Halogen -VS- LED Headlights with pictures

Halogens don't use enough energy to even fret over to affect gas mileage.

Its a bit like saying if you turn off a reading light.. how much will it change your electric bill on your house.

The Kilowatt energies used and sheer horsepower from the gas engine far exceeds what the Halogen lights use to even discuss.

 

Using 29 Watt LED instead of 55 Watt Halogen is like getting half the regen green car every hour of driving.

26 Watt saving in an hour is a little more than half of the green car you see on the MID/MFD which is 50 Watt-hour.

 

If I remember right, one horsepower is equivalent to 740 watts or so.
So the difference between what an LED uses verse Halogen is not even a consideration worth more than a couple of cents over an hour......

If you want LED lights.. do it for other reasons besides saving gas or money....
They are "not" a money saver considering the up front cost.
Buy them because of all the other benefits if you want them.

Hopefully that helps put things in perspective.

 

The major reasons for LEDs are: (1) Brighter and whiter than stock halogens and (2) lifetime. I can come very close to meeting #1 if I change out my halogens to better, more expensive after-market bulbs...but no halogen (that I am aware of) comes close to the very long lifetime of LEDs. Any power savings the LEDs might offer, I suspect, would not significantly impact my MPGs.

 

"A penny saved is a penny earned." Ben Franklin

 

True, but then again, how many pennies does it cost to jump to the level V G3 to get the LEDs? Economists have a term for this - Diminishing returns. This same concept is often used by Prius opponents, e.g., "I can buy a comparable car to the Prius, that gets 10 MPGs less than the Prius, but is also $10K cheaper than the Prius....how many years will it take in gas savings to payoff the difference?" Answer: A long time.

 

Your right. That is one of the reasons I purchased a V. The LED is the best lighting system I have ever owned.

 

No disagreement that the LEDs do a much better job than the stock halogens...but I've seen comparisons on other cars where the stock bulbs were swaped out with much brighter/whiter after-market halogens...and the difference is stunning. Not clear how they would stack up against the LEDs, but I strongly suspect the difference would not be nearly as noticable as compared to the stock hologens.

As has already been mentioned - the biggest advantage of the LEDs is that they have a very long lifetime. While I'm fairly confident that a number of after-market halogens will come close to the LEDs in terms of lighting up the road, I'm also aware that these halogens will need to be replace (approx) every 2 years, at a cost of about $50/pair. Not the case with LEDs.

 

I'm a one-week-newbie, but was encouraged to swap lights by this forum (thanks guys, girls....).

The manual was 'ok', but a bit small. I'm in the UK with a Prius T-Spirit (closest to V), with right-hand drive and normal halogens. Swapping out the low beams and highs took some time, especially on the 'coolant reservoir' side: I moved the whole reservoir up and out of the way, but STILL there was a metal flange directly in the way of the low beam lamps. I don't know who builds these cars - must be robots....

The result was very satisfactory. No fried eggs, a nice white light lowbeam (Osram Nightbreakers) and a strong white highbeam (a 12V 60w from Alite ? from Ring Automotive, sourced from Autobulbsdirect - v helpful). Now I can see how yellow my sidelights are ......Are there any white 5w bulbs in W5W?

Fogs are a bit disappointing (also OSRAM Nightbreakers). The light doesn't seem to go anywhere! The light to the left is mainly obscured by the bonnet/hood (its RHD), the light to the right is obscured by the window frame, and there's not much light straight out front.

Anyway, I'm pretty happy with this, so thanks for the great forum. Next stop is AUDIO (it's pretty dire after a Lexus). Boy, I love that stuff on sound-proofing: it makes me think that the weight-saving, thin metal etc has had a big impact on sound and thermals.

 

Leds have low angle hard to see..

 

Paradox, I just want to take a minute to thank you for posting this thread, along with the cutoff pictures thread. For someone like myself wanting to get a rough idea of the difference between the LED and non-LED heaglights without having to take time out of my busy schedule to visit a dealership, you have made me a happy person. You didn't post this in the technical forum, perhaps some people didn't catch that before they got on their soap boxes. It's people like that which end up discouraging others from ever taking time out of their lives to post pictures, etc.

So anyways, thank you again and please don't stop contributing. Here's one person who understood your intentions.

 

Great thread Paradox and others! You can tell because it has grown so long!

The only thing that always troubles me when people take pictures of headlamp patterns is the camera lies! It adjusts for overall illumination, hiding some of the differences. Then our eyes also adjust (or perhaps more accurately, our brain adjusts), so the comparison is less valid. But if so many think the LED headlamps are better, then I defer to their opinion.

The only other thing I would like to add is we don't -actually- know how long the LED "bulbs" will last. Will they be another HID-like failure fiasco?

BTW, I'm only now reading this because Pearl is getting on in years. So now I'm catching myself wondering -when- not -if- I will end up with a GIII.

 

I've had the same concern with LED headlights. Especially when it's not exactly a cheap, simple replacement if they don't last as long as anticipated. I chose to get an LED headlight for my Harley (possibly for my Suzuki, when my retrofit for the Harley is done), because it's an easy replacement if/when it dies. Was it cheap? Not IMO ($300), but if it helps move the technology along, then I think I'll consider it a good expense. If I ever get rid of the bike and the LED headlight is still working, I might try to sell it on eBay or something.

 

I would recommend going and test driving one at "night".

I remember when the Gen III came out with Halogen... we were asking the engineers whether the new halogen stood up to the Gen II HID's and they would never give a straight answer.

There was an extremely long thread that analyzed and formulated theories on which was best as the Gen III was not released yet........

When it finally came out it blew away the HID's hands down.... but they wouldn't say that because no matter what you say someone will take it wrong... so its politically correct to not give a straight answer.

You'll just have to go see yourself...... seeing is believing and seeing is so subject to preferences and interpretation on what defines good lighting.

Myself, I like to see far into the distance and see plenty well in front of me too.. while others only value the immediate distance rather than far off.... some like different kelvins... the LED's give a slightly bluer or higher kelvin which IMO can be harder to interpret shadows and objects laying on the road... I like a good warm very bright light around 4200 - 4300 kelvin.........I think the brain works best with natural lighting as much as you can recreate it at least....

 

I agree with windstrings. The lower Kelvin ratings are easier on the eyes, the reduce eye fatigue that bluer lights induce, and the ultimately provide more lumens. That is why 4300k is the industry standard.

You also consider how the light is projected. For the best night vision you want a light that projects far, has a cutoff to reduce the risk of blinding oncoming vehicles, is between 4300k and 5000k, and has some kind of foreground limiter that reduces the intensity of light directly in front of the vehicle. The last criteria is based on the fact that high light intensity close to the front of the car will cause the pupils shrink and thus reduce distance vision.

 

I agree, the reflector is everything "well not everything"... but makes an amazing difference...
I was really sweating getting the Gen III because its been well known that HID are superior to Halogen... well not anymore!...

I put the silverstar bulbs in and they are devastating to the darkness compared to my others... quite impressive when topping a hill on the freeway and able to see miles ahead to turn on highbeam and light up the signs for the car 1/2 mile in front of me!