i ordered the 5000k Bi-Xenon HID kit from a place near my house called "Whites Pit Stop" they should get it in 2day or 2morrow. it was only $140 with tax and everything and hey cary them so i can get a new light or ballast ASAP. i cant wait til they get here and i can install them

 

2003 F150 SuperCrew, replaced 9007 bulbs with Silverstars........ my opinion, they SUCK. Maybe I need to re-adjust the beams, but I'm not impressed.

 

How about an update on the Bi-Xenon lights. I am not happy with the factory lights and want to upgrade. The factory low beams are not very good.

 

i aint been happy at all with my factory lights at all. ive owned a 94 and now a 2000 f150 and both trucks (and every other F150 ive road in to date) my problem is, the low beams only seem to light up about 40 yds in front of me and the high beams are barely any better. maybe 50 yds. (not talking about bulbs or brightness im talkin about how well the lights actually work) now my familys also owned many chevys and few other brands and every one of them low beams light up the road pretty good but the high beams are ACTUALLY high beams. they dont just get slightly brighter they light up to the tops of the trees and you can see like 300 yds down the road. has anybody else noticed this lack of quality in that respect? maybe i just got better luck than you need to win the powerball to get two fords in a row that aint normal. maybe theyre just outta whack or somethin but i doubt it

 

and for people readin my slogan thing i just got aftermarket lenses so the corners aint orange the whole plastic is clear. and its morn just my two trucks ive noticed this on

 

My truck is an 07 XLT, and my headlights work just like how they are supposed to. The lowbeams are good for up to 40 yards on the road while the highbeams are less on the road and illuminate higher and further.

When you mention "how well the lights actually work", I think some of us may be confused since you cancelled out 'bulbs' or 'brightness'. Are your housing covers dirty? If so, there are methods of cleaning the inside and outside of your covers. Are your bulbs at full illumination? Sometimes bulbs may be so old or just bad quality that their illumination is poor, which indicitates that you might want to consider new bulbs. There is a plastic or steel shroud over the light bulb. If it is not in proper place (bent if metal or melted if plastic), it will distort the lighting.

I have seen a lot of '97-'03 F150s and pre-'97 F150s with lights that work just fine so if your lights aren't working how you think they should, either your truck's headlight system has a fault, or your standards are slightly high for the norm.

Headlights are not supposed to be bright very far, otherwise you'd have to focus the beam (which is dangerous because it reduces the reflection area for signs and such and reduces side-to-side visibility) or increase the intensity which could be blinding to other drivers and can cause a dangerous road hazard. If the stock housings on those year F150s were truely 'bad', then the DOT would have never allowed them to be used.

 

Thanks for this reply. Previously, I had a '97 F-150 and never had issue with the headlights. I've just noticed that the low beams on my '06 F-150 don't seem to be as effective as the ones on my old truck. Wasn't looking to turn night into day, but just to make the road in front of me on lowbeams a bit wider and brighter.

 

im talking more about the angles of lighting than the actual bulb. the bulbs aint too old but when i get enough extra cash i do plan on puttin in some silverstar superbright ones. my truck has a very slight rake to it even though its a 4x4 but maybe its just the rake. my thoughts were my trucks the lows light up the road about 40yds when i flip to the highs the horizon of where the light ends is maybe at 50 yds and dont get no higher. my folks's chevys the lows are the same and they highs will light up less road and focus the beam higher and wider, as i feel they should. but they will light up at least 90-100 yds and at least the whole shoulder on each side of a two lane road. im startin to think im just gonna go adjust the angles of my lights till the highs are to the point they do there job. IMO thats not to say they should work just like i just described is, its to be much farther and a little brighter then the lows for the main point of saftey.

 

One thing you gotta understand with Chevys is their headlight system is MUCH different from that of a Ford or even a Dodge in the sense that the low and high beams are not integrated into one single housing. With a Ford, one housing is used. 40 yards on low beam is actually quite far. My truck is firing at up to 40 yards because I leveled my truck and never adjusted the height of my housings because when I did the level, I had aftermarket projector headlamps and adjusted those. Only recently have I replaced my housings back to stock, so they need adjustment. High beams aren't supposed to light up the road right in front of you, if that's the effect you're getting then you might want to make sure your housings aren't dirty, distorted, or misaligned.

And if you do decide to go with a different bulb, I will say out of personal experience that the Silverstar Ultrabrights are not at all impressive in my opinion. Two of my friends have identical year Nissan Frontiers and parked side by side. One had stock bulbs and the other had the Ultrabrights. The Silverstars were a bit whiter, but not dramatically brighter, actually hardly noticeable. If you do intend on going with a brighter lighting system, I would suggest going with a High Intensity Discharge system, or HID. If you do decide to go HID, get two sets in case you ever blow a bulb or transformer, you have replacement parts at hand since you can't find HID systems at most local stores. The brightest HID system would be 4000k in color (which is as white as you can get) @ 55W (which would need a new wiring harness since it will draw more current than your stock headlight harness can carry). HIDs come available in all colors and generally in two different power consumptions, 35W and 55W. HIDs are suggested to be installed off the battery and connected to the headlight harness via a relay so the ignition (which can spike more than 10A of power) of the bulb always gets best power and doesn't degrade over time.

If the stock housing still isn't good enough, you can check out aftermarket headlamp housings that have projectors in them. They will run on a segregated low and high beam system, but projectors are great in illumination in the sense that they are focused but diffuse greatly around the focal point. You can check out ebay as a place to find such a housing.

 

the HIDs would be a very nice upgrade. mabye someday but for now im kinda tight on cash. i think when the cash does come in either two or four super high output offroad lights are gonna be gettin mounted behind my grill wired to run simutaneously with my high beams. but for now ive got to keep it cheap. so i took a good look at my lights theyre adjusted right so i aint gonna tinker with the angle. but i know our bulbs are dual filement. my thoughts are when we use high beams only the high beam filement gets lit and same for lows, but when using lows they have to not glare into cars so thats a legit reason for not having highs on at the same time. but why not wire them so that when i have lows selected only lows are on but when i switch to highs high and low beams shine at the same time. i cant think of a reason that would be negative in any way, only brighter (hence safer).... has anybody done this? would that even be feasible with a dual filement bulb or will they burn up too fast?

 

Well, I put some Sylvania ultras in and am happy with the change - new bulbs and some re-aiming seemed to help. I also installed some PIAA 525 for some of the more dangerous dark driving I do in the mountains - but that's another story. Just talking headlights alone, I found the Sylvanias provided a nice upgrade from my stock bulbs.

 

I heard running both high and low beams on a dual-filament will burn the bulb out prematurly. I know people that have done this and only a couple of people have told me that their bulbs have lasted, while the rest have reported less than 48 hours of constant use before they burn out. Personally, since they are your headlights and they are designed stictly with safety in mind, I wouldn't alter them to operate outside of manufacturer's design. Your bets bet would be to get offroad lights. Check out some of the how to's, there are people who have installed offroad lights behind the grills of 97-03 and 04-08 F150s. I have four behind the grill on my truck, and they work great! I paid MAYBE $15 to build the bracket, and the lights were $60 per pair. If you shop around, you can get offroad lights for cheap, either driving lights or fog lights. HIDs are actually not too expensive, you can get a set (transformers and bulbs) for about $60 ($90 for bi-xenon) if you shop around.

As for the Sylvanias, I did notice a difference between two identical vehicles (one equipped with the Ultrabrights and the other equipped with stock bulbs) but to me the difference wasn't that substantial. Now this was viewed on a Nissan Frontier. I understand they have different headlight designs, but in comparison, I just can't see spending THAT much on bulbs when I could spend the same price on a set of HIDs or offroad lights.

 

I grabbed some of those new Philips Xtreme bulbs and they kick Sylvanias *** big time.

 

If you're interested in HID on a budget, you can't beat ddmtuning.com. They have a kit for $30 + shipping (for me was about $12). That's really not that much more than a set of silverstars.

I have DDM's slimline ballast kits ($20 more than the larger ones, only difference is smaller size) and have been very happy with them. Personally I have 3 sets that have been great, and know 4 others who have also used them with good results.

Here's the link for more info:

http://www.ddmtuning.com/index.php?p...=102&parent=85

 

that seems very inexpensive to what ive heard HIDs can cost (up to 1K). is there really that much of a difference? i know it says HIDs but i also know ya get what you pay for so the price is like a double edge sword in that respect. i've never personally seen anybody with HIDs to know how bright they should be so idk if itd be much of a improvement or similar gains to the silverstars. one'd think a set of 55w 6000k bulbs would put silverstars to shame but ive bought cheap stuff before and regretted it.. i googled around a bit and found this pic, to me this is what i'd reasonably expect for a HID conversion to do..... http://www.hid-xenon.ca/images/HID%2...ID%20Xenon.jpg