follow-up on 6 month headlight life - '07

Following up on a topic I started a while back, on headlights lasting only about 6 months on my 07 Prius.
07 headlights, ~6 month life | PriusChat
Well, another light blew out today which puts me a bit under the 6 month lifespan I've been seeing for the past 2-3 packs of lightbulbs.
I told myself last time a bulb blew I was going to look into the LED options rather than keep spending $xx on new packs of bulbs.
Although the LED bulb is obviously a whole different setup than a halogen bulb, I'm curious if anyone has some thoughts on how the current short lifespan of my recent bulbs (or whatever issue is causing it if not the bulbs) may affect the lifespan of LED bulbs.
Leaning towards the OPT7 kit on amazon unless anybody has used/recommends another option. Also saw the install thread on PC for it.
Amazon.com: OPT7 LED Headlight Bulbs w/ Clear Arc-Beam Kit - H4 (9003) - 80w 7,000Lm 6K Cool White CREE - 2 Yr Warranty: Automotive

Thanks!

 

good question but no I'm not touching the bulb with my fingers. The first time I did this I wore some of my medical exam gloves but now that I do this at pit stop speeds, I have the process down without touching any part of the glass.
Plus if I did manage to touch it, I would expect oil damage to make the bulb last even shorter than the 5-6 months I'm seeing now wouldn't you think?

 

I was willing to go with the possibility of the bulbs being defective after the first set went out, but I'm on the third set now. two different brands bought at the same time, sylvania I think was the one I repeated the purchase on. Usually the lights burn out in a staggered pattern.
Either way, I would think the stats would be so slim of bulb contamination on 2 different brands bought on two different dates.

So moving on... my 07 is the odd duckling that mysteriously developed a sensor problem last winter. Out of the blue it wouldn't recognize the key fob for up to half an hour. Went up one wall and down the other with toyota, even the techs saw it and couldn't figure it out. They were just about ready to send the case up to toyota corporate and the problem just went away on it's own. Ghost in the machine? Who knows but I'd say with issues like that, and headlights burning out in short intervals, 'normal' doesn't exactly define this car's status.

I'm hoping that spending the money on a LED pair of headlights will help eliminate the need to replace bulbs every 5-6 months. An overkill patch job? yeah but given how complex the electrical side of this car is I don't know what it would take to comb through this with enough detail to figure out what the root problem is.

 

Good question. I'm certainly not an expert in the HID realm, but I did come across quite a few posts regarding the type of light chamber and reflective angles of halogen vs HID bulbs. Unless I missed some details, I think the majority of the LED bulbs are meant to be a halogen replacement, and if so then it would theoretically rely on the reflective angles of the halogen headlight casing.
Unless someone else wants to chime in with direct details, I would search a bit on HID to LED and see what comes up. People far more knowledgable than I have talked about it!

 

Good point Patrick.
I'm trying to remember what my exact path was for the headlight replacements when the original bulbs first went out. I have a feeling that given the short notice of seeing a headlight going out, I stopped by the auto store and picked up what I could in the evening hour. Probably wasn't the OEM stock but it wasn't the ultra bright ones either. Just something to get the headlight up and running. That and I think the local Toyota shop was asking far too much for the stock bulbs, so I shopped elseware. Anyway, I think from those initial replacements, I started searching online for recommended bulbs so I could keep some in stock incase one of the bulbs went out while on the road. People were rating the Philips and Sylvania as pretty good so I opted for those. But... I do recall the original bulbs were rather weak in comparison.
Product packaging on either seemed to indicate the product life should be more than 6 months so I started thinking something odd was going on with the car.

I got hooked on Toyota's driver door cutoff for headlights back on my 80's era camry. Since it was an excellent failsafe on making sure the headlights would turn off when you left the vehicle, I just kept using it since the prius had the same feature. Easy option for DRL!

Personally I think of it more on the safety side to have lights on all the time. So if that means bulbs like the Philips crystalvision or Philips silverstar ultra burn out quite fast, then fine. With this interest in mind, the stock bulbs would probably give the lifespan I had seen in the past, but not nearly as bright as the bulbs I'm using now.
Hopefully the LED bulbs I'm looking at will give enough longevity to warrant the cost.

 

The only major issue I've heard people talking about with the LED bulbs was the Hi/Lo difference. I think the general operation of LED bulbs still varies enough from halogen. LED emits light from one side (180 degrees) since it's mounted to a circuit board, vs halogen which emits light 360 degrees. The LED design compensation is to have emitters on both sides so they are giving a full 360 but it's still two separate light sources.
From my understanding, the headlight assemblies are designed to focus light coming from the 360 degree light pattern so LED bulbs don't get the same effect. What people have said is the hi-beam light doesn't get thrown as far forward.

I don't use my hi-beams all that often since most of my driving has some kind of lighting around. Most of their use is to see deer and make sure I'm not going to get hit if they come running!

 

Oh lovely, now I'm getting the warm fuzzy feeling on my upcoming luck with LED bulbs! lol
Like other people have pointed out, the ones I'm looking at seem to have the highest rating and largest review base than other bulbs, so for the majority I would think they would be fine. No jinxing!

The battery in my car is maybe 2 years old I think? Have had to replace it a few times due to long mil deployment sit times. Whatever the OSD diag mode showed for voltage wasn't within the limits so I replaced it.
Most recent one was last spring now to think of it, so take that to 1.5 years.

I do notice the lights take 20 seconds or so to get that energy kick when the engine actually starts up after I turn the car on.