2004 Legacy L Wagon: Headlights replacement - HID or LED?

[micheall]

So I'm new to the Subaru world, but I know that my wagon has the headlights running as DRL 24/7. At night though, I'm completely unhappy with the stock bulb light output. I even bought some of the "super white" bulb replacements and it's lackluster for vision.

 

I've been weighing replacing with HID or LED. My concern with the HID is the 24/7 use. The LED's I would be less worried about because of the longer lifespan of LED bulbs, but every 9007 bulb I've found says it might be too big for housing.

 

Thoughts?

[rverdoold]

I have an 2009 outback with factory HID lights and the now lasted 100k miles. I checked the bulb and would not worry on bulb lifetime. However I think everyone putting after market HID lamps in their car should be put in front of it and see if it does not blind other traffic. Factory HIDS have shutters and special lenses. So stay with Leds and check for blinding.

[GreaseMonkey03]

Are your headlights lenses clean? I don't know if they have adjustments or not but make sure they are aimed correctly too. Those super whites are pretty bright but useless if the lenses are not pointing in the right direction or if the lenses are foggy.

[golucky66]

First and foremost. If your headlight lens are cloudy or hazy. You need to clean them first. Because that will reduce your light put put significantly.

 

Secondly. I've found that aftermarkets systems, HID or LED, tend to be cheaply made and/or installed poorly. I've see the ballast for the HID sheet metal screwed to the radiator support and it just looks dumb and the ballast is loose. Same thing applies to LED.

 

LED you need to be care and shop around for the right ones. Because LED suffer from patchy light and typically cheap lights don't cover the read with light. It's a patch here and there. Which is not good. The other thing is that they can (depending on a lot of things) interfere with your radio. You'll loose signal, or hear more static. The upside is in theory, LEDs should last longer then HIDs.

 

HID are similar to halogen, where you cannot touch the bulb when installing or the lifespan is significantly reduced. They also don't suffer from he commonly patchy issues. But HID are a poor choice for the High beam bulbs because HID bulbs are similar to fluorescent bulbs in your house. They take up to 30 seconds to reach their full potential. Which for Hugh beams isn't ideal.

 

I upgraded the lights on my 04 Baja with some OPT7 LED bulbs are have to say I'm happy with them. Though I experience radio interference pretty bad. But I just stream music so I don't mind. They're super bright when adjusted properly and I love them.

 

 

Key thing to keep in mind is that the lens in your car are designed to reflect the light based on the assumption that a halogen bulb is in there. So changing out the style of bulb is always a risk of the light not reflecting properly out of the socket.