2018 F150 headlights are garbage

[BMWTurboDzl]

Originally Posted by billt460
Originally Posted by BMWTurboDzl
Originally Posted by billt460
Headlights have ALL been "garbage" ever since they went to plastic lens covers.

LOL...uh huh. I'd take Xenon's or LED's over glass lights any day.

The headlights have improved. But it doesn't do any good if the cheap plastic lenses cloud over in less than 12 months of UV exposure, like they do out here.



A simple acrylic sealant with good UV protectant will deter fading. On the other hand plastic does pit.

Meguirs makes one I think.

 

[buck91]

Originally Posted by rooflessVW
H11 you say? Little snip snip and H9s will nearly double the output and life.



So I've been holding off just because its a brand new vehicle, etc... Plus the weather is lousy. Then I found Philips H9's on RA for $8 shipped. And ordered.

 

[gathermewool]

Originally Posted by buck91
Originally Posted by rooflessVW
H11 you say? Little snip snip and H9s will nearly double the output and life.



So I've been holding off just because its a brand new vehicle, etc... Plus the weather is lousy. Then I found Philips H9's on RA for $8 shipped. And ordered.


$7.91 on Amazon - free shipping

 

[buck91]

$8/pair

 

[IveBeenRued]

Aiming them up will likely cause excessive glare for on coming drivers and increasing the light output will just cause a bright spot in directly in front of your car and not really increase the reach of the reflectors.

According to IIHS testing, your stock reflectors only reach out about 90 feet or so on the left and about 150 feet on the right. Optimal reach is 200 feet on the left and about 325 feet on the right. I don't think I've seen such amazingly bad test results as of late. (Go Ford!?)

By comparison, the Chevy, Toyota, and Ram competitors for the same model year all have headlights that reach significantly farther (50-100% farther!) out than your Ford's. No other way to put it but Ford just did a poor job of engineering your headlights.

Maybe if enough folks complain Ford will actually invest some engineering dollars into their setups and do a mid-model refresh. If they do, check to see if the new assemblies fit your truck because there is no really good way of improving such a poorly designed headlight assembly.

 

[Skippy722]

Originally Posted by IveBeenRued
Aiming them up will likely cause excessive glare for on coming drivers and increasing the light output will just cause a bright spot in directly in front of your car and not really increase the reach of the reflectors.

According to IIHS testing, your stock reflectors only reach out about 90 feet or so on the left and about 150 feet on the right. Optimal reach is 200 feet on the left and about 325 feet on the right. I don't think I've seen such amazingly bad test results as of late. (Go Ford!?)

By comparison, the Chevy, Toyota, and Ram competitors for the same model year all have headlights that reach significantly farther (50-100% farther!) out than your Ford's. No other way to put it but Ford just did a poor job of engineering your headlights.

Maybe if enough folks complain Ford will actually invest some engineering dollars into their setups and do a mid-model refresh. If they do, check to see if the new assemblies fit your truck because there is no really good way of improving such a poorly designed headlight assembly.


Don't forget IIHS tests the vehicle "as received with the factory headlamp aim." If they come from the factory pointed straight into the ground, and I've seen it happen, they're not re-aiming them and it'll naturally get a poor rating. Same if they're pointed at the moon, you'll get tons of glare.

 

[xxch4osxx]

Originally Posted by rooflessVW
H11 you say? Little snip snip and H9s will nearly double the output and life.


Exactly what I did with my Ram about 6 months after I bought it. Those H11 bulbs are horrible, especially if the road is wet. Putting the H9's in made a night and day difference.

 

[IveBeenRued]

Originally Posted by Skippy722

Don't forget IIHS tests the vehicle "as received with the factory headlamp aim." If they come from the factory pointed straight into the ground, and I've seen it happen, they're not re-aiming them and it'll naturally get a poor rating. Same if they're pointed at the moon, you'll get tons of glare.


According to the IIHS website their tests are completed on vehicles "as received from the dealer" so even if Ford doesn't conduct factory headlight aiming and instead includes headlight aiming as part of the predelivery checklist, the tested vehicles should be properly aimed.

OP's misfortune has made me curious, so I'm going try to get over to my local Ford dealer before daylight savings time begins just to see how bad these lights really are.

 

[Skippy722]

Originally Posted by IveBeenRued
Originally Posted by Skippy722

Don't forget IIHS tests the vehicle "as received with the factory headlamp aim." If they come from the factory pointed straight into the ground, and I've seen it happen, they're not re-aiming them and it'll naturally get a poor rating. Same if they're pointed at the moon, you'll get tons of glare.


According to the IIHS website their tests are completed on vehicles "as received from the dealer" so even if Ford doesn't conduct factory headlight aiming and instead includes headlight aiming as part of the predelivery checklist, the tested vehicles should be properly aimed.

OP's misfortune has made me curious, so I'm going try to get over to my local Ford dealer before daylight savings time begins just to see how bad these lights really are.


Should be, doesn't mean every dealer does though. My brothers Charger had both headlights and fog lights pointed straight into the ground. Granted, I bought my Caliber used, but it too was pointed straight into the ground as well.

 

[billt460]

Originally Posted by BMWTurboDzl
A simple acrylic sealant with good UV protectant will deter fading. On the other hand plastic does pit. Meguirs makes one I think.

There are several "headlight kits" on the shelves in auto parts stores. In fact out here they actually have "headlight restoration places" that will do it for you. Detailers are making a killing on this. And they're not cheap because it's a labor intensive and time consuming process.

But let's be honest, headlights are not be something you should have to "maintain" on a regular basis. That's ridiculous. It might not be a problem in some dreary, rainy place like Seattle or Portland. But throughout the Sun soaked south, and southwest part of the country it's a never ending problem. Especially for people who have to park their vehicles outside.

And I don't care how well you polish them, they're never the same after you do. And the polish doesn't last. They'll start to fade right back in just a couple of months. And when they do it's not going to matter what kind of "super bulb" headlight system you've got, because the clouded lenses will destroy their effectiveness. And it costs a bundle to replace any of these newer lenses. Not to mention it can be labor intensive to do so.

The automakers went to this because it's far cheaper for them. And it allows their designers to go crazy, because you can injection mold modern clear acrylic into any shape you want. As opposed to glass that was much more difficult, expensive, and restrictive as to shape. The result of all of this is once again, no matter how you want to look at it, the consumer gets the short end of the stick.

 

[meep]

As posted above, mine were grossly out of aim too, 5° above horizontal, and they are like 4 feet off the ground at that. Lowering them at least made them useful.

I tried to mod the oem fogs which have a surprisingly good beam pattern, to accept a 50W 9006, but the extra 15W of light melted the case on the work bench.

I purchased a pair of these from amazon: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00062ZYNK/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

for potential installation either in place of the fogs or in the center of the bumper. As far as beam envy goes, they absolutely destroyed the stock headlamps in ever way - beautiful reach, they're still full spectrum halogen, excellent distribution front to rear, but the modification required to shoehorn them in was more than I can commit to right now. I can attest to this as I hooked one up and staged it in place in front of the truck and looked. They are too deep for center bumper mounting and I'd have to cut out some of the intercooler shutters. I think they'd fit the stock fog locations with significant plastic work, but I'm a grown man with a family and a job and this would take a lot of time. For that amount of effort, I'd rather mount them or something similar in the actual headlamp housings. that would be the right way to do it - and these are too large to fit in modified headlamp housings. So I returned them.

When TYC or Depo comes out with a cheaper HL replacement, I may pick up something like this, and do a headlamp mod, assuming it's the same thing in a smaller case. AND assuming it's not running a 9005 (which some literature states it does) as the 9005 has a short lifespan (typically high-beam duty).

https://www.amazon.com/HELLA-998570...mp;psc=1&refRID=RKGEZTGP9G0H9D0J1QBN

Until then, at least there's light on the ground and out of onlookers eyes. I started out on incandescent, non halogen sealed beams, and got around just fine, and I have to remember that sometimes when I start complaining....

-m

 

[JTK]

Originally Posted by rooflessVW
H11 you say? Little snip snip and H9s will nearly double the output and life.



I know in Ram world, many owners do the H11 to H9 conversion, which requires some tab trimming on the lamps to get them to fit the factory H11 sockets, but H9s tend to fail much sooner than H11s on the Rams. A lot sooner actually.

I hear the OP on poor headlamp output though. My 2017 Ram is bad, as is my brother's new 2019 classic. You need to run the fog lights to make it marginally less dangerous.

One plug and play lamp that is supposed to improve factory H11's some is the Phillips X-treme visions.

 

[gathermewool]

Originally Posted by buck91
$8/pair

That IS good

They're probably bootleg

 

[buck91]

Originally Posted by gathermewool
Originally Posted by buck91
$8/pair

That IS good

They're probably bootleg

Its RA so that might be burned out and returned for all I know.

 

[Garak]

Originally Posted by IveBeenRued
Did you check the IIHS ratings before buying the vehicle? If you had, the poor headlight performance shouldn't be a surprise to you. All three types of headlights available for that year were rated "Poor"; the halogens being the worst of the bunch.

In reference to what Bill posted, this was never a problem when manufacturers had essentially four options with which to set up headlights.

 

[PumpPusher]

Trim level makes a big difference in headlight performance.