Just wondering if anyone has tried the newer offerings of LED headlight bulbs like these:


I've actually had pretty good success with my last HID purchase, but since the 1-year warranty is coming up I'm expecting them to go to hell soon. These LED bulbs have a 5-year warranty, which would be nice.

If anyone has tried these LED H11 bulbs please share your experience.

Rob

 

i dont spend much for my hid kits, usually about $40-70 per set. from time to time they go out. i have headlight los and fogs, ive had to replace 2 ballast in past 4 years/40k miles, not bad for no name brand kits. Leds seem like they may work, scroll search the forum, there is a guy that posted some pics of his lights with led conversion. if lighting is the problem you may want to consider projectors, our headlights suck!

 

I just ordered the 9005s for my Sport (projector lamps). Will let you know how they work.

 

My local performance shop keeps pushing them on me. I am a huge fan of HID lighting when it's done right (not retrofit kits in Halogen housings) and have owned a few cars with it. I would love to add them to my 11' but i despise the HID kit bulbs in Halogen housings. They blind other drivers and do not really throw the light like a true HID system and i don't want to be one of those a-holes that i curse when they go by me. Not to mention finding a real high quality set is a pain. I constantly see cars with a headlight out because they have cheap HID kits. Yet another hassle i don't need in my life. I also posted years ago when i tried to add HID's to me 06' fog light housings and the first set leaked and blew the bulb forever leaving black soot in the housing. The second set (which was supposedly better quality) did some weird short circuit and all my lights in my truck flashed rapidly and my Aeroforce gauge inverted it's colors and turned upside down. I quickly shut them off and removed and threw them away. These trucks have far too pricey an electrical system to put electronics in made to literally NO quality standards.

The local shop claims the LED bulb pattern more closely mimics a Halogen bulb and will not give the obnoxious light pattern HID's do despite being in a non projector housing. He also insists the quality is better. I'm on the fence until i see someone else who has already done it.

 

You may be surprised to learn that not EVERY headlight housing/reflector is a bad fit for HIDs. I have them in my 4th gen. I never, ever get flashed by other drivers. And I drive at night in a busy metro area with tons of oncoming vehicles. I've seen my truck oncoming from another vehicle at night and I can attest to the fact that HIDs in our truck headlights (quad light housings anyway) do not blind other drivers. This myth that every HID swap into a stock halogen housing must be awful is simply not universally true. I'm sure you do see a LOT of bad examples from other vehicles, but HID headlights aimed to spec in a 4th gen quad headlight housing are not it.

Totally agree with you about crappy HID kit quality and how frustrating that is. I finally got the high-end HIDExtra ballast and it has been over a year since a failure now. Prior to that I've switched back to halogens a time or two out of frustration but cannot live with the pathetic light output of our trucks with halogens. This frustration is why I'd switch to LEDs in a minute if my current HIDs go to heck, as long as someone can confirm that the LEDs put out enough light.

Rob

 

Well, they (9005 for projector lights) don't fit inside the housing. In order to put the back cover on the water/dustproofing compartment, a hole will have to be cut for the fan to protrude. In order to maintain integrity a cap of some sort will have to be added. I'm thinking like maybe a black PVC end cap. But before I go cutting things up I think I'm just going to install and hook them up without the back cover so I can see how well they work.

 

Watch "LED vs HID (Xenon) vs Halogen - HEADLIGHTS COMPARED!" on YouTube
https://youtu.be/hRqxTl4rxlg

 

Well I decided to try and see if I could make them work. I didn't do it myself the first time - my son had taken it to a shop as a gift for me - and I didn't understand exactly what the problem was.

The LED bulb will not even fit in the housing. There is no practical way to cut the housing for clearance, as the high beam bulb doesn't go just under the access cover - it's actually to the side and partially underneath the main part of the housing. In fact, in order to get the stock bulb out you have to unlock it, pull it up a little bit, then turn it back to the locked orientation, as the 90* connector is in the way of just pulling it straight out.

I still don't understand why the projector combo works so poorly. My son's '13 Ram with the base setup is better.

What I'd really like is a bi-xenon setup. I've had them in my last two cars and they are the bees knees. Why doesn't Ram offer them? Almost everyone else does.

BTW, I sure hope bulbs last a long time - I bet it took me an hour to R&R one headlight assembly. Of course, with experience it would go faster, but come on FCA, you have to remove the grill to replace a bulb?

 

Which ones are not quads? I was assuming that the projector setup was a bi-system with shutter for hi/low, but after working on my lights yesterday I see it's not. Projector is on in hi/low (9012), and then there are another set (9005) for hi-only.

 

In the earlier years of 4th Gen 1500 the base models had dual bulb headlights (one main bulb per side) and the fancier models had quad bulb headlights (sep. bulb for hi and low per side). Not sure how that changed then the projector headlights were introduced.

Here's a picture comparing them:



Rob