I don't think some of you understand what glare is... I don't see glare on any of the photos I've seen...

 

In the pictures you posted the light leaves the housing and goes everywhere. Up, down, sideways, forward, you name it. Headlights should focus on the road and in front of the vehicle to avoid blinding oncoming drivers. This is why we don’t drive with our high beams on, it is a safety issue. The stock bulbs and housings are designed to work together to optimize the effectiveness of the light.

Take a table lamp in your house for instance. You have a lamp and a shade. Turn the lamp on and it provides light, the shade cuts out the light that would be directed directly into your eyes. You can look right at the lamp, stand near it, or walk towards it and it helps light your way without blinding you. Now take the shade off and double the brightness of that lamp. The light still lights your way but your eyes will pick up a lot of wasted light that goes directly into your eyes, actually hindering your vision. This is what we see when we look at your pictures. My 32” LED bar puts out more light than these bulbs you posted but would you want me to turn it on driving in your direction?

When you put bulbs in that were not designed to work with these housings that alters where the light goes. It’s just light all over the place, including in the eyes of oncoming traffic. And if you honestly can’t see or understand that, you should stop recommending these as your basic understanding of automotive lighting is severely lacking.

 

Could I possibly suggest a better way to determine just how well the new LED replacement bulbs work as compared to stock bulbs? A while back, thelariat02 posted up some really great pics of various F-150 Fog Lamp replacements. (These were entire replacement units, not just bulbs.) The pics were taken from the truck with the lights aimed at a large, flat wall. What this did was clearly show the pattern the lights projected, the cutoff and any stray light above that cutoff. (And stray light is one form of glare.)

https://www.f150online.com/forums/il...-shootout.html

The reason this is important is that just about any light looks bright when your looking at the light. Where the light goes - which is the opposite direction - is what's much more important in the real world. And just because a light is "brighter" (more Lumens being one measure) doesn't mean it actually puts more usable light on the ground. I've seen countless lights that were indeed brighter, but much of that increased output was poorly focused and went places it either shouldn't have gone, or straight into the eyes of oncoming drivers. (That would be another form of glare.) In fact this is the challenge facing OEM lighting designers and engineers today. It's easy to make a light brighter. It's hard not to **** off oncoming drivers with that increased lighting output. That's why you see such a sharp cutoff on almost any high-end OEM lighting system today.

So let's see some pics of the new LED replacement bulbs back to back with the OEM bulbs against the same flat wall. And I guess we'll have to wait to see how long the LED bulbs last compared to the OEM units. Fair enough?

 

I saw that thread. That was a huge wall. lol. This is a great idea. I think this should be done with all of them and should be mandatory from the manufacturer but I would like to see this too.

 

This ^ no photo shop or alteration either. But I feel 4x4 is a respectable enough business owner that he wouldn't alter a photo just to prove a point.
Now a wall is a great way to show where light goes like above cut off, dark spots etc. But alot of times that wall output doesn't transfer perfectly to the road. For example the Mini H1 projector looks great on paper/wall and even looks to beat OEM projectors but when put into the real world it still shows its weaknesses and inferiority compared to OEM projectors on the road.. So wall shots from 40' away is a good start, but on road real life shots also matter very much.

 

Here are a couple good examples of LEDs vs halogen bulbs in a halogen housing.





The halogen bulb is focused, the led is not. Yes, the led is brighter, but that extra light isn't being focused on the road where it should be.

 

This just got a lot more interesting. Thanks for posting!

 

Of course, not a problem!

 

Aren't drop in LED and PnP HID kits technically illegal anyway?

 

As far as I know, yes, they are illegal.

 

100%, but so are retrofits so I try not to throw that in the ball game to often

 

PnP kits specifically don't meet federal regulations on "dazzling" or "glaring" light output



Some people will argue that even retrofits are illegal.

Retrofits are only illegal because they were modified after DOT certification, and in theory would need to be recertified to become legal for road use.

 

I was thinking about doing a retrofit on my truck this summer, but I bought brand new OEM Harley Davidson headlights($400) last summer and they look great. I don't want to bake those gems...............

 

This what glare looks like on the road. I'm in my stock 2wd 2014 F150 with tinted windows. Followed by a mid 90s Nissan midsized pickup. Mush shorter truck than mine. PnP headlights, likely 55w kit based on how "bright" they were

Glaring lights clearly visible at the height of my rear view mirror

 

Been there and done that! I should take a picture (or video) of what it looks like when I finally get pissed off enough at idiots like that and basically "throw the main lighting breaker" in my truck. One would think the whole world was coming to an end. (People in the oncoming lanes have actually pulled off the road on occasion.) That usually gets the point across.