Legal white bulb? Not xenon?

[Xlasis]

I want to upgrade my titanium's bulbs, which is strong, long vision white light

 

Is there any cheap one? Any recommendation? 

 

Thanks. 

[zain611]

Could look at philips white vision halogen bulbs. Says gives out about 70% more light and says a light temperature of 4300k which is a xenon white light. I think it might have a tinge of yellow but not as much as a standard halogen. They do two other bulbs which light temperature I think is either 5000k or 6000k but those aren't road legal I think because they don't give out a good throw of light. With halogen bulbs you decrease the brightness / throw of light the higher you increase the kelvin output. 

[TomsFocus]

Phillips white vision are as white as you can go while remaining legal, they're what I use myself.  

[zain611]

10 hours ago, TomsFocus said:

Phillips white vision are as white as you can go while remaining legal, they're what I use myself.  

What sort of colour does it look in the headlights? Thinking I might get these next after my current lights go wrong. 

[TomsFocus]

They do still have a slight cream tinge but that's the law sadly.  It's pretty much impossible to photograph light shades but here is a before and after anyway lol... 

[Xlasis]

On 12/3/2018 at 9:12 AM, TomsFocus said:

Phillips white vision are as white as you can go while remaining legal, they're what I use myself.  

Link please? 

[zain611]

There's different places you can get them from. Try searching around to look for a good deal 👍.  

[TRAXXAS58]

Have you thought about LED's? I recently put LED's in my Fiesta MK7 Titanium. 

 

Replaced dip beam, main beam & fogs all by the same brand. 

[Guest]

57 minutes ago, TRAXXAS58 said:

Have you thought about LED's? I recently put LED's in my Fiesta MK7 Titanium. 

 

Replaced dip beam, main beam & fogs all by the same brand. 

I thought that LED lights were not legal for road use (unless your car came with them as standard).

[TRAXXAS58]

20 minutes ago, Michlaustn said:

I thought that LED lights were not legal for road use (unless your car came with them as standard).

I do believe this to be false. That applies to HID's, not LED. 

LED's are often thought to be illegal due to cheap & early models of LED headlights having irregularly placed diodes that scatter light allover the place and illegally high. If you buy the correct ones that produce a legal beam pattern with your dip beam then they are perfectly legal to retrofit. 

 

If anyone has any legislation that says otherwise I invite you to link it, but I believe everything I stated to be true. 

[jbell]

1 hour ago, TRAXXAS58 said:

If anyone has any legislation that says otherwise I invite you to link it, but I believe everything I stated to be true. 

The Road Vehicles Lighting Regulations (1989) make several references to mandatory dipped beam being a a filament bulb, which LED are arguably not. There is also a reference to a maximum light output of "800 candela" which I presume many LEDs can exceed. However, there's also the case of EU law; which is why factory fitted LED Bulbs are totally legal. Retrofit is a more grey area unfortunately. 

However right enough - if the beam pattern is correct ( and in projector headlamps, it should be ) I don't think anyone is going to care. 

[TRAXXAS58]

Well if I get pulled or fail and MOT test I'll be sure to let everyone know, but for now, I spent too much money & time in changing them to bother changing them back for "just incase". 

 

In all honesty I did it mainly for colour instead of increased brightness & I've looked at the beam pattern produced by dip beam & all seams fine too me, haven't been flashed by anyone either. 

[TomsFocus]

16 hours ago, Xlasis said:

Link please? 

As Zain says, you can buy them from pretty much any car parts shop so shop around and see who is cheapest at the time, I found my current set on eBay cheap & unused as the seller had bought the wrong fitting for his car but I never pay full price for anything...  

[TomsFocus]

10 hours ago, jbell said:

The Road Vehicles Lighting Regulations (1989) make several references to mandatory dipped beam being a a filament bulb, which LED are arguably not. There is also a reference to a maximum light output of "800 candela" which I presume many LEDs can exceed. However, there's also the case of EU law; which is why factory fitted LED bulbs are totally legal. Retrofit is a more grey area unfortunately. 

However right enough - if the beam pattern is correct ( and in projector headlamps, it should be ) I don't think anyone is going to care. 

Xenons don't have a filament either.  Seems like a pretty outdated regulation tbh, the only choice for headlights in 1989 was a filament bulb, technology has moved on since.

LEDs aren't technically legal to retrofit in most cases as they are too bright not to have washers & levellers fitted...but honestly no one will notice as long as the beam pattern is right and they're vaguely the right colour.

[jbell]

3 hours ago, TRAXXAS58 said:

Well if I get pulled or fail and MOT test I'll be sure to let everyone know, but for now, I spent too much money & time in changing them to bother changing them back for "just incase". 

 

In all honesty I did it mainly for colour instead of increased brightness & I've looked at the beam pattern produced by dip beam & all seams fine too me, haven't been flashed by anyone either. 

Interestingly enough I had a read through the official mot guidence and although it does state halogen headlamp units must not be converted to HID (major failure); there seems to not be any mention of LED conversions being a reason for failure unless colour or beam are wrong. However, I then found a comment on a gov.uk blog that LED lamps should also fail for 4.14 (c) light source and lamp not compatible. 

Why they've got that in a comment on a blog and not in the official guidance I do not know. I would assume the official guidance wins and LED conversion will not be the sole reason for an MOT fail until it is next updated  -- but I would assume once the guidance is updated LED conversions will be a fail unfortunately.  

[TRAXXAS58]

For reference, here's some pictures I took at the time. Pretty obvious change if you ask me! Looks much better. 

[JoBoy99]

I have Autobeam LED's, never had a problem with them, I just think I need to have them adjusted as they seem a little low, never been pulled or anything, not even a flash from someone else, but Ive been told in the past you can have LED's as long as they are in a projector headlight and not just a reflector one as the light works in a different way between the two types. I only have a halogen full beam though, which I think would be classed as 'illegal' due to the type of headlight.

[Bobr]

I do quite a bit of driving at night particularly on the A610 Notts/Derbys.   I'm quite happy with the standard headlights in my Fiesta but I have noticed, just recently, a marked increase in blinding white lights that completely dazzle you when approaching.   They are, in my opinion, dangerous and quite likely to cause an accident.

[TRAXXAS58]

Have had a service & an MOT since installing these, at the service I asked the guy to check the beam pattern for me & he described it as "perfect", and then as expected, sailed through the MOT with no issues at all. Still love them too! 

[Blatto]

I agree with you there Bob. Too many blindingly bright and dangerous lights about these days. I suspect they are illegal aftermarket fitments (HID's?)

I've also noticed lots of them produce a bright blue tinge around the edge when you look at them from a distance in  your rear view mirror. This often causes me to think there is an emergency vehicle behind me as they flicker with the movement of the other cars in front of them, it's not until they get a lot closer that I can see it's just a car. Very distracting.

And whilst we are on the subject of lights another annoyance, people putting on their rear Fog lights as soon as there's the slightest bit of mist.

I've have been driving for 40 years now and drive almost every day. I have never seen any fog that is dense enough in the last 20 years round this part of the country to warrant using the rear fog lights. We used to get some real "Pea Soupers" back in the 80's when most cars didn't have extra bright rear fog lights, they would have been useful then.

Use them when visibility is 100 metres or less is what it says in the Highway code.

It's better than the idiots who have no lights on at all in poor visibility, but it's also another distraction especially on motorways as you can often think cars in the distance are braking.

[DG97]

I agree with that too. I’d love to get rid of the yellowish colour of the standard H7 (and planning on fitting Osram night breakers when the first bulb goes) but poorly chosen HID upgrades are really frustrating. Not all are like this but as you say there’s quite a few that are simply like a strobe light pointing straight at your eye ball and is very dangerous. 

[fgservo]

People talk good about this Hid set.

https://autobeam.co.uk/products/h7-hid?variant=12765772841004

People talk bad about Led, especially at rain.
 

[cjay1]

this is what I have a whiter much brighter light cost around £22 the pair

 https://www.ringautomotive.com/en/product/rw1577

[Neb_engineer]

On 3/3/2019 at 7:45 PM, Blatto said:

I agree with you there Bob. Too many blindingly bright and dangerous lights about these days. I suspect they are illegal aftermarket fitments (HID's?)

I've also noticed lots of them produce a bright blue tinge around the edge when you look at them from a distance in  your rear view mirror. This often causes me to think there is an emergency vehicle behind me as they flicker with the movement of the other cars in front of them, it's not until they get a lot closer that I can see it's just a car. Very distracting.

And whilst we are on the subject of lights another annoyance, people putting on their rear Fog lights as soon as there's the slightest bit of mist.

I've have been driving for 40 years now and drive almost every day. I have never seen any fog that is dense enough in the last 20 years round this part of the country to warrant using the rear fog lights. We used to get some real "Pea Soupers" back in the 80's when most cars didn't have extra bright rear fog lights, they would have been useful then.

Use them when visibility is 100 metres or less is what it says in the Highway code.

It's better than the idiots who have no lights on at all in poor visibility, but it's also another distraction especially on motorways as you can often think cars in the distance are braking.

considering the fact that a rear fog light is usually singular, and a lot lower than the brake lights, i would argue that saying a rear fog light could be misinterpreted as brake lights is frankly stupid, especially as most cars also have a centre brake light, do you also think the rear running lights on at night could be interpreted as cars braking in the distance?

[Blatto]

This guy is an advanced and ex Police driving instructor.

He fairly well sums up my opinion on the inappropriate use of fog lights.