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Headlight Led Upgrade

I am not trying to suggest any specific LED bulb for the Telluride but have been through probably 6 different brands with my 2017 pickup truck. Very poor original headlights and fog lights. My truck has low beam projector housings and the high beams are a reflector housings. I tried LED bulbs in the low beam projector housing to take the place of the halogen and they didn't work very good. Some I tried put out less lux than the halogen. Others were brighter but the beam pattern was so scattered there was no light focused down the road. I did stumble across a web site called Headlight Revolution that had a ton of videos comparing a bunch of LED bulbs in different types and brands of headlight housings. They were already very familiar with the poor headlights on my specific truck and suggested HID's for me. After spending a bunch of money on different LED's from Amazon and other places the 55 watt HID's were the only thing that was better in my housings than the halogen and they were TREMENDOUSLY better. HID's can be a pain to implement in vehicles due to the ballasts needed so they very well may not fit in the telluride. Also HID's have to warn up so in my case with two different light bulbs in separate housings I had to put LED's in my high beams for an instant on when I needed them. My wifes SX came with LED's that are really fantastic so haven't had to look into replacing them and don't know how confined the space is. I have found that the claims on how bright the LED's are on Amazon and some other sites are not always accurate or at least the light they claim they put out is not very usable. There is just a lot of usable information on Headlight Revolution that may help you to decide on what may work. The same bulb in one housing will work really well but be awful in another brand housing. They also have videos on you tube. At least it helped me decide on the best Kelvin (color) for my HID's but LED's are very limited on color and 6000k seems to be the most available. 5000K is definitely the best color for my specific needs but couldn't find LED's that worked very well for the high beams in that color. I ended up going all 6000k to match and it actually seemed to work much better maybe due to my eyes not having to adjust to the different colors. Sorry for being so long winded but it was a very difficult and expensive journey to find what worked in my vehicle and wanted to try and help out.
HIDs with external ballasts were easy to install. Color is awesome and light output for both high and low is terrific. Warmup takes seconds, so truly never an issue. EX HID Xenon headlight replacement
 
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This is great and I been down the same road with testing different LED's (4 Brands) I gave up and kept a pair of SeaLight from Amazon thank God for a Prime account easy return process. I was browsing and came across the Headlight Revolution great information for all types of LED. Hopefully they can review the Telluride one day seems the website focus more on Trucks etc..
Next to actually taking a headlight out to see exactly what might be in the
 
I am actually pretty impressed with those Twelvolt multi-sided bulbs. I actually tried multi-sided bulbs in my truck and my wifes old (2015) Traverse (pre Telluride) and they were horrible. Just scattered light everywhere with no focused usable light down the road. I saw some pics of telluride headlights in this thread earlier and saw they were a single headlight housing. My wife's SX is a dual headlight (pic attached). One for low beam and one for high. That obviously does make a BIG difference. Usually with a single headlight for high and low beam there is a shutter that moves and allows light to flood the entire housing for high beams while the shutter lowers to block light for the low (have an older Ford company car that works that way). I guess the shutter makes the good cutoff line the pictures show and I couldn't achieve with separate housing in my other vehicles. With everything I have gone through with my wife's old Traverse and my truck to get LED headlights to work I feel I have learned a lot from this thread. Even though I went through all of this before this thread was started and before the Telluride, it shows how informative a site such as this can be.
 

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I just had a chance to go look at the Twelvolt bulbs. At first glance I thought they were three sided which they are not. It is a very interesting design that I haven't seen before. Very very interesting. I will continue to watch this thread and maybe someone will post some pics with low and high beams on a dark road. I do have a family member that has a vehicle that currently has LED's but they are just OK and not that good. This may be worth upgrading to. Keep the posts coming!
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I just had a chance to go look at the Twelvolt bulbs. At first glance I thought they were three sided which they are not. It is a very interesting design that I haven't seen before. Very very interesting. I will continue to watch this thread and maybe someone will post some pics with low and high beams on a dark road. I do have a family member that has a vehicle that currently has LED's but they are just OK and not that good. This may be worth upgrading to. Keep the posts coming!
I think that’s what differentiates the Twelvolts. The wedge design appears to be optimized for the Telluride’s projector housing to avoid any dark spots. I noticed immediate improvement and driving at night feels much safer.
 
I’m glad you like them !! I can’t say anything bad about the install or the performance of the LEDs from (company Twelvolt) there from Florida and are a private LED and HID company . For anyone that wants more info just do you do diligence and look back a couple pages and read what we have been talking about for the last month. There’s phone numbers and emails for contacting this extremely friendly and open company that I personally did not know before I talked to a member here named “Clack”. He bought the LEDs first In my opinion on this forum and showed the results through pictures and testimony. I was sold and called them up and got a ton of information and very professional advice. I’m extremely happy with the product and would recommend it to any “Telluride “ owner. Sorry that this was a long post but I wanted to clean up to everyone here my stance and help others in there decision going forward.
Is there any heating issue in the housing and do you here the noise of LED fan when your inside vehicle?
 
I just had a chance to go look at the Twelvolt bulbs. At first glance I thought they were three sided which they are not. It is a very interesting design that I haven't seen before. Very very interesting. I will continue to watch this thread and maybe someone will post some pics with low and high beams on a dark road. I do have a family member that has a vehicle that currently has LED's but they are just OK and not that good. This may be worth upgrading to. Keep the posts coming!
First pic is the Twelvolts on low beam. Second pic is with high beams. Specks on the windshield are from a light rain drizzle.

Here’s a link to a garage door pic to show the lack of dark spots. Headlight Led Upgrade

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The only thing that my EX was missing were LED headlights. Today, I rectified this issue with an upgrade. My local LED lighting shop was able to install a setup that fits perfectly in the small cavity where the original incandescent sits. I will take some night shots later. The shop is also able to ship these bulbs as well if members are interested.
What are they called (brand name), and what # are they.
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What are they called (brand name), and what # are they.
Fairly certain that @Rich06 is talking about the Precisions from Twelvolt.
 
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First pic is the Twelvolts on low beam. Second pic is with high beams. Specks on the windshield are from a light rain drizzle.

Here’s a link to a garage door pic to show the lack of dark spots. Headlight Led Upgrade

View attachment 5903
Thanks for posting this. They really look good. They look as bright as my wife's stock SX LED's. Hers may be just a tad wider but for putting LED's in a Halogen projector headlight they really look awesome and might be hard to beat. I'm impressed. I think Kia did a good job with there projector housings too.
 
Thanks for posting this. They really look good. They look as bright as my wife's stock SX LED's. Hers may be just a tad wider but for putting LED's in a Halogen projector headlight they really look awesome and might be hard to beat. I'm impressed. I think Kia did a good job with there projector housings too.
I have a ‘17 Hyundai with curve adaptive HID projectors that scored very high on IIHS. By comparison these LED bulbs in the Telluride’s projector housing aren’t quite as wide a view as that car, but not bad for under $100 and a massive improvement over the OEM halogens.
 
I have a ‘17 Hyundai with curve adaptive HID projectors that scored very high on IIHS. By comparison these LED bulbs in the Telluride’s projector housing aren’t quite as wide a view as that car, but not bad for under $100 and a massive improvement over the OEM halogens.
You are right. I think ESPECIALLY for $100 they are great. The way they look online I think they would be hard to beat at any price. I can only imagine how much the stock LED's in the SX would cost to replace from the dealer. I bet they would be more than $100.
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You are right. I think ESPECIALLY for $100 they are great. The way they look online I think they would be hard to beat at any price. I can only imagine how much the stock LED's in the SX would cost to replace from the dealer. I bet they would be more than $100.

$625 each retail for the SX led bulbs (part #92180-S9100)
 
On the opposite end of the fiscal outlay curve, here's a $4.24 halogen upgrade (per light) that's working well for me. Much more illumination than stock yet doesn't blind oncoming traffic due to the strict projector cut-off line. No, they don't match the DRLs obviously, and signs don't pop as much visually as they do with the bright white of LEDs, but they throw a lot of light on the road and I find them as good or better than all the LED options I tried before. Have been flashed zero times in 3 weeks with them. Because they say "off-road use only," and they are 100w bulbs, I had my wife drive past a couple times at night with them while I sat in our other car in the street facing her, for a real life oncoming glare test. The light did not glare in my eyes.


One other advantage to halogens in wintry conditions is that they seem to cut through falling snow better than the bright white of LEDs, or at least that's how it seems to me. So I'm pretty happy so far with this solution, esp. in winter. Life-span is only rated at 500 hours but at the asking price I bought a bunch of extras just in case they burn out too soon. This solution won't be for everyone of course.
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I don't have down road pics but here's our garage door with driver side Hella and passenger side stock. You can see quite a difference.
 

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The only upgrade I suggest to the headlight bulbs are 9011/HIR1 halogen bulbs, not any sort of LED bulb. 9011 bulbs put out 33% more lumens at the same or slightly lesser power consumption as 9005 bulbs.

As far as LED bulbs go, here's a scorecard.

I'll sum it up:

1) 27 out of 27 headlamps with retrofit LED bulbs failed basic photometric testing: too much glare, too little distance illumination, or both. All of the halogen bulbs, however, easily passed photometric testing.

2) 6 out of the 9 LED bulbs tested in a projector headlamp produced too much glare, often at multiple test points (rear view mirror glare, oncoming vehicle glare)

3) 1 of the 9 LED bulbs tested in a projector matched the halogen bulb for distance illumination. The other 8 out of the 9 LED bulbs mostly didn't achieve half the values set by the halogen bulb.

In other words, the probability of the "Sealight 9005 LED bulb" working well (minimizing glare and maximizing distance illumination) would be unprecedented, for one thing. The probability is likely close to 0. The probability of, however, a 9005 --> 9011 bulb conversion working well is 100%, as the 9011 bulb precisely matches a 9005 bulb in the critical dimensions and source image characteristics.

Just to put everything in context: both Americans and Europeans have been working on defining what exactly a valid LED retrofit is for the last several years. The problem isn't as simple as "pick a LED with a row of 3 or 4 chips in a straight line," to say the least ;). As a result, any sort of LED bulb on the market today is not standards-compliant, because there are no standards. Perhaps not everyone shares my view, but my view is that running non-standards compliant safety equipment is not the wisest of ideas.

Did you upgrade to the 9011/HIR1 halogen bulbs? Are you happy with them? Where did you purchase?
Thx!
 
The Diode Dynamics LED were not acceptable. I am going to try the Twelvolt that others have recommended on other posts here. I’ll let you know how it goes. The people from Twelvolt assure me that these lights work well on the Telluride.
9005/9006 Precision Projector Specific LED Bulbs-7200lm
I’m very pleased with my Twelvolts. They had great customer service and I feel they are bright enough to improve visibility over the stock halogens but not so much that it creates a ton of glare. I also have not found any dark spots. These very well could be the best LED configuration for the Telluride projector housing.
 
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