Xenon Bulbs - Opinions?

[Hypnotic Toast]

A buddy of mine and I were at the local Pep Boys in our town looking at some stereo equipment for his Ranger when we ran across their selection of Xenon bulbs, the ones that are all blue and have like Japanese words and stuff all over the packaging with pictures of tuner cars. I think I've even seen a couple pairs at our Autozone too.

Now I've got SS Ultra's in my headlights and he happens to actually have a pair of the Xenon's in his. His headlights do appear brighter than mine but both of us run stock bulbs in our foglights. So for shits and giggles, he bought a pair of the Xenon bulbs to replace his fogs, but he did only one side to compare. The weird thing was, there was almost no difference between the two, at all. Maybe he had a bad pair or something?

And I've kind of wondered about these Xenon lights, as they are much cheaper than SS Ultra's ($20 a pair compared to $50) and look brighter too. Any downsides to these kind of lights?

 

[machine090767]

looking brighter and performance are two different things.
I knew a guy who always would mock my halogen bulbs because he had 10K HIDS which did work great... until it was raining. Then, the white light seemed to "dissapear" and the road was completely black in front od his truck. while, my 4K halogens although not the best, did actually light up the road better in the rain. this is why amber lights are better suited for wet conditions. although amber headlamps are illegal in the US.
another thing to remember: any coating a bulb has on it will hinder it's output. sort of like if you have 2 light bulbs in your home, both the same brand, style wattage, except one has a "frosted" coating while the other is clear, the clear bulb "appears" brighter due to it's lack of any coating.
in my opinion: no coating is better than coating on a bulb.

 

[Jason]

There were cars built as recently as the 90's with both clear and amber headlamps. Some POS GM that I can't remember.

 

[daniel3507]

One downside, they look stupid if you ask me. The quality isnt very good either. Dont expect them to last long.

 

[Hypnotic Toast]

I see, I was kind of curious about the light output. It makes sense though, since it looks like my beams go further out and illuminate more, just not as white.

Still find the foglight thing weird though, we were both assuming that they would look white but there was almost no difference between the Xenon's and regular halogens. Maybe his housing was dirty or something.

 

[Original_Ranger84]

Well regular halogens and xenon bulbs really are no different except for the gas inside the light. They might be whiter because they are newer, have less of a coating, or are aimed slightly differently.

I have the SS Ultras in my truck as well and I am annoyed that they don't put out the light I want but my girlfriends GE Nighthawks are super bright or atleast appear that way.

 

[CSyd77]

I can't remember the brand that I had, but they only lasted 3 months at the most

 

[Snafu]

I am using Halogens also and they work great, the only problem I find is I have them miss-aligned XD but its a simple fix, I just need to actually do it

 

[strvger]

don't forget that good fog light lenses are fluted. they disperse light so most of the beam is rather close and down on the road. that could account for the two different bulbs looking so similar in those fog lights.
just a thought.