in my wife's 2000 Jetta and they were brighter. The first one burned out in about 6 months and I thought it was fluke so I replaced it, the second one burned out about a month later. My wife drives about 100 miles a day and the car does have DRL's. After this happened I started seeing where people were having the same problems. It appears that if you have DRL's you can expect only about 12,000 to 20,000 miles on the Silverstars. I know it seems weird to relate light bulb life to mileage...but it is relative to the amount of time the car is driven. Reports for Silverstars in the fog lights are much better - since they are not on in the daytime.I put a set of the HID type Xenon bulbs in my S-10 and they had a pretty dark blue coating - and I do believe they were higher wattage than stock. I tried them for about a week - they were completely unsafe. They did not put out as much light as the stock lights and made everything have a blue tint. I live in a rural area and it looked like there was always a little fog or mist in the air and everything appeared slightly off color. In the fall when everything was different shades of brown - it was hard to see the deer standing in the fields to make sure they didn't run across the road. When I took them out there was a local K-Mart going out of business and they had Phillips Weathervision bulbs on sale for about $ 2.00 each - so I bought them and they were very nice bulbs. They were not any higher wattage but had some kind of coating to help see in foul weather. The best lights I ever had were in my TDI - when I put regular clear halogen bulbs in that had 60 Watt low beams and 100 Watt high beams. This way you don't blind people with your low beams and the lights last a long time because the high beams are not on very often. The brights were very bright.There are several people listing 9003/H4 bulbs on eBay for Harley Davidson Motorcycles that have 60 Watt low beams and 100 Watt high beams - I am going to order a set of those and some higher Wattage 9006 bulbs for the fog lights - which you can get in 80 Watt or 100 Watt versions. I will not upgrade the foglights until I see how big of fuses and relays the foglight circuit has. A pair of 80 Watt bulbs will draw about 13.3 amps and a pair of 100 Watt bulbs will draw 16.7 amps.Dave

[1oldbanjo]

Here is a listing for 80W/100W clear H4 bulbs. This person also lists 55W/100W bulbs. I am going to order a set and let you know how they work.http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors...=trueDave

[Jahntassa]

Unless they are true HID (meaning, ballast and all the little parts), they aren't going to help much.Yes, silverstars help out a little bit because they're higher in the spectrum (more white) so things will stand out more, but they aren't really much 'brighter' as far as light meters go.TRUE HIDs are VERY MUCH brighter, but they're also a lot more expensive.

[binary]

I agree with Jahntassa... a 55 watt bulb is still a 55 watt bulb.My silverstars are visably brighter because it puts our more white light than yellow... which I can see better at night. Even then, I had to aim them higher because the OEM aim sucked.