Last night I had my first chance to drive after dark. The headlights are barely more effective than the DRL's. That will be in the first batch of to do items. I have no clue what I'll go with. I drive very little after dark so I will probably look for a more economical option.
That is odd. We prefer our Gen 3 over our Subaru at night, because it's headlights are so much better. Perhaps the Sube's are that much worse . . .
Speaking of subie's, I modded my wife's OutBack with these (great price and feedback ratings): [ Amazon.com: Kensun HID Xenon Conversion Kit "All Bulb Sizes and Colors" with Premium Ballasts - H11 - 6000k: Automotive Not because the originals were bad (they were fine), I just wanted to do some mods to the new car and to better match the eyebrow lights. I got the 6k temps but if I were to do it again I'd personally go for the 5k as I find the 6k a little too blue for my tastes. Plug and play, no wire splicing, etc.
I picked up a package of Sylvania Silver Stars today. My local shop will swap them out for me Thursday.
I tried Silverstars, overpriced and not much improvement over regular halogen clear capsule H11 bulbs. H9 bulb upgrade is brighter, and cheaper (link in my signature below). Or plug and play HID kit, as long as you block the squirrel spotter holes in the cutoffs that cause the rectangular light patterns of stray light above the cutoffs when shown against a wall. Definitely a source of annoying glare with bright HIDs.
I decided against anything more expensive because I drive probably at least 98% of my driving in daylight. I may explore H9 next time. This time I wanted 100% easy plug n play.
Might be misaimed. Need 8mm wrench (ratcheting type preferred) to raise them. Keep track of how many clicks or turns so you can put them back to original position if need be.
Just keep an eye on them. My, and many other motorcyclists, experience with silverstars have been a short life maybe due to always on (full power DRL's) and possibly greater vibration. I forgot to include a before/after pics of my HID install. NOTE: shot with phone camera in automatic mode so it tries to give every image the same exposure (brightness level). The differences are greater to the eye.
My DRL are separate from the other lights so it will be only headlight use. They claim 150 hours life which should be a few years use for me. When they eventually give up I may do something different at that point but for right now I'll experiment with them.
Check out the link in my signature below, look for the video link at the end of the thread by mediaman(?). If you have a rotary tool and the bits, it literally takes 10 minutes to modify both H9 bulbs to fit in the H11 mount and wiring connector.
I'll be taking it to Mustang Automotive in Friendswood. I'm sure they have almost every tool known to man, or at least the SnapOn man. Maybe I'll go return the H11's and get H9's instead.
yep, that's what I would do/ I put h9's in my wife's subaru & it made a BIG difference/ not like hids, but very noticeable/
So is the H9 a high beam bulb being modified to fit in the low beam socket? Presuming that is the case, the extra 10w doesn't matter to the low beam wiring?
Correct, H9 is a highbeam bulb. The extra 10 watts doesn't really burn much hotter than the H11, and the Prius' oem wiring can handle the extra current safely. You will notice that the H9 bulb doesn't have a coating at the tip of the bulb like the H11 bulb. You might notice a bit of a "hotspot"/brightspot in the foreground illumination, directly in front of each projector, but overall brightness, especially distance, is much better with the H9 upgrade. Make sure to get name brand, clear capsule bulbs like Osram or Philips. Don't buy anything with blue bulbs or blue coatings.
If you want plug n play, I recommend the Philips Vision Plus bulbs instead of Silverstars. I have H9 bulbs on my Prius and put Vision Plus' on my gf's Prius. To my eyes, the Vision Plus bulbs' light output is equal to the H9, both are a huge improvement over the stock H11 bulbs.
