04 Forester - light bar

[Leporidae]

Hello,

 

I just joined this forum because I just got an 04 Forester XS and I had a few questions, but no one to ask. My ex had a Forester and he installed a light bar on some racks he put in on the roof. I thought it looked douchy at first, but it was awesome. So now that I have my own Forester, I want to install that aswell, but I'm not sure whoch one to get. There are different ones on Ebay and Amazon, and frankly, I dont know wtf I'm looking at.

 

I'd also like to put in a pair of fog lights in the front, but I'm not aure where to get those or how much they cost. They'd be the kind that look kind of like cow catchers.

 

Speaking of cows... I wanted the XT but decided not to get one because of fuel cost, but its sooo much slower. Can I make this thing any faster?

 

If you havent noticed yet, I'm a noob at this.

[Numbchux]

http://www.rigidindustries.com/ is probably the most popular high-quality light bar company. But they're expensive.

 

https://www.gtrlighting.com/products/led/off-road-lights makes some good stuff, too. I have experience with their LED headlight bulb replacements, but not with their bars.

 

 

 

I'm currently looking at https://www.auxbeam.com for some of my projects. They seem to be a good balance of cost and quality (no, definitely not the same quality as Rigid, but also better than most of the really cheap ebay stuff).

[Leporidae]

Numbchux,

 

Thanks for the websites. To be honest, I went on them but I'm still not sure which one to get. Can you make a specific suggestion? Sorry for being such a girl about it

[Numbchux]

Well, there's really only a couple things to be aware of.

 

The length of the bar. Basically, measure the width of the area in which you want to mount the bar (roof rack, between the headlights, etc.). You'll probably want to find a technical drawing or specifications list that shows the actual outer dimensions of the light bar, to make sure it fits without interfering with anything (for example, a company *might* list a bar as being 24", but they're talking about the actual lens length, by the time you get the housing, and sometimes some mounting hardware on the side, they might be 2 or 3" longer).

 

 

You'll also want to choose what style light you want. There are different light patterns that function differently. Pencil, Spot, Driving, Flood, Fog.

 

Pencil is not pictured, but it's even more pronounced than spot. These are also sometimes represented by a beam angle (10*-90*, pencil through fog respectively). Most larger light bars (and some of the smaller ones) use a combination of 2 of those styles, so some of the LED cells will light up the road long in front of you, and some of them will light up the ditches better. You'll want to think about the driving you typically do, and your personal preferences on what style light you want.

 

 

I just ordered a pair of small flood lights from AuxBeam for my lawn tractor/snow blower, and I intend to mount them angled out, so they really light up a large area in front and around the tractor.

 

 

Armed with those 2 pieces of information (I can't recommend one particular model, as I don't own a Forester to measure, and I don't know what style you want). You should be able to narrow the list down considerably. There will likely be different brightness ones that meet the same dimensions, and that just comes down to what you're willing to pay.

 

 

Auxbeam makes this cool Universal mount, that sandwiches behind your license plate, so you don't have to fabricate any mounts, or drill any new holes.

https://www.auxbeam.com/led-light-bar-mounts/mounts-others/85619581

 

They also make these wiring kits, that include a relay, fuse, and switch to get everything working correctly with minimal effort.

https://www.auxbeam.com/accessories/Led-Light-Wirings/77707706