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from the shine-a-bright-light-on-the-subject dept.
Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:
It might be stating the obvious, but your car's headlights are a safety device, and not all headlights are created equal. For a while, carmakers have been fitting powerful LED headlights to their high-end offerings, but more often than not, their cheaper cars—and particularly cheaper trim levels—get saddled with much-weaker illumination. But sometimes a commuter wants to see more of where they're going when the sun goes down. Eventually, they go looking for a solution, starting with their local automotive parts store. But stuffing aftermarket LED headlight bulbs into OEM housings designed for conventional halogen units results in dangerous glare for oncoming drivers. While LEDs can deliver more intense light at a higher end of the spectrum, most aftermarket units also create a hazardous condition.
The major brick-and-mortar auto parts stores know this, which is why they tend to shy away from aftermarket H11 LED bulbs, other than ones clearly marked for use in fog lamps or "for off-road use only." It's a different world online, with off-brand H11 LED bulb listings on Amazon, eBay, and Walmart websites failing to carry the same prominent warnings.
You can get pulled over for non-spec headlamps, and for a good reason. In addition to issuing a citation, the law enforcement officer may have the legal right to force you to remove the bulbs. More ominously, once the officer has pulled you over, you risk a vehicle search. With all that in mind, it would be wise to keep a set of securely packaged OEM bulbs in the glovebox or trunk if you are running aftermarket LEDs.
Although Consumer Reports tests new vehicle headlamps, it hasn't tackled the topic of LED replacement bulbs, despite Consumer Reports' extensive resources. A comprehensive Consumer Reports aftermarket LED replacement bulb test would go a long way to bring clarity to the market. Consumer Reports' testing of conventional replacement bulbs found that while aftermarket units can improve headlight brightness, there's much more to it than that. "Distance and how far a headlight illuminates is governed more by the reflector (behind the bulb) or the lens (ahead of the bulbs). While you can change the bulb, you are not changing the distance, i.e., not necessarily improving safety."
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(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Wednesday March 18 2020, @02:16AM
Either you live in a weird place, or you're confusing factory HIDs and LEDs with aftermarket ones. I have a hard time believing that anywhere near 25% of drivers in a place would have aftermarket LED bulbs installed; most people do not install aftermarket parts in their cars at all.
Most new cars now come with LEDs from the factory, and lots of cars have had HIDs for years now, starting in the early 2000s I think. All of them are going to look much brighter than halogen systems. But the factory ones should have proper beam patters, and also be leveled: I think there's a law that requires these vehicles to have auto-leveling headlights to keep them from blinding people, though of course this doesn't work so well when there's hills.