Cheap LED headlights, yes/no?

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Anyone here have any experience with cheap chinese LED headlight kits from some place like ebay? The lights on my Corolla suck. I've cleaned the housings with toothpaste and it helped a tiny bit but they're still too dim for my liking. I watched a video from that overly caffeinated Scotty Kilmer guy and the ones he showed looked pretty decent
 
For the sake of other drivers, please don't use over-bright, poor-beam-pattern, cheap chinese headlamps. LED or otherwise.
 
No they stink, there is no drop in led/hid replacement that works safely or effectively in halogen reflectors or halogen projector housings. Most of those toys are very dangerous and some are extremely expensive for terrible light output. Have you tried replacing the bulbs with better ones yet?, you didn't mention this.
 
Tried them on my 02 Silverado once at night where the light would just scatter everywhere. Took them off the next morning.

I've seen them look good in projector housings since they have a sharp cutoff that does not allow the light to scatter but in regular housings the directional light output of the LED's gives out a scattered beam pattern.
 
As other's have said it as much about the headlight housing as the bulb itself. I put a Kensun HID kit onto my Lexus (projector housing) and it looks stock. I would really like to add a kit to my F-150 (normal housing) but the scatter from it would be a safety hazard to other drivers and likely would not improve my view much.
 
Everytime I see a douche with chinese HID/LED kits I turn my high beams on and just leave them on.

They rarely flash me because they usually give up high beam functionality for their piece of [censored] kit.

If any of you reading this comment have HID kits in your car I hope they burn your car to the ground as is known to happen often. What you are doing is illegal and extremely dangerous to other drivers.
 
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Originally Posted By: 901Memphis
No they stink, there is no drop in led/hid replacement that works safely or effectively in halogen reflectors or halogen projector housings. Most of those toys are very dangerous and some are extremely expensive for terrible light output. Have you tried replacing the bulbs with better ones yet?, you didn't mention this.

Originally Posted By: 09_GXP
As other's have said it as much about the headlight housing as the bulb itself. I put a Kensun HID kit onto my Lexus (projector housing) and it looks stock. I would really like to add a kit to my F-150 (normal housing) but the scatter from it would be a safety hazard to other drivers and likely would not improve my view much.

Chance of a HID or LED retrofits into a reflector housing without much glare to surrounding traffic is very rare. But for some projector housings LED and/or HID may work.

JHZR2 tried H11 LED bulb in his Accord and the result is very good. He said that nobody high beam him on surface streets and on highways.

http://www.bobistheoilguy.com/forums/ubb..._th#Post3967972

These pictures below are posted by JHZR2 in the thread linked above. I copied here so everyone can see how LED bulb may work in a projector housing.

Very little glare on the back of the truck:
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Very bright, much brighter OEM H11 halogen bub.
4D4344A5-0D45-4717-819E-587E40B984CE_zpswvj999ng.jpg
 
A friend and I researched self-contained (no ballast box under the hood) HID's and found but one set from a trucking outfit. They work well and my friend has 'em focused perfectly and he lives in the country.

BUT, what I found in one shop in NJ was a kit with a box you mount under the hood which had 2 leads going to teeny-weeny HID capsules which went into the car's reflectors in place of the H7 or H11 bulbs.

The guy who was selling them said they were garbage.

I swear, a good business would be to make (and sell at a profit) high temperature glass reflectors and lenses which can be focused responsibly.

Morons with glaring LEDs should be put to death.
 
Anyways I'm also in the same camp as you with an 01 Tundra. The housing lens has hazed inside and out and no mega bright bulb can ever fix that. Plasticx just mitigates the issue. There were times I would flip on the headlights while driving even though they were on when I left the house.

Only solution was to get new lamps.
 
Scotty Kilmer demonstrates getting under a car and doing an oil change with only a floor jack and zero back-up sagety measures. 'nuf said.
 
Only use them as auxiliaries on country roads at night.


I use them on my lawn mower, ATV, and have used them as auxiliaries on the truck(off road)

It would be stupid to use them when other vehicles are around, you might get murdered.
 
I tried 3 different methods to clear the old plastic lens with little success. The sun destroys the plastic ...just get new ones. I put CH ebay Housings on my F150. Been on there ~2 years and still crystal clear with standard bulbs and work great.
 
What year Corolla? For the lenses sand and polish with a da polisher if u have one. Coat with clearcoat. I swapped my 9006 bulbs for 9012's. More light output you just need to use nail clippers to break off part of the tab to make it fit. Also, I would suggest adjusting your headlights at night to ensure they are aimed high enough. Mine are aimed a bit too low.
 
Originally Posted By: wemay
...and this setup is worst of all. A few idiots around here think it's cool.


009-2013-toyota-tacoma-double-cab-4x4-rigid-industries-e-series-led-light-bars.jpg



I've been thinking of putting two on my Jeep actually. We have been doing more and more night wheeling and it's just not possible to see at night on a tight trail with even an extra set of LED lights on the front. I think if I put on in front and behind I'll be able to go at night without driving by feel.



Originally Posted By: stro_cruiser
Scotty Kilmer demonstrates getting under a car and doing an oil change with only a floor jack and zero back-up sagety measures. 'nuf said.


What's funny is he took out HIDs to replace them with LEDs ... not sure if a step sideways or down. The car didn't have the right housings.
 
I installed an LED kit in my WJ GC, and I got the same result as I did with my HID kit: Light pattern no worse than stock, and no people flashing me. I even asked a few people to independently observe them from a distance. They told me that without crouching down to the ground, the intensity of the light does not reach them. These trucks with any kind of halogen bulb are simply pathetic. When I'm driving out West, I would literally see nothing that was not directly in front of the truck. Zero roadside visibility in a nieghborhood where people could be out at any hour riding bicycle, walking dog, or horse.

The LED kit I put in my '96 Roadmaster was beyond terrible. That was removed as fast as I put it in. Aftermarket projectors behind the stock fluted lenses have solved that problem.

LED kit in my Navigator's projectors is no worse than stock. Stock projectors have a good pattern, but garbage output.

LED kits in my Rams are accompanied by aftermarket headlights with projectors. No issues.
 
Originally Posted By: Kira

I swear, a good business would be to make (and sell at a profit) high temperature glass reflectors and lenses which can be focused responsibly.



Its been done, and its rarely profitable which is why the companies that do it keep dropping out of the market. Cibie introduced and dropped the "BOBI" series (a replaceable-bulb sealed beam, 100% DOT compliant) in the 80s- market flop because most consumers just bought GE, Wagner, etc. for 1/4 the price. They introduced and dropped the "CSR" (complex-surface reflector) with VOA beam compliance in the 2000s, and it also didn't get market traction because of the expense. And I'm talking about the old school standardized format lamps where the engineering is amortized over many different vehicle lines... it would be far, far, LESS likely to be profitable to do a glass version of modern vehicle-specific lamp assemblies.
 
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