Headlight bulb ugrades?

[Brain75]

ya know the pyramid of easy, cheap, good.... pick 2...... well easy, good and not cheap is right there HELLA brand.

I'm personally still doin the 9007, it doesn't look that hard to me, repin 2 plugs and dremel off 4 indexing keys.

edit: FWIW, I have seen the Hella brands come up several times in my research, all accolades and gushes.

 

[SenorNoob]

Voltage drop depends majorly on the condition of your existing wiring.
In the case of my wife's S10 it was horrific. 9.5 volts at the headlights when running. A cheap relay kit brought that up to 13.8.
On my truck I had 11.something with the key off. Still too much when the battery was reading 13.

 

[Danno1985]

I recently put some Silverstar Ultras in my 2011 and it made a pretty big difference in contrast and definition, especially along the edges. The high beams especially are noticeably improved, but honestly the low beams still kinda suck. Unless I'm driving in the city, I'll pretty much always turn the foglamps on, and even with the factory bulbs the foglamps throw light way farther than the low beams on their own, but without blinding oncoming traffic. That might be something else to consider, especially if you live in a place with a lot of deer. WIth the foglamps, the overall lighting goes from "pretty damn pathetic for a 2011 vehicle" to "acceptable".

 

[Brain75]

wow, foglamps better than low beams... are they white colored too?

 

[Danno1985]

wow, foglamps better than low beams... are they white colored too?

Yup.
I wouldn't say they're "better" - you certainly wouldn't want to use them on their own, but when they're added to the lowbeams, it improves the visibility noticeably. I think Ford technically called them "driving lights" in the literature, so that's what I use them for - they're basically on whenever I'm driving. Thought about replacing them with yellow Hella bulbs like I did on a previous truck so they'll actually function as true foglamps, but I don't really want to sacrifice the downroad visibility.

 

[lil_Blue_Ford]

Yeah, my green 2000 Ranger had aftermarket headlight housings and bulbs when I got it. I tried a couple different bulbs but they all sucked so bad I ran with the factory “fog” lights on and the low beams all the time. Currently I have a temporary bumper on and a temporary light bar but different aftermarket headlight housings (I converted to the 01 style front). Light output from the headlights is much improved. I threw a small light bar on the front for the time being to use like a fog/driving light on back roads and it’s so much better to run low beams and that. When I get the new bumper built I’m putting LED pods in for fog/driving lights. The extra light output especially on dark back roads is helpful for seeing deer. Although most of the local deer have figured out what my trucks sound like and usually stay well out of my way, lol