Need Good Bright Inexpensve Headlight Bulbs

JDM ASTAR on Amazon have decent bulbs for cheap.

 

The usual culprit is the entire reflector and lens assembly, not just the bulb.

 

If you are proficient with tools, or you have a rotary tool, you can get 65w H9 bulbs for about $20 a pair. Link in my signature below shows what 2 modifications need to be made to install in place of the oem H11 bulbs.

The H9 bulbs are about 50 percent brighter than the H11 bulbs and are about half the price of the so called "premium" H11 bulbs out there.

 

Why do you want to waste your money ?
That is VERY likely what will happen if you go cheap. The new ones might not even be as bright as OEM.

Good name brand high intensity bulbs are available from Sylvania and Phillips and a couple of others too.......that are NOT a higher wattage and don't require modifications to keep from melting things.

 

I also installed a kit from innovited on our Prius, but it is a 35w AC ballast kit.

I too didn't care for the bulbs that came with the kit, so I swapped the bulbs for these:

CN-LIGHT HID XENON HID REPLACEMENT BULB H1 H3 H7 H9 H11 9006 9005 D2H HB3 HB4

Running 4300K temperature bulbs. If you order from this seller, make sure you specify the H11b type bulbs with the ground wire opposite from the largest tab on the base. Otherwise, you might receive the A type with the ground wire next to the largest tab, and you will have ground shadows.

 

After reading the many posts on headlight bulb replacement- I am more confused than ever. Please help me understand what to buy. My wants/needs list, a brighter bulb, brand name or off brand, led or hid, easy to install, less expensive is preferred.

My biggest problem is that I am not machanically inclined so any hard modification is out of the question. The stock bulbs are not bright enough. Recently I hit a 2ft median strip because I didn’t see it. Luckily it did not do any damage but a brighter bulb will prevent future collisions. Also I have oxidized headlights which is a contributing factor to less visibility thus a brighter bulb is necessary. I am looking for a straight forward answer or a link to the bulb recommended. Thank you for any help you can provide.

 

Two important things a person in your situation needs to know:
You need to get the foggy lenses fixed. A temporary "chemical" fix DIY should cost you around $20; having someone else do it, maybe $50.

The only practical way to get more light is to change out the bulbs for brighter ones; this assumes that the originals are halogen.
You can NOT change the type of lights (to HID or LED for instance) without a lot of cost and hassle.

PIAA seems to get the best reviews on replacement bulbs. On some models they are fairly easy to change and on some very difficult.

If you have your service done at a shop or dealer that you trust, ask them about PIAA replacement bulbs and fixing the fogged lenses.

 

Interesting discussion.

I'll add these comments.
1) Going aftermarket seems to have risks...buyer beware.
2) Having clean/ clear headlight covers is necessary.
3) PIAA is a well established brand, maybe the best bet for a OEM type/ wattage bulb only replacement.
4) If better night vision is the goal, I think I would look to a aftermarket driving light kit. Screw housing to bumper, run wire to interior and install a toggle switch under the dash...or some similar install process...cheap, reliable, easy.

 

I'd suggest getting the lenses good and clear first, then re-evaluating whether you need to do anything else.

Halogen bulb design is a tradeoff between brightness and longevity, and the tradeoff isn't even fair: what increases light output by about the third power decreases longevity by about the thirteenth power. Some Prius owners already don't like how quickly the lights burn out; changing them for designer extrabrights exacerbates that. (More background here; some 2010s and 2011s had especially severe short-headlight-life issues, for which a fix is available, but I see you have a 2004 so that won't apply to you. Did you notice you were tagging on to a Gen 3 thread?)

-Chap

 

If the housings are oxidized, get them cleaned and polished... some Toyota dealers offer the service... and put the factory OEM or a standard like Philips H11 in, and you are good to go. With the oxidized lenses remaining, the job is not done and the visibility is not safe. From what I am seeing, LEDs are a glitchy and inconsistent retrofit situation,the final beam output to the road may not be correct... may cut off in the wrong place, blind other drivers etc... because the LED emitters on the bulb aren't designed together with the projector lens and don't put out light in the same alignment behind that projector lens in the housing.

 

BEAMTECH H11 LED Bulb, 50W 6500K 8000Lumens Extremely Brigh H8 H9 CSP Chips Conversion Kit Fanless Cool White All In One Plug N Play Low Fog Light

I bought this off the recommendation of other gen 3 owners. The light cutoff is perfect.


iPhone ?