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How bad are halogen headlights?
- Thread author Luvcats69
- Start date
Not dangerous at all. The only thing that sucks is the color match of the DRLs to the headlights. The color can be fixed for under $100 if it bothers you or you can Replace with LEDs.
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I really appreciate you providing images.
Following the forums for months, there doesn't appear to be a solution to getting an LED bulb that casts a longer throw of light. Really disappointment that a 40k vehicle has halogen bulbs--pretty unacceptable, if you ask me.
From looking at your images, it doesn't appear to be a show stopper as the lighting looks to be barely adequate without being dangerous.
Is that the low beam you're showing?
You cannot really judge how good or bad lighting is from pictures. The halogen light is fine, but I swapped mine with LED for the same reason KennyC stated. That being said, yes they should have made LED lights standard. Weird that they didn’t since a lot of high tech safety features come standard.
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I think it’s more of a disappointment and aesthetic preference than truly a safety issue. Before LEDs, projector halogens were standard. I also have a ‘17 Hyundai Elantra Limited with Ultimate pkg for my other car and the properly engineered halogen projector white light headlights (scores at the top for IIHS) are great at night so I haven’t bothered to swap the OEMs on the Hyundai because I don’t really have much glare and very few dark or hotspots. So the disappointment is that you get such value in the Telluride otherwise, I feel like if they chose not to put the SXP LEDs in the lower trims and not even offer LED fog lights at least they could have engineered the halogen projectors better. It appears they have the Engineering on the Hyundai side. I personally have not yet decided to try a cheap LED bulb replacement option because I’m not convinced it would not add dark spots and glare if not made to fit for the Telluride. The Telluride S, in my opinion, is drivable at night with the stock halogens, but I feel better driving my Elantra with halogens which also has LED fog lights stock. I think I might swap the halogens for white halogens and add an after market pair of SAE/DOT approved LED fog lights to my Telluride since it does not even appear that the OEM SXP fog lights will fit easily in an S.
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Couldn’t agree more. KIA USA really cheap’ed out with the headlights. If I’m not mistaken, doesn’t all Palisade come with LED headlight, for slightly less money with comparable features? Also, doesn’t all trim levels of KT’s for KIA Canada come with LED?
Having switch to LED, I do like that light appear brighter. White light will look brighter than yellow light. Also all the reflective surfaces, ie lane marking and street signs, has an extra “pop” as if I’m using a black light.
I’m back on this forum (which I love) cause I’m going to upgrade the bulbs. So far it seems like I’m leaning toward sticking with the halogen bulbs but moving to a 6000k color temp. The headlights are not bad as is but I can’t stand the way it looks. I’ll post some pics when I make the swap.
And yes, $40,000 should come with LEDs but they could’ve at least matched the color temp with halogens. I know they have to save some extra features for the higher trims it’s just the yellowish headlights look like crap when you have a gorgeous led rim around the headlights.
And yes, $40,000 should come with LEDs but they could’ve at least matched the color temp with halogens. I know they have to save some extra features for the higher trims it’s just the yellowish headlights look like crap when you have a gorgeous led rim around the headlights.
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The Poor rating is for the LX, S and EX. As you can see the front visibility is actually better than the the SX but the side visibility is very different. Fog light option on the lower trims might have helped.
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Just as a comparison I looked at a 2017 Hyundai Elantra Limited with HID and Halogen projectors and curve adaptive headlights and compared that chart to a 2019 Hyundai Elantra Limited with LED projectors and the IIHS chart looks better for the 2017 without LEDs and stock it’s a white vs an amber/yellow bulb. So I think it’s reasonable to assume that Hyundai and Kia could have done a better job even on the nonLED Telluride and Palisade options given that they are taller vehicles with potentially larger bulb projector housings for reflection.
The Poor rating is for the LX, S and EX. As you can see the front visibility is actually better than the the SX but the side visibility is very different. Fog light option on the lower trims might have helped.
Go figure. IMHO the low and high beams on our SX are exceptional.
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YoTellyYo
Member
Let's mark this on the list of "things they don't tell you before you spend $40k" I have just ordered a set of DDM Tuning Plus HID Kit and will try to see if this helps... some other members were having good experiences with it.
I have experience with putting LED bulbs in BMW motorcycle headlight housings. The key to an effective retrofit that doesn't annoy oncoming traffic and puts out much improved light is choosing LED bulbs that locate the emitters in the same location as the halogen filament and making sure the LED is positioned correctly in the assembly.
DDM tuning HID kits also work very well in the BMW housings.
Had I bought an EX I would be looking into a full projector retrofit if the stock projectors don't work well with HID or LED bulbs. I did this on my '18 Chevy 3/4 ton Silverado. It was hard to believe that a truck with a 70k MSRP had crappy halogen headlights (and I mean dangerous crappy on the interstate a night).
But it sounds like the Telluride halogens might be pretty good so maybe just a good set of Silverstar bulbs in the stock projectors would do the trick.
On my Chevy truck the Morimoto retrofit put high and low beams in in one projector using a shutter that had a nice sharp cutoff. The retrofit used 35w HIDs. I then put matching Silverstar Halogens in the stock high beams so the light would match.
The kit that I used did not require baking and opening up the headlight assembly. The Morimoto projector bolted on the from the outside.
DDM tuning HID kits also work very well in the BMW housings.
Had I bought an EX I would be looking into a full projector retrofit if the stock projectors don't work well with HID or LED bulbs. I did this on my '18 Chevy 3/4 ton Silverado. It was hard to believe that a truck with a 70k MSRP had crappy halogen headlights (and I mean dangerous crappy on the interstate a night).
But it sounds like the Telluride halogens might be pretty good so maybe just a good set of Silverstar bulbs in the stock projectors would do the trick.
On my Chevy truck the Morimoto retrofit put high and low beams in in one projector using a shutter that had a nice sharp cutoff. The retrofit used 35w HIDs. I then put matching Silverstar Halogens in the stock high beams so the light would match.
The kit that I used did not require baking and opening up the headlight assembly. The Morimoto projector bolted on the from the outside.
JonFar111
Well-known member
Xenon HID kit makes for an easy fix fro the crappy halogens. Here's my original post. https://tellurideforum.org/threads/ex-hid-xenon-headlight-replacement.1965/
TellurideNY
FOUNDING MEMBER
- Joined
- Apr 21, 2019
- Messages
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I personally found the EX headlights lacking compared to my 2011 Forester, 2011 Outback, and 2017 Outback especially in very dark conditions on the highway at night. I put Headlight Revolution V.4 LED retrofits in about a week ago. Around town they are performing well and I have not had anyone flash me or anything. Against the wall the beam cutoff looks great. I will be doing some night time highway driving this weekend so I can report back after that.
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There is likely a very minimal difference in manufacturer cost for the LED headlamps vs the Halogen. It wasn't about Kia being cheap. This is simply Kia putting highly desirable features on higher priced models to induce customers to spend more on the purchase. Auto companies have been doing this longer than I've been alive.
So I read so many posts about lighting with this car and many others that don't come factory with led's so I finally figured id throw out my 2 cents. I've had over twenty cars in my twenty years driving and I've modified almost all of them, its sort of my addiction. Ive tried many halogens over the years and all the short life claims and minor color enhancements were all true in my case. For the last few years I have been using Diode Dynamics SL1's in all my vehicles since they were designed especially for projector beam housings. They fit perfectly under the dust shield and in all my cases have had no black spots unlike some of the cheaper alternatives. I got mine the last time from Amazon for $130 a pair. They are such an improvement in not just the perfect color, but in brightness. My wife keeps checking to see if her high beams are on and worries she is blinding other drivers. I have never been flashed by other drivers and I think that's partly because of the engineering of the bulb, after all SL1 stands for street legal. So there is my 2 cents.
We just need a volunteer (or dealer) near St. Louis to let Diode Dynamics borrow a Telluride:
