Advice on new headlights

Gonna pick up the onex 6k this weekend.

 

6k is pretty blue....

 

How blue are we talking about? The website says it's a crystal blue, and pictures show it as a light blue. I would be able to live with that.

 

Ok, I'll look into the 5k or 4.3k...My buddy at a Toyota dealership is gonna get em for me discounted, so I guess whatever he can get his hands on, I'll take. Thanks for the heads up.

 

Contacted my buddy just now. He says he only has the 6k. I guess I'll live with that, he's only charging me half of what the o-nex website is selling it for.

 

You can always put different HID bulbs in your o-nex kit if 6K is too blue for your taste (like what ny_rob did).

 

Well unfortunately- it's not like generic drugs where the formula's are identical regardless of brand.
All the low end HID bulbs are made overseas with 'less than stellar' quality control and even less unbiased specs, so one mfg's 4.3K bulbs may be closer to 5K and another's may be closer to 6k. If past history is still a good predictor- the cheaper bulbs are actually more blue than they're advertised to be. I guess it costs more to keep the color white rather than blue- so in this case 4.3k is not equal to another 4.3k.

The other thing is- the bluer the low-beams, the more ridiculous the other lights on the car look. If you try to get white low-beams, the other incandescent lights don't stand out quite as much.

 

Well if you weren't unhappy with your headlights before the bulb burned out, then the simple advice is simply replace with the same.

The popular logic and probable truth is always to replace in pairs, as if one has aged enough to burn out, the other is probably not far behind. Also with time bulbs lose a degree of brightness, if you don't replace in pairs, it is likely the newer one will be brighter than the older one. I'd recommend replacing both. Primarily because you probably don't want to repeat the whole process in a couple of months.

As far as OEM headlight bulbs go, you could just drive into your local Toyota dealer and have done with it. Or you can find the replacement # and drive into your local autoparts store and choose from many compatible replacements. The advertising claims for many of these bulbs IMO are exaggerated.

Weeks before I traded in my Honda Fit the headlight bulb burned out, so I've recently gone through the whole "bulb" replacement thing. I can't remember the brand now, but I got sucked in by the advertising that claimed the bulb was "brighter". I wasn't impressed. It didn't seem any brighter....it wasn't any dimmer.

But my advice would be, unless you have been unhappy with the brightness of your headlights, just replace with like equipment.

Of course if you have been dissatisfied? Sure you can take this as a chance to upgrade.

 

Be careful though, because you might be doing a lot more than just replacing the bulbs.

Once you put in a HID kit, you drive away happily with the nice and whiter output, then you start to get annoyed at the yellow parking lights (and fog lights if you've added them). You go ahead and upgrade to matching bulbs.

Then you start to get annoyed at how yellow your interior lights look next to them when you put the car in park. You go ahead and replace the interior (and license plate) bulbs with LEDs.

See, not so simple after all.

 

Yes, I agree...

Since the OP prefaced everything with wanting some "Simple" advice, that is why I'm kind of recommending just going the replace OEM with OEM.

HID and LED replacement I think can be great, but you have to desire it, and doing it almost becomes a "hobby" like approach.

From what I've seen I would easily call HID an upgrade, but functionally for most people not a necessary upgrade.

I can tell you one weakness of The Honda Fit IMO was the brightness of the headlights. I've been very happy with the brightness of The Prius headlights in comparison, and that is just the standard factory Halogen set up.

 

Put the 6k o-nex on my low beam projectors and they look white enough for me. They turn on pretty blue but once they heat up, there's a very slight blue tint when looking at it. There is a distinct thin line of blue tint on the upper edge of the light beam that shows up on distant white road reflectors or when you shine on a wall, but overall, it's pretty white.

Definitely not a necessary upgrade. But for $66, I'm happy with em.

 

The blue line at the cutoff is normal. Some high end projectors (and lenses) when combined with good bulbs can produce a spectacularly colorful cutoff line.

Examples

 

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I have been having some trouble inserting a new bulb in the right side location. Please clarify: the 12-oclock large tab position is when the bulb is first inserted. After locking into place by CCW rotation, the tab ends up at 10 oclock, as I understand it.