I need new bulbs for my 09 Prius. I’m seeing a few different brands of bulbs and I’m told the Phillips are good ones to choose. I’ve also see that they are 35 watts. My question is I’ve seen some that have much higher kilowatt 4000 up to 6000k. Can I use a brighter color bulb that has a higher k?
The stock OEM Phillips HID is 4300k, but research I've seen says the 5k is probably the best for visibility. Going higher than that, you're becoming one of the DB's that are blinding the crap out of everyone else. I stay with stock OEM 4300k
Just to clarify what seems to be an incorrect assumption on your part, the “K” is an abbreviation for Kelvin, not kilowatts (kW). Kelvin is a measure of light color temperature. 4300K is essentially equivalent to daylight. Going up towards 6000K (or higher) the light is moving to the blue end of the spectrum. The perception with bluer light is that it is brighter even if, in terms of lumens, it isn’t. The perception comes about because past experience with tungsten filament bulbs, higher color temperature is commensurate with brighter bulbs.
Kelvin that’s good to know. Thank you for making me a little smarter. I’m just putting some 4300 Philips in.
