Upgrade my halogen to LED headlight bulbs for my tow vehicle

[infinity]

It's been 3 months that I've upgrade my halogen headlight bulbs. I've posted the installation video and review here. They were really easy to install and I'm very happy with the performance upgrade. I haul a travel trailer with my 2018 Mercedes Metris Van and the headlight upgrade makes a huge difference. Check out my video on youtube here: https://youtu.be/qrY6L1RntgY

[John in Santa Cruz]

I would respectfully suggest that this is only a good idea if the vehicle has 'projector' headlights, and not conventional reflector 'bucket' headlights. the light emitting elements on LEDs are not the same geometry as the filament of the halogen bulb the reflectors were designed for, and this will cause a LOT of stray light and glare in the faces of oncoming traffic.

now, I have a car with native LED projector headlights, and they are awesome, with a very wide pattern with very sharp low beam cutoff. they are adaptive, the car has cameras looking forward up near the rear view mirror, these detect the stripes in the road, and if the road is turning, they follow the curve. they also detect oncoming lights, and automatically dim the highbeams... and the high beam intensity is proportional to how far they have to shine, they dim some when there is a lot of clutter that would otherwise glare back at you, and get brighter on a wide open dark straight road..

[JeffreyG]

I'll second what John said. In fact, my pickup comes with factory halogen projectors and even these do not work satisfactorily with LED bulbs because, again, the reflector and lens were designed for the point light source of the halogen bulb.


I actually pulled my entire headlight assembly and put new, different projectors in plus HID bulbs. Then I built a harness for a capacitor and ballast. The lights work great now.


I've driven cars with great headlights like John described, and I just couldn't go back to poor halogens.

[Wildrudder]

I'm with you guys. It may seem like a good idea but the light will "spray" the whole road ahead. A disaster for on-coming traffic.