Headlight "Side-View"

[AK Telly]

I'm quite disappointed w/ the "side-view" of my LX headlights when turning sharply, as in low speed residential areas.......it's really dark out there ! I am going to change out my halogen bulbs for LED's, and I'm wondering if there are any LED's that would be especially better for the "side-view" ?? As always, TIA ......

 

[Tellthemride]

If you are talking about the light beam spread or pattern, that is determined by the head light housing, not the bulb.

So an LED bulb may make the outer edges of the beam pattern brighter, but it won’t change the way the headlamp housing was designed to distribute the light.

 

[LiquidUte]

If you frequently drive curvy roads at night, you could install something like this. They hook up in the back corners of the hood and shine out at an angle. My buddy has some on his Tacoma and with these plus a light bar we were able to off-road during a very dark night almost like it was day time. You'll want to turn them out if there is an oncoming traffic though.

Lasfit Corner Pod Light

 

[AK Telly]

I just finished installing Lasfit LED's in my headlights, and you are right Tellthemride ......it didn't hardly change the side-view lighting. (But it certainly did improve the 4ward looking light.........much, MUCH better light than the halogens). IMHO Kia needs to address this "side-view" lighting issue.

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[jodo]

If you frequently drive curvy roads at night, you could install something like this. They hook up in the back corners of the hood and shine out at an angle. My buddy has some on his Tacoma and with these plus a light bar we were able to off-road during a very dark night almost like it was day time. You'll want to turn them out if there is an oncoming traffic though.

Lasfit Corner Pod Light

View attachment 23524

Oo, those are nice. I personally dislike light bars but those side lights could be super handy. I wonder if you could wire them up to the high-beams so they can turn off with the auto high-beam system. That could be cool.

 

[2020Telly]

I’m not sure I can explain the optics well enough but I’ll just tell you what I tried. My other car also has 9005 bulbs, so I had some extras in my garage and bought a cheap set to try. For the Tellurides with the white DRL rectangles, when I tried an amber softer color in the 3-4,000k temp scale I was not impressed with distance nor foreground. However, the closer I got to matching the DRLs in the 5-6,000k color temp range I personally appeared to notice the objects in the foreground to become more clear and not have any glare. After researching this I realized that much of this could be a phenomenon known as “perceived brightness”. What I concluded in my test was that the closer I got to the white color temp of DRLs for the headlights the better the white DRLs appeared to work in the foreground for me. I think that my eyes could have been trying to adjust or dilating for two different colors when they didn’t match but I perceived it to be brighter all around when the colors matched. I definitely feel the cooler white color felt brighter to me, I am just careful not to get too high of a lumen rating so that I can avoid glare.

Regardless, I still ended up with fog lights to resolve every situation.

This website has some good information: BulbFacts | Compare the best headlight bulbs all in one place!