I went with the PIAA Xtreme White Plus (9004), have been very happy with them, and have no worries about catching a ticket. They were spendy little dudes, but I've no regrets about buying them.

 

Done deal.. ordered some 9004's and some new corner light bulbs from amazon a second ago. Like I said guys HIDS are out of the question so I did what I had to do.

 

Did you do the projector (aftermarket or retrofit) route? I am tempted every day to order a HID kit, but like others have said, with no sight shields in our stock housings, the HIDs will glare at other drivers, no?

As far as being worse than stock... only reason a high wattage bulb would be worse than stock is if it was coated. Hence why I am testing that theory, as soon as I pick up a few more hours at work.

pcfixerpro, let us know how the bulbs work out for you.

 

I had a discussion with the parts store guy (known him for a few years through buying parts). We got on the discussion of what I was trying to do between the 9007 & 9004 and he thought that was pretty cool, but reconsidering jason's opinion steered me away. We talked about HIDS and the availability of bulbs. He says they stock OE HID bulbs for cars but if you were ever in a pinch and needed to replace a bulb from an aftermarket kit because yours burnt out, your at the mercy of buying bulbs through the company online because most bulbs had different connectors for different manufacturers anyway. Spending 35 for relay harnesses + high watt bulbs seemed like more pain than it was worth expecially since you want to swap them out jason. Regular 9004's have got me through, I just use my pushbar lights for extra light on the road. I'm shooting for next weekend install so we'll see what happens.

 

I have HID housings. Cheapos in the HID market, but they work well.

 

He told you a lie. Most, I won't say all, but most aftermarket HID kits use AMP connectors. So any HID bulb in the correct socket size would work as long as it uses AMP connectors which most do. So you could basically order them from any company you wanted and they would work with most any ballast you had.


For years, I had reasons why not to go HID, but once I finally did go with HID's I love it, and wouldn't go back. While I found some decent halogen bulbs, even the best ones don't even come close to comparing to HID's. Plus if you ever decide to go with HID's you can get decent kits now super cheap from DDM Tuning. The projectors are the biggest expense and I know lots of guys don't use them, but it really is the proper way to go about it.

 

The main point was... you can't just run to the autoparts store and pick up a aftermarket hid bulb like you can halogens (at least around here). If they have different connectors, that just throws more of a monkey wrench in the mix.

 

Yeah, I need to work in some off road lights someday.

 

On my garage kept 2001, I just cut-polished and waxed the lens and installed Xeon 9004 bulbs 60/55 ($6.99 a pair at Princess Auto)and the lights are awesome!
The next night we did my sons 99, NOT garage kept, cut-polished and waxed the lens (HUGE difference) and when I took out his bulbs he had 9007's, I just replaced them with the Xeon 9004 bulbs like I had just installed in mine and he was totally amazed at how much better his lights were! He also mentioned that his hi-beam indicator never went out with the 9007's but that everything worked perfectly now. Took about 45 mins each truck, my son's took a bit longer as his lens were badly yellowed/cloudy.
Two concerns I would have with the 100/80 watt bulbs, #1 the ticket (illegal here) and #2 the heat generated by the bulbs. These trucks have a relatively small headlight body area and my friend with his 1997 F150 that has a headlight body area at least twice the size of mine, installed 100/80 bulbs and burnt his (plastic) headlight lens! Hi-visability bulbs and clear lens is the way to go IMO.

 

sorry i didn't update the thread... i put the housings in last friday. Can't say im overly happy with them, but they do the trick. Oh well... there is a truck show the 31st so i'll get pics then when the truck is all cleaned up.