LED bulbs in an older car

[350Matt]

Hello All

I'm toying with the idea of fitting some of these high power Led bulbs you can get these days ( 30,000+ Lumen) into the high beams of my 2007 RX8

the halogen in there at present is about 1500 lumen and I'd like something brighter to keep up with the headlight arms race as I daily my car.


however I'm concerned about some reports where the LED bulb just gives a great 'wash' of light with no focus that can end up illuminating every drop of moisture in the air so you in fact see less than a normal focused halogen beam

thoughts ?

[Athlon]

It is illegal and they will fail the MOT. They will also dazzle other road users.

[350Matt]

so like 90% of every other car out on the roads then....

bear in mind I 'm thinkin high beam only not the regular dipped

[TGCOTF-dewey]

Athlon said:

It is illegal and they will fail the MOT. They will also dazzle other road users.

Yes, yes and no if you get decent bulbs.

I have a set of Phillips LEDs in my old car and it passes the beam test. Only used them in the dark once as it's a weekend toy that does a few hundred miles a year, but wasn't flashed once. Unlike my land cruiser with factory LEDs that attracts angry flashes often.

ETA given it can pass the beam test, if the inspector didn't notice they were LEDs the car would pass it's mot.

[//j17]

Athlon said:

It is illegal and they will fail the MOT.

Well, yes and no.

As the OPs car was first used after April 1st 1986 swapping the bulbs from halogen to LED would be an MOT fail - but wouldn't be on a pre-April 1st 1986 car.

But the OP could perfectly legally swap the complete headlight units to an LED or HID ones.

[SlimJim16v]

Athlon said:

They will also dazzle other road users.

High beams will dazzle other people, no st Sherlock.

[MC Bodge]

350Matt said:

so like 90% of every other car out on the roads then....

bear in mind I 'm thinkin high beam only not the regular dipped

High beams is probably not going to cause anybody else a problem.

I wouldn't fit them to the dipped beams.

[Fastdruid]

MC Bodge said:

350Matt said:

so like 90% of every other car out on the roads then....

bear in mind I 'm thinkin high beam only not the regular dipped

High beams is probably not going to cause anybody else a problem.

I wouldn't fit them to the dipped beams.

I'm kind of getting to the position of fk them.

Why am I suffering by being polite keeping with halogens when every fker with a newer car has ridiculous LED headlights brighter than the sun that are absolutely blinding under any circumstances where the cars are not exactly level (which given I don't live in Norfolk and live in a hilly area is all the time).

(and for my car particularly the MOT tester cannot see what bulbs are fitted anyway so as long as the beam pattern is correct it won't fail for having an LED low beam bulb).

[Decky_Q]

I tried a few LED bulbs in projector headlights and the light wasnt great, it works very well for about 10m then is too diffuse to see far ahead, this would be even more noticeable as high beams.

The beam pattern and cut off were sharp.

In the end after trying 4 brands and wasting a load of money I put in HID bulbs that were designed for the job and they were excellent.

[350Matt]

these look like they may be worth a go, latest offering from Osram


https://www.osram.com/ecat/NIGHT%20BREAKER%20LED%2...

so not the most lumen I've seen as 1800LM ( conventional nightbreakers are1500 lm) but they do claim a 200 metre beam compared to 150 metre of the halogen

[4rephill]

350Matt said:

these look like they may be worth a go, latest offering from Osram


https://www.osram.com/ecat/NIGHT%20BREAKER%20LED%2...

so not the most lumen I've seen as 1800LM ( conventional nightbreakers are1500 lm) but they do claim a 200 metre beam compared to 150 metre of the halogen

The United Kingdom/Britain/England are not mentioned on this page: https://www.osram.de/am/night-breaker-led/night-br...

That would suggest to me that they are not "street legal" for use with UK registered vehicles.

[ssray]

I've used LEDs in my bikes , a honda hornet from a few years ago with a no name eBay bulb was useless, so much flare I was embarrassed to sit in traffic.

Zzr11 with a osram led from euro car parts was so much better, the same beam pattern as standard and much brighter

[//j17]

I'm tempted to go LED in my car. Not because I expect better lighting but maybe blinding oncomming drivers with white light might be enough to trigger their auto-dipping headlights before they get withing 5m or my car!

Worse part of driving at night in a low sportscar these days are auto-dipping cars that can't seem to understand the idea of other cars not being 6ft tall SUVs/not all cars having small suns as headlights so firing full beam at you till you're completely blinded.

[Super Sonic]

//j17 said:

I'm tempted to go LED in my car. Not because I expect better lighting but maybe blinding oncomming drivers with white light might be enough to trigger their auto-dipping headlights before they get withing 5m or my car!

Worse part of driving at night in a low sportscar these days are auto-dipping cars that can't seem to understand the idea of other cars not being 6ft tall SUVs/not all cars having small suns as headlights so firing full beam at you till you're completely blinded.

Dazzling oncoming drivers so they can't see when you are dazzled and can't see? What could possibly go wrong?

[Yertis]

Fastdruid said:

MC Bodge said:

350Matt said:

so like 90% of every other car out on the roads then....

bear in mind I 'm thinkin high beam only not the regular dipped

High beams is probably not going to cause anybody else a problem.

I wouldn't fit them to the dipped beams.

I'm kind of getting to the position of fk them.

Why am I suffering by being polite keeping with halogens when every fker with a newer car has ridiculous LED headlights brighter than the sun that are absolutely blinding under any circumstances where the cars are not exactly level (which given I don't live in Norfolk and live in a hilly area is all the time).

(and for my car particularly the MOT tester cannot see what bulbs are fitted anyway so as long as the beam pattern is correct it won't fail for having an LED low beam bulb).

I feel the same way except what would happen if you had a bump and the insurance inspector discovered you had non-compliant LED lamps?

The whole legislation about this is farcical in that I can pop them in my 1971 TR6 (which sorely needs them) but not my 1988 Quattro which also needs them.

[Turbobanana]

The discussion on here about headlight brightness is interesting.

I wonder how much it has to do with aging. I'm 57, and while I notice that my own vision at night is not quite as acute as it used to be, I have no problem with being blinded by oncoming traffic or driving down a dark, unlit country road. For context, I'm quite badly astigmatic and wear contact lenses. This brings the benefit (over glasses) of reducing glare. I'm conscious that newer cars have much brighter lights than older ones, but I never feel blinded by their approach. As part of my contact lens contract, I have my eyes tested twice a year and my vision with the lenses in is 20/20.

A couple of weekends ago I was forced to drive my wife's Fiesta for a few days. At night I noticed how poor the headlights were, but it occurred to me they'd never been changed. The car is 13 years old and, as no bulbs have ever blown, they have never been renewed. I bought some Osram Nightbreakers from Amazon and after 10 minutes' work the car was transformed.

But I wonder this: how aware of "real world" driving conditions are car manufacturers? If, as others are saying, they are getting blinded by oncoming cars, why are manufacturers still making ever-brighter headlights?

[Fastdruid]

Turbobanana said:

The discussion on here about headlight brightness is interesting.

I wonder how much it has to do with aging. I'm 57, and while I notice that my own vision at night is not quite as acute as it used to be, I have no problem with being blinded by oncoming traffic or driving down a dark, unlit country road. For context, I'm quite badly astigmatic and wear contact lenses. This brings the benefit (over glasses) of reducing glare. I'm conscious that newer cars have much brighter lights than older ones, but I never feel blinded by their approach. As part of my contact lens contract, I have my eyes tested twice a year and my vision with the lenses in is 20/20.

A couple of weekends ago I was forced to drive my wife's Fiesta for a few days. At night I noticed how poor the headlights were, but it occurred to me they'd never been changed. The car is 13 years old and, as no bulbs have ever blown, they have never been renewed. I bought some Osram Nightbreakers from Amazon and after 10 minutes' work the car was transformed.

But I wonder this: how aware of "real world" driving conditions are car manufacturers? If, as others are saying, they are getting blinded by oncoming cars, why are manufacturers still making ever-brighter headlights?

I mean, partly it is age... but its *ahem* blindingly obvious the differences between different oncoming cars. I for one don't have issues with older cars. It's all the new ones.

There are a couple of things with it, firstly there are *no* rules on how bright they can be. Want to stick headlights so bright they set fire to cars coming the other way? Fine. All the regs say is "not dazzling".

Secondly even where there *are* regulations on how bright they can be there are two issues, firstly that it ignores the colour temperature (very simply put, bluer lights *appear* brighter to the human eye for any given "brightness" [ie lumens])...and manufacturers have (as ever) gamed the regulations. US cars have a dimmer spot in the beam pattern... that's where they test.

So we have stupidly bright lights that would be "fine" on a smooth flat road merely in the dark but become a nightmare for oncoming traffic when it's hilly, bumpy or wet.

[TGCOTF-dewey]

The other issue is auto dimming. A lot of cars have these systems and they simply don't work. By the time they've detected the oncoming car, it's too late.

My wife has it on her previous car - a Merc - and it only dipped after it had blinded the car in front. Dreadful systems.

[Turbobanana]

TGCOTF-dewey said:

The other issue is auto dimming. A lot of cars have these systems and they simply don't work. By the time they've detected the oncoming car, it's too late.

My wife has it on her previous car - a Merc - and it only dipped after it had blinded the car in front. Dreadful systems.

This illustrates another problem: over-automation. What is it with our current obsession about removing human decision-making from just about every process we undertake?

Self-driving cars that can't drive. Auto-dipping headlights that don't dip. Artificial intelligence to... well, do everything for us, not very well. I can see a future that contains all of this, but the tech isn't ready yet and humans can still do it all better, at the moment.

[Peterpetrole]

350Matt said:

so like 90% of every other car out on the roads then....

bear in mind I 'm thinkin high beam only not the regular dipped

Many similar threads on this, which as an expert working in the industry I have felt compelled to comment on -

Apart from the points mentioned above, of course if the worst happens and you have or cause an accident, you won't be insured.

So you can roll the dice on that, but also many previous insurance decisions concerning undeclared mods that have invalidated policies, even if the mod had nothing to do with a specific claim.