Some popular tips on selecting the best car headlights
Let us take you to a situation. You are driving and the night falls upon you. You notice other car lights are much brighter and provide a natural gleam when compared to yours. You feel the urge to change or modify those car headlights that you tend to forget about all year round. We understand that feeling and that’s why we have come up with some of the best ways that can help you to select the best headlights for your cars.
Many drivers get down to restoring those lights so that they can perform their function to their full extent but that does not work for a longer duration. Over the years, the plastic lenses working under the harsh sun and thousands of miles of driving, bad road conditions creates a yellow haze on the car lights. If unattended, this will damage the surface of the lights and MoT fail.
To overcome such inconvenience it is always better to start finding the best fit for your car lights. The market is full of various types of light but the most common is Halogen bulbs. Thanks to the ongoing development in this area, you are not stuck with just one type of light but have other upgraded options like LED headlights too. This all-in-one article features everything that you need to bring the best headlamps for your car.
Parameters to select the best car headlights
The first requirement for you to consider is to check what type of bulb is compatible with your car. If you are upgrading your car lights from Halogen to LED lights, then there are Headlight conversion kits available in the market. Different lights come with various fittings and it is always advisable for you to find the exact match for your car lights from your user manual.
Wattage
We recommend you to check the manufacturer’s power rating before you get a new headlight for your car. Usually, it is 55W for most of the lights. Check out the warranty period of your current lights too as while installing the new lights you will have to cut some wires here and there for connecting them to the relay. Thus, canceling your light’s warranty. Yes, you have been warned!
One more common problem is the brightness of lights — the higher the brightness of the headlights lower is the lifespan of the lights. That’s where LED lights come to play. One of the most energy-efficient lights that are available in the market and are very easy to upgrade is OSRAM’s LED car headlights are worth a try if you are looking for highly efficient lights and a longer life span.
The temperature of the light color
The color temperature of the lights is measured in Kelvins (K). As we go up the Kelvin ratings the color of the lights changes. From 3000K to 3400K, the light color is yellow and provides good visibility during foggy days and rainfalls. Car headlights with 3500K to 4400K produce a whitish tint providing a premium look. Most luxury and high-end vehicles usually have these types of headlights.
Going above 4500K, the lights produce a bluish tint that is used for sports cars. These lights are illegal in most countries. You can upgrade your car lights according to government regulations and your vehicle’s requirements. Try to select a headlight that is a perfect balance of the lifespan and a color temperature of 3500K to 4400K.
Types of car headlights
The car headlight market is full of amazing options according to the vehicle specifications. The Halogen lights are fading out and newer technologies such as LED, HID and Laser lights are getting accepted by auto manufacturers. This shift is energy efficient as well as provides a classy look to the vehicles too.
Halogen headlights — These lights contain gas that is a combination of nitrogen and argon and has a tungsten filament enclosed in a glass tube. Due to the filament and these gases, the temperature within the tube increases to quite a higher level. These lights are being used in more than 80% of cars.
High-Intensity Discharge (HID) — These lights produce brighter light when compared to the Halogens. They contain a mixture of gases and metals which generates bright light in white or bluish tint. These lights were first used in the 90s by premium vehicle manufacturers and are now getting accepted by other vehicles too.
The light produced by HID headlights ranges somewhere between 3000K to 4500K and provides better visibility with a single gleam of light. Thus increasing the reaction time to unforeseen hindrances on the roads. These lights consume more vehicle power to start but once they are on, they run on lower power usage. Thus, making them more efficient than Halogens.
Light-emitting diodes (LED) — One of the most recent editions to car headlights, LEDs are very efficient when compared to their other counterparts. Since their inception in the early 2000s, LED car lights draw around 15 to 18 watts of power while Halogens draw around 55 to 65 watts, and HID consume almost 42 watts.
Due to their compact design, these car bulbs can be installed n any type of vehicle. Thus increasing the customization of the lights, these lights have an incredibly long lifespan of around 30,000 to 40,000 hours. That means these lights can stay with the entire life of your vehicle.
These lights do not produce heat as halogen lights making them a much better option for selecting your car headlights. LEDs come with cooling fans as they produce a small amount of heat.
As the cooling system of these headlights is installed in the engine bay limiting the manufacturers to make lights for certain models. Thus increasing the cost of these lights too. However, if you are looking for an energy-efficient light with a longer life span then LED car headlights are your best option.
