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LED headlamp bulbs

I'm still really happy with the Philips LED bulbs. Very expensive. Very Good. No complaints from oncoming drivers!
 
Mine (from Woodypeck) had to be lowered considerably. Of course when I first tried them without adjusting them the beam had great throw. After adjustment, nowhere near as good. When I replaced them the Phillips ones needed raising back up. Quite an eye opener.
when you saw "lowered" .. how did you do that?
but in the end the lowering... didn't really work and you went with Philips which then had to be adjusted differently
 
Presumably you’re aware it’s now an mot fail if you change your headlight bulbs to led rather than the whole unit
 
From the MOT manual:
  1. Some vehicles may be fitted with High Intensity Discharge (HID) headlamps. It is not permitted to convert existing halogen headlamp units for use with HID bulbs. If it is clear that such a conversion has been carried out, rather than replacing the entire unit with one designed and approved for use with HID bulbs, the headlamp should be rejected.
 
I have some LED H4’s in the outer headlamps and some HID’s in the inner headlamps. The aim is spot on with both but HID’s in the outer’s were crap. Got through the MOT this year just before the regs changed but the inner heads will obviously fail next year so I’ll probably source some LED H1 replacements.
 
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when you saw "lowered" .. how did you do that?
but in the end the lowering... didn't really work and you went with Philips which then had to be adjusted differently
My MOT tester did them for me using his beam checker and adjusting one of the screws on the top of each lamp. They were fine once adjusted but if course weren’t such a long throw as when I first installed them without being adjusted.

I believe the Phillips LEDs are available in H1.
 
My phillips passed the mot without a mention but only a few weeks agter the new regs. Kept the old bulbs in case.
 
my mot tester didn't even notice or comment on the fact that I had fitted LED bulbs.
 
Have to say in my ignorance i thought they were one and the same
HID = High Intensity Discharge lamps. Known in the general electrical industry as Metal Halide lamps. Basically a contained electrical arc which gives off a huge amount of heat. These take a second or two to ‘strike’ or start an arc. Not so good for dim/dip to Main beam. Not easy to mimic a fillament lamp.
LED = Light Emitting Diode, instant lighting, lots of light out put for very little heat and good beam pattern as the LED ‘chips’ can be made into various shapes.
 
HID = High Intensity Discharge lamps. Known in the general electrical industry as Metal Halide lamps. Basically a contained electrical arc which gives off a huge amount of heat. These take a second or two to ‘strike’ or start an arc. Not so good for dim/dip to Main beam. Not easy to mimic a fillament lamp.
LED = Light Emitting Diode, instant lighting, lots of light out put for very little heat and good beam pattern as the LED ‘chips’ can be made into various shapes.
I thought all the modern car lamps were LED type, I'd come across HID in my electrical work but thought maybe when used in the automotive world it was just a bastardiation of the term applied to LEDs as they didn't really seem suitable, evidently not so!!
 
Back to the MOT question... it takes some time for the regs to catch up with the tech, so IMHO it's only a matter of time before LEDs are subject to the same controls as HID. They both emit a much brighter and more intense light and therefore need different lenses from regular filament bulbs.

That said, I passed my last MOT with LHD headlights fitted which should definitely be a fail, so I think these things depend a lot on your tester and the day he/she is having:)
 
I’m not sure the light intensity is so important as the way it’s directed. There’s far brighter factory headlights out there than the Phillips LEDs in an 80. The HIDs are a problem as they are an arc rather than a fillament and give light at right angles to what the existing lenses were designed for. Beam pattern therefore is all over the place on HIDs in old style lenses.
 
Beam pattern therefore is all over the place on HIDs in old style lenses.


Not always. The HIDs in my inner headlights are as good, focus wise, as the halogens I took out but the outer lamps were rubbish bordering on dangerous so I went for LEDs instead. The HIDs are much brighter than any LEDs I’ve come across. A better MOT approach would be to go purely on focus/beam pattern IMO.
 
Not always. The HIDs in my inner headlights are as good, focus wise, as the halogens I took out but the outer lamps were rubbish bordering on dangerous so I went for LEDs instead. The HIDs are much brighter than any LEDs I’ve come across. A better MOT approach would be to go purely on focus/beam pattern IMO.
Isn’t it the case that the inners are high beam only? The MOT focusing on the dipped beam so as not to dazzle oncoming traffic, where Main beam can be anywhere really as you only use it when there’s no one approaching?
 
I’m not sure the light intensity is so important as the way it’s directed. There’s far brighter factory headlights out there than the Phillips LEDs in an 80. The HIDs are a problem as they are an arc rather than a fillament and give light at right angles to what the existing lenses were designed for. Beam pattern therefore is all over the place on HIDs in old style lenses.

Wouldn't you say it's both? Surely the brightness dictates how the beam must be directed...

Headlights designed for filament bulbs permit quite a lot of the 'peripheral' beam to be directed at oncoming traffic. Put an LED or HID bulb in them and you'll be dazzling people. Whereas, headlights designed for the much brighter HID/LED bulbs have a completely different design - projectors and whatnot, that create a sharp upper edge to the beam.
 
Wouldn't you say it's both? Surely the brightness dictates how the beam must be directed...

Headlights designed for filament bulbs permit quite a lot of the 'peripheral' beam to be directed at oncoming traffic. Put an LED or HID bulb in them and you'll be dazzling people. Whereas, headlights designed for the much brighter HID/LED bulbs have a completely different design - projectors and whatnot, that create a sharp upper edge to the beam.
I guess this is mostly true but if you consider that Phillips have thrown their design team at these to be able to work well as retrofits then as long as the beam cuts off correctly (as they do) then the amount of light should be immaterial if it is directed so as not to dazzle.

I can only go by what my MOT tester that I’ve used for many years and know pretty well, says in that the Phillips LEDs give the best pattern he has seen. Very good.
 
Well, I certainly agree you get what you pay for! Wish I'd tried the Phillips before I splashed £350 on aftermarket headlights :angry:
 
if the mot criteria is achieved surely it doesn't matter whats in there?
 
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