What is the best halogen headlight bulb?

Hello, everyone. I am removing my aftermarket HID headlight bulb system that came with the car when I bought it. The color of the HID is too blue for my taste (it is not white, it is blue-ish) and the fact that they were installed into the stock reflector headlight assemblies means that I am annoying/dazzling oncoming traffic. I hate those people and I do not want to be one of them. I have lived with the HID system since I bought the car in July and it is really bright, but the color, oncoming traffic dazzling and the fact that they render high beams all but useless is really wearing on me. I am going back to halogen. I know, it is less bright, etc., but this is what I have decided.

So, my question is what is the very brightest/best halogen bulb I can install into my gen 2 Prius?

I have short listed the following:

PIAA Extreme White Plus
Sylvania zXe High Perfrmance
Philips Racing Vision

I am leaning towards PIAA as they are just a top performance manufacturer, but if anyone has experiences with others, please tell me!

Thanks!

 

Thanks for the response. This thread got posted in the wrong forum. I posted an identical one in Gen 2, but for some reason it got posted there three times and a copy ended up here as well. I think this was during some PC server problems and things did not post correctly.

Now to the subject at hand. Yes, the brighter bulbs have shorter lifespan, but the new crop of them is getting better. They actually are a bit brighter, unlike Silverstars (notice it was not one of my candidates) and they do last a bit longer. Still not as long as a normal yellow dim bulb, but improvements are being made.

Also, my choices are very limited. As I see it they are:

1. Run regular yellow dim halogen bulbs ($15 a pair, last a long time)
2. Run brighter white brighter halogen bulbs ($30 a pair, last not as long as dim yellow)
3. Run HID with reflector housings that blind oncoming traffic and have a terrible high beam pattern ($200 for a setup, lasts a long time)
4. Run LED with reflector housing that blind oncoming traffic, but have better high beam pattern ($200 for a setup, lasts a long time)
5. Obtain a projector housing and run HID/LED (much more than $200 and I am not even sure if it exists)

The last three choices are kind of out, the first one leaves me struggling at night on country roads where I live, so I am down to choice number 2. Hence this thread. My research has yielded the three candidate bulbs I asked about in the original post. If you know of a better alternative, I am all ears and that is why I posted this.

 

No, they are very clear. The previous owner really took good care of this car and it was mostly garaged. So the lenses are very clear and I can see through them very well.

 

Great! I've been riding since the 80's myself, though lately I hardly put any miles on my Sprotster. I have an '04 Sprotster and love it, but again, that headlight! If this reference does not work out for my Prius I think I will definitely consider one of their motorcycle LED upgrades. I've actually avoided getting caught in the dark on my bike because of the lighting issue. I am now in my 50's and my night vision, although still pretty good, is not what it used to be. That's why I am looking for better headlights. I live in the countryside and many roads are unlit. There are animals darting across them sometimes. It's a safety issue.

What do you ride?

Do you mind sharing your LED solution? Have you also upgraded your housing from reflector to projector? I had aftermarket HID bulbs in the stock halogen reflector housing and it was not good for the oncoming traffic. I got lots of flashing. I do not want to be that guy that blinds oncoming traffic. I hate when that's done to me, it is unsafe, so I uninstalled the HID kit I bought this car with. It also had 8000K bulbs, which were blue, not white. I hate that. It actually alters the color of the environment (makes grass purple). So my background project may become retrofitting a projector for LED or HID into the stock reflectors. That will create a nice light pattern with a horizontal cutoff so as not to shine into oncoming traffic's eyes and put most of that light on the road.