LED Headlights

[jmusser218]

Hey, everyone! It been awhile since I've been on here, but I have some questions for all of my fellow Bonnie enthusiasts. I am becoming less and less satisfied with halogen headlight bulbs, so I'm looking at other options. The most appealing one, to me, would be to go with an LED conversion. They have great color (no hints of yellow ever), even light distribution, and provide a lot better visibility than halogens which is the main reason for me wanting them. And all of this while still being plug-and-play. But here's the trouble: I know that HID's and LED's are really meant for projector housings. However, I've seen a lot of people putting the LED's in normal reflectors. They rarely mention if they blind other people, though. So have any of you tried LED's in the normal Bonneville reflectors? And would aiming the headlights well reduce the blinding effect if there is any? I'd really like to get the color and visibility of the LED's if I'm not going to blind other people. I know what it's like to be blinded by headlights, and it's the last thing I'd want to do to other drivers. As always, all input is appreciated.

[2003 SSEi]

unless you do a full retrofit with a LED projector, you will not get and infact less performance than Halogen.

[jmusser218]

Thank you for that information. I was kind of getting that idea the more research I did, so it's nice to have that confirmed. I think I might just go with some really nice halogens and get as white as possible with those.

[RJolly87]

If you can find quality HIR Headlights, that has been the preferred swap, however I haven't heard anything of their availability of late.

[ddalder]

The brighter, whiter halogens typically have a much shorter life than regular halogens. I have tried GE Nighthawks, SilverStar, SilverStar Ultra, SilverStar zXe and found myself replacing one or both of them every few months. I did do the low beam upgrade to the HIR-2 (my GXP already had HIR-1 high beams). I haven't been able to find any of the true Toshiba HIR-2's so I reverted back to regular low beams. This upgrade did require a modification to the base of the bulb but nothing too crazy.