Aftermarket vs. OEM lights

[paulri]

AAA Discount: I just saw on their site that the AAA discount is 10%. All I know is that at checkout, they said I saved just over $3 from an original price of some $13.80, which I assumed was my AAA discount. Evidently it was more than that. YMMV.

Its nice here when there isn't a consensus, so you can do what you want and nobody gets mad at you and says you aren't following the advice when you start a thread.

NAPA had all three bulbs for $10, which was too much of a discount compared to one for $26 at my local toyota dealer, so I went with them. I was surprised at my AAA discount, which was something around 25%. If you do buy from NAPA and are a member, go ahead and give them your number at checkout.

 

[researcher]

Who makes the Toyota bulbs? Cause I still have a few OEM, never-replaced bulbs still working on my 1993 truck, with way over 300,000 miles on it. Outdoors its whole life. They are closing in on 30 years of use, and a few are actually rusted solid into the sockets, but still working fine. I only recently replaced the back-up light bulbs because I wanted brighter LED ones. Had to buy new light housings because the old bulbs were rusted in so good, they both snapped trying to remove them.

when I pulled the factory bulbs out of my scion tC they were made in usa Sylvania standard halogen. When I went to the dealer (before I knew what was in there from the factory) they were Koito brand, same maker of the headlight assembly.

 

[mk378]

If you've had one of the factory brake lights or headlight burn out, don't replace just one and expect the other remaining factory bulb to last 5 more years.

In later posts the OP became a lot more sensitive to cost than the originally stated primary concern of length of time between having to do bulb changes. Which is fine, but expect to be changing bulbs one at a time more frequently than if replaced as a pair or set.

 

[odie]

Sylvania XtraVision for $19.75 at Walmart . Brighter and whiter . Glass not bluish , clear . Helps to distinguish things of the night .

 

[ofelas]

Search for bulbs made by Philips, Narva, Vosla, Flosser, or Stanley.

I'll add - German made Philips, Hungarian made GE (Tungsram), NH made Sylvania (wedge), non Australian Narvas, & Japan made Stanleys (some OEM Honda, nickel plated bases).