I appreciate the level-headed reply.
What I've found is that there are no true legal regulations or laws surrounding headlights and their performance. The only regulations that exist are that you must have them and when you should use them.
What do you mean?
Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard 108 is federal law and it covers headlamps. And it goes into excruciating detail about the legal standards your headlamps must meet--for example, the plastic lens on your Telluride's headlamps must withstand a minimum of 3 years of actual weathering in Florida and Arizona. No accelerated testing allowed--you actually have to let the plastic sit outside for 3 years.
Also, your low beams have to meet the requirements at every single one of these points/regions specified below. That's 21 points/regions in the beam, each with certain photometric requirements, such as a minimum intensity, a maximum intensity, or even both at some points/regions.
So yes, there are plenty of legal performance requirements.
Again, I'm not purposefully trying to start a debate, just a conversation. I felt your post reflected a lot of the information I found that was heavy weighted toward conventional bulbs. My concern with those sources were that I felt they lacked a more current and impartial feel.
Again--I appreciate the even-handed response. I do not wish to start a grand debate here. I only wish to state the facts.
You say you "feel" this way or that way a lot of times--that's the issue.
People can feel all sorts of way about something. How one feels doesn't really matter in light of the facts.
How one feels about their headlamps especially doesn't matter, because in general, people are bad at accurately assessing their headlamp performance. It is
very possible to be comfortable with a headlamp that gives you an objectively poor view of the road at night. This is a fact that is well-documented in the literature and understood by headlamp designers. Citations below.
Another study by different researchers arriving at the same conclusion--consumers prefer headlamps with high levels of foreground illumination instead of worrying about objectively more important factors, such as distance illumination.
Yet another study for headlamp designers showing that consumers overwhelmingly prefer objectively poorer distributions of light, or in other words--lots of light up close, and...who cares about distance illumination?
There is no grand conspiracy by traditional bulb makers to dissuade the adoption of LED bulbs. I'm not even sure why anyone would bother with such running such a grand conspiracy. All the major companies who make traditional automotive halogen bulbs--Philips, Osram/Sylvania, etc.--are heavily invested in LEDs as well. The writing has been on the wall: LED is the future. Governments have been banning the use of traditional filament bulbs for household use. There's no value in convincing a few people online reading a forum to buy a piddling quantity of bulbs, especially when OEM contracts exist. Selling 10,000,000 bulbs to Hyundai/Kia is a little more important than selling an additional 20 bulbs to some forum readers.
I'm also not sure how much more impartial you can get than the source I linked, which does
not have:
- A single Amazon Affiliates or other sort of "buy this product" link on their site, unlike, say, Headlight Revolution and their "testing."
- A single direct recommendation for any bulb, be it LED or filament, from any manufacturer--all's that presented is the data, with no "you should definitely buy this" sort of commentary.
All the post I linked to above says that these many-sided LED bulbs didn't work across 4 different headlamps, which is a good representation of the headlamps on the market. It doesn't tell you what else to buy. It doesn't tell you to buy halogen bulbs. It simply states to buy something that works well with the headlamp. It doesn't even rule LED bulbs out. It doesn't even provide a helpful link to a $120 competing product that works well. The intention of the source is obviously not to peddle products but to inform, because many people have been caught up in the LED fad without realizing exactly how they're being swindled.
There is, however, some pretty
informed and objective testing contained within that website. Actual valid testing, unlike the testing that other posters' seem to rely on, such as Headlight Revolution's "testing." And an explanation of how the multi-sided LED bulb from Twelvolt and other retailers "work" to fill in the shadow that other people have complained about when using other LED bulbs. And an explanation of how the many-sided LED bulb shifts the high-intensity zone to a less useful position. And an explanation of how there's a gap between human perception of headlamp performance and actual performance.
Anyway, you might be curious about
my motivations. Perfectly fine. My only motivation is to inform.
I'm not the owner of that site, nor do I have any affiliation with the Automotive LED Research site/Facebook page. However, I am similarly interested in informed, objective testing of LED bulbs. I've spent a lot of time reading the writings of an industry expert on Reddit. I subsequently decided to take matters into my own hands to obtain my own data, as he couldn't share much data (most of it is under NDA).
I spent a few hundred on creating my own testing environment. I included the test of the Sealight in an Accord projector because that projector is cheap and found in dozens of cars from Chevy, Subaru, Toyota, and Honda, such as the Honda Accord and Chevy Equinox. "Sealight" is also commonly cited brand of "good" LED bulbs. My testing blew apart everyone who owns one of the Chevy's/Subaru's/Toyota's/Honda's and claimed that their Sealight unit was supposed to be some sort of upgrade. Like I stated, and backed up with multiple scientific sources: humans are ill-equipped to accurately judge headlamp performance with their bare eyes. And I showed that fact with my own objective testing.
My testing setup is not the fanciest--I have a day job and a wife and kids. But it is, above all, more objective than most of the "testing" and "eyeball testimonials" you will find. For one, all the lamps, before testing, are laser-aligned with the help of the DeWalt laser plumb shown on the left below. Testing is done at specific points that are called out by federal law (see chart above). And testing is done at a distance of just over 25 feet, measured with a Bosch laser rangefinder.
No testing is better than sloppy, non-scientific testing--that's why I take measurement and alignment seriously. Maybe some people will step back for a moment and reassess the validity of someone's "eyeball testimonial." Maybe some people will step back and instead of downgrading their vehicle's headlamps, will simply keep their stock setup. Both outcomes would be a "win" in my book. I don't monetarily benefit if people decide to buy something or not. My only concern is the sheer number of people who are willingly and eagerly downgrading their headlight setups, and I believe that well-presented, informed, and unbiased testing can hopefully help at least one person out there "see the light."
Here's another interesting "eyeball testimonial" that my testing also blew apart--the oft-repeated claim that Sylvania Silverstar halogen bulbs are supposed to be better than the Sylvania Basic halogen bulbs. A simple Google search will reveal thousands of people online who will swear up and down that their Sylvania Silverstar bulbs are supposed to be an improvement over regular bulbs. It's not--at least not in a projector found in everything from 2010-2017 GMC Terrain's to 2017-2018 Mazda 3's to basically every Honda from 2008 to today to 2011-2019 Toyota Sienna's to 2018+ Subaru Legacy's, etc.
Chart below. See! I can't be a halogen bulb shill--I'm literally tearing apart the most profitable halogen bulb ever created--the Sylvania Silverstar bulb...the short-lived $50 bulb that performs no better than a long-lasting $15 dollar bulb
. The unfortunate fact of the matter is that even Sylvania itself has smeared the Silverstar bulb for causing some headlamps to fail minimum government standards (
no kidding). And yet Sylvania has the nerve to sell its failure-causing bulbs for $50 a pop at your local AutoZone/Napa/Pep Boys.
Now that you've made to to the end of my long-winded exhortation, I hope everyone can see that:
- I don't have any particular grudge against LEDs in general
- I'm only interested in scientific truth
- I'm willing to tear into whatever product, be it LED or halogen, that misleads consumers (*cough* Sylvania Silverstar)
- I have the necessary understanding and testing setup to objective evaluate bulbs and their claims
- I see a lot of people here who have been misled by less-than-objective online sources and less-than-objective online "tests", and my only hope is that someone takes my information into consideration, that is all.
- I don't have any products here to recommend apart from any halogen HIR1/9011 type bulb, from any reputable brand. I don't care if you buy a Philips or Sylvania or Osram or GE or Wagner or Hella or whatever 9011/HIR1 bulb. It doesn't monetarily benefit me in any way. I don't even care if you ignore my suggestion--it's ultimately your car, and you can do what you want (at your own risk). But what I can say is that a 9011 bulb would be an objective upgrade over the stock 9005s, and a 9005-->9011 swap is something that numerous people have done in various cars for the last 15 years, all to good effect.
