IIHS Tests Pickup Truck Lighting: Most are Poor

[SubLGT]

http://www.iihs.org/iihs/news/desktopnews/most-pickup-trucks-have-poor-headlights-iihs-tests-show

Excerpts:

The 11 trucks evaluated have a total of 23 possible headlight combinations. Fourteen of them have excessive glare, contributing to their poor ratings. A vehicle cannot earn a rating better than marginal if it produces too much glare in any of the five test scenarios.

A bright spot in the ratings is the headlight system on the Ridgeline's RTL-E and Black Edition trims. The LED projector low beams provide fair to good visibility on most approaches, with inadequate visibility only on the gradual left curve. High-beam assist, a feature that automatically switches on high beams if no other vehicles are present, makes up for some of the deficiencies of the low beams.

The Ford F-150, the centerpiece of the best-selling F-Series line, is among the poorest performers. Both the base halogen and the optional LED low beams provide inadequate visibility in all test scenarios, including both sides of the straightaway, on sharp curves in both directions and on gradual curves in both directions. The LED lights also produce unacceptable glare. The high beams on both versions have mostly inadequate visibility too.

 

[SwampSurvivor]

A lot of people seem to hate on sealed beams, but when properly adjusted, I've always been able to see extremely well with them. Better than higher end ones for sure.

This must be why guys have to have multiple 50'' LED bars on their trucks?

 

[SubLGT]

Sealed beams? Just how old is your vehicle?

 

[SwampSurvivor]

Originally Posted By: SubLGT
Sealed beams? Just how old is your vehicle?


You could get sealed beams on a Ford truck up until 5 or 6 years ago.

 

[bullwinkle]

Originally Posted By: Miller88
Originally Posted By: SubLGT
Sealed beams? Just how old is your vehicle?


You could get sealed beams on a Ford truck up until 5 or 6 years ago.
They came on E vans until they quit building them in 2014. They worked well for me once they were adjusted to compensate for load. If they hate LEDs, what's their opinion on HIDs??

 

[Pop_Rivit]

Originally Posted By: SubLGT
Sealed beams? Just how old is your vehicle?


GMC still puts sealed beam headlights on their full sized Savana Cargo van.

 

[John_K]

Funny all this safety junk but the headlights stink.

 

[Johnny2Bad]

No surprise there.

When a functional element becomes a styling element, what do you think is going to happen next?

Although I do like LED lighting in vehicles (much, much lower electrical load) I am a little concerned that people will just stick with them as long as they output *some* light. Few people know that the stated life of an LED lamp is the point where the light output has fallen to 50% of it's as-new output. They will still light up at that point, and even lower.

As for the F-150, Ford outsells the other Full Size Truck manufacturers because Ford always builds the cheapest truck. And you expect premium lighting? Good luck with that.

 

[Jarlaxle]

Originally Posted By: Miller88
Originally Posted By: SubLGT
Sealed beams? Just how old is your vehicle?


You could get sealed beams on a Ford truck up until 5 or 6 years ago.


I think you could until even more recently on a base Super Duty.

 

[440Magnum]

Originally Posted By: Miller88
A lot of people seem to hate on sealed beams, but when properly adjusted, I've always been able to see extremely well with them.


Not me, I love standardized headlamps as opposed to the unique-to-each-model designs we have now with performance all over the map from acceptable to horrible. I have yet to see any modern vehicle lighting system really approach the performance of a good set of sealed beams, or better yet the replaceable-bulb sealed-beam-format headlamps. Unfortunately the very newest vehicle I've owned with headlamps like that was my 2001 Cherokee. The HID projector lamps in my Challenger are good, but at least 10x the cost of standardized sealed beams for 1x the performance at most (maybe more like 0.9x). The lamps in my Ram are pretty awful.

 

[meep]

Bring back the 2L/4H arrangement!! But only halogens. The true "sealed beam" incandescent lamps prior to halogens were not very good. The halogen versions (which were still called sealed beams but technically were a complete halogen bulb in a plastic or glass enclosure) to me were quite good, and probably fall somewhere in the middle today, just my opinion. The 2L/4H arrangement could produce a lot of light, and also allowed for clever mods. I definitely think some cars really get headlights done nicely, and then wonder how so many don't--- it's not like optics are a secret.

As an opinion, I also enjoy the classic look of good 'ole round sealed beams.

 

[SwampSurvivor]

Originally Posted By: 440Magnum
Originally Posted By: Miller88
A lot of people seem to hate on sealed beams, but when properly adjusted, I've always been able to see extremely well with them.


Not me, I love standardized headlamps as opposed to the unique-to-each-model designs we have now with performance all over the map from acceptable to horrible. I have yet to see any modern vehicle lighting system really approach the performance of a good set of sealed beams, or better yet the replaceable-bulb sealed-beam-format headlamps. Unfortunately the very newest vehicle I've owned with headlamps like that was my 2001 Cherokee. The HID projector lamps in my Challenger are good, but at least 10x the cost of standardized sealed beams for 1x the performance at most (maybe more like 0.9x). The lamps in my Ram are pretty awful.



The last time I lost a headlight in the Cherokee, I changed it in 10 minutes for under $10. And that includes going into the WalMart and finding a screwdriver in the toolbox.

Quick to service, cheap, and they work very well.

 

[Nate1979]

The headlights on my Sierra are downright horrible and dangerous. GM came out with an update, a little better bulb and higher output but general consensus is almost no improvement. There are very long threads over in the forums on GM-trucks.com on this issue.

 

[wheelman1991]

The best headlights I ever had were on my old 1990 dodge d150 (2wd ram) my 1986 chevy celebrity, and my 2000 Buick regal. Worst ever were the 2003-2007 dodge caravan taxis I drove as a cab driver. The 90's rangers I had were just okay, my 89 f150 headlights sucked, my 00 Saturn sl1 and my mother's 01 sl1 headlights were blah too.

 

[mclasser]

Who cares about headlights? Most important thing is for the center stack to have 3 displays that update my Twitter & Instagram pages while driving.

 

[JHZR2]

I've never been a sealed beam fan, but swapping to good e-code lights has always done really well.

Cars with projector beams seem to outperform cars with reflectortype assemblies.

The ford front end has become so obnoxiously large and ugly that it would be good to renew it for better lights and aesthetics.

 

[UG_Passat]

Originally Posted By: Miller88
A lot of people seem to hate on sealed beams, but when properly adjusted, I've always been able to see extremely well with them. Better than higher end ones for sure.

This must be why guys have to have multiple 50'' LED bars on their trucks?


Sealed beams do suck due to archaic standards they still had to meet.

the best thing to do with sealed beams is to ditch them and get Hella ecodes with replaceable H-series bulbs and relay them as the existing wiring were not made for up to 20W increase that the European bulbs needed.

 

[wings&wheels]

This, sealed beams were awful as was the DoT light pattern. It is disappointing that many new vehicles' headlights are worse than a quality set (Cibie, Hella, Bosch...even Lucas) of true E-Codes, even with stock wattage bulbs.

 

[Garak]

Originally Posted By: Miller88
A lot of people seem to hate on sealed beams, but when properly adjusted, I've always been able to see extremely well with them. Better than higher end ones for sure.

I agree completely. And, whenever I want absolute OEM lighting performance on my F-150, I go buy two new halogen sealed beams at roughly $10 a piece, and spend under ten minutes replacing them. I don't need some combination of sandpaper, clearcoat, PlastX, a body man, $1000 a side OEM lights, or dodgy Asian knockoffs to get the job done.

Some modern headlights can be, truth be told, pretty amazing. But, the problem is keeping them that way without going broke.

 

[xxch4osxx]

Originally Posted By: Miller88
A lot of people seem to hate on sealed beams, but when properly adjusted, I've always been able to see extremely well with them. Better than higher end ones for sure.

This must be why guys have to have multiple 50'' LED bars on their trucks?

I agree about the sealed beams. The trucks at work use sealed beams and when they are adjusted properly, they do light up the road well. Easy to change and you get a whole new lens, bulb and reflector all in one for a low price.