What is the best halogen headlight bulb?

Hello, everyone. I am removing my aftermarket HID headlight bulb system that came with the car when I bought it. The color of the HID is too blue for my taste (it is not white, it is blue-ish) and the fact that they were installed into the stock reflector headlight assemblies means that I am annoying/dazzling oncoming traffic. I hate those people and I do not want to be one of them. I have lived with the HID system since I bought the car in July and it is really bright, but the color, oncoming traffic dazzling and the fact that they render high beams all but useless is really wearing on me. I am going back to halogen. I know, it is less bright, etc., but this is what I have decided.

So, my question is what is the very brightest/best halogen bulb I can install into my gen 2 Prius?

I have short listed the following:

PIAA Extreme White Plus
Sylvania zXe High Perfrmance
Philips Racing Vision

I am leaning towards PIAA as they are just a top

 

Do you have personal experience with one of the others or do you just love the Philips Racing Vision?

 

I did not try to adjust anything in that HID setup. I hate the color (it says 8000K on the bulb wires) and I really don't think there is an adjustment to deal with putting an HID bulb into a reflector housing. It's a bad idea. If I had a source of projector housings or something like that I would definitely consider HID, or better yet, LED (better technology, IMO), but as it is I am just going to go with some top end halogens and see how I like it. The current HID setup is bright, no doubt about it. Lights up everything with that blue light. Makes the grass look purple and white licence plates blue.

 

I just completed removing the aftermarket HID system from my car. Upon completing that task I realized that the right side ballast is a). newer and b). is connected straight from the OE harness to the ballast without relay and/or high beam controller. That explains my poor high beam performance. Only one bulb was doing it. The way it's implemented in this system is by having a small solenoid installed in the base of the bulb. When the high beams are activated the high beam controller (if present) will energize the solenoid and will pull the bulb backwards about a quarter inch (approximately). Well, the controller is missing on the right side. But everything else works fine. Both bulbs and both ballasts are in working order.

I happened to have the original halogens from this car given to me with the sale by the original owner. I used those until I decide what better halogen bulb to get. Besides the (comparatively) yellow tint to them and much lower brightness I actually like the light pattern better. It has a cutoff line so as not to shine into rear view mirrors, which is great and it throws the light pretty far. I think with whiter and brighter bulb it may be just fine for me.

If anyone knows of a good projector setup for the HID/LED bulb for this car, please let me know. I would not mind having fancy lights, but really don't want to drive around with HID in reflectors.

 

All brighter bulbs have a short lifespan. I have not seen real-world comparisons of the three candidates I have selected regarding lifespan. Also, it seems different cars effect lifespan differently. Prius seems to "eat" bulbs. Most likely due to lack of a proper alternator with a full bridge rectifier as in conventional cars. What feeds the 12V circuits is a DC-DC converter and that may have some undesirable characteristics to its DC. I have not owned the Prius long enough to have experienced bulb failure, but I have read accounts of incandescent bulbs going faster than normal on Gen 2 Prii. It is unfortunate, but I guess it's part of life with this car. So far I am pleased enough overall with this car that the bulb failure issue may not bother me so much and I am prepared to bear some extra cost of bulbs (I am saving a lot more on gas in the bargain). If the problem becomes really bad I may look into the DC-DC converter issue a bit. It may be easy to solve electrically (filters, chokes, etc.) I am also inclined to replace most of the bulbs with LED, which is becoming more and more mainstream, at least for non-headlight applications. Turn signals, side markers tail lights, map lights, etc. are becoming available on LED form from mainstream stores like Walmart.

Eventually I would love to run LED headlights. I believe LED is the best light technology human kind has come with so far. But in the headlight application it is not practical in this car without fundamentally changing the headlight housing from reflector type to projector type. I am not sure I am prepared to do that, so I am going to try brighter (and shorter lifespan) halogens and see how I like it.

 

I have now completed removal of the aftermarket HID system and have installed stock bulbs that were provided to me by the previous (original) owner. They are not great, but you know, they glow. I am not super happy with them. I have now practiced installing and removing them several times in the course of uninstalling HID. For me it is easiest now (after several practice runs and much cussing) to perform that task without taking the bumper and the whole housing off. My hands are small enough to get the job done by just reaching in there and fiddling around. Now that I know exactly what it's like down there I can actually do this very quickly. Driver's side is harder then the passenger. I have seen the luscious garage videos where she takes the headlight assembly out in less than 5 minutes by partially undoing the bumper cover and I have also seen her video where she takes the (stock HID) bulb out by reaching in there in about 3 minutes. If I ever need to take the housing out I know it's not a big job, but to just change the bulb I can now do it with no tools by reaching in.

All this makes me think that I may go back to the HID setup, but with less blue bulbs and possibly a projector retrofit. In the meantime I have ordered PIAA extreme White Plus bulbs to try. I can return them if they seem too blue. I hate blue headlights with a passion. From everything I read the Extreme White are supposed to be not be blue at all. If I don't like them I will try the Philips Racing Vision next.

I think I will be working towards a retrofit projector setup in the background. It is expensive and relatively labor intensive, but I like to tinker and I really need better headlights. I'm in my 50's and my night vision although still pretty good, is beginning to trail off. I live in the countryside and some roads are not lit, so good lighting is a matter of safety for me.

Thank you all for the input.

 

While I totally agree with you on the fact that aftermarket systems can be horrible and are aggressively marketed to people who love to be told what they want to hear (it's a plug and play, dontcha know!), there are many ways to make aftermarket HID systems as good or even much better than factory installed. Auto lighting retrofit "geeks" out there are very committed to obtaining amazing results and issues like glare and beam pattern and intensity is very much a priority. It's kind of like the audiophiles of old. They'll spend a lot of money on things only they can notice. I have been doing some research into the HID retrofitting and there is definitely a way to make an aftermarket HID system amazingly good on almost any car. It's just a matter of cost and effort (if DIY). I think a gen 2 Prius can be retrofitted very well for around $400 and some DIY time. It is a lot of money, I think and I may not go there, but it can be done (and has been done) and it will work very well.

It's those plug and play systems that are hawked for about $100 on many sites that cause lots of glare and pattern issues. That is exactly what I removed from my car because I could not stand it any more. I do miss brighter lights, but I do not miss grass appearing purple (I had 8000K colored HID lamps) and I do not miss people flashing me and I don't miss knowing that many who don't flash are still annoyed as am I when I am dazzled by someone's unscrupulous lighting.

So I will try allegedly brighter and whiter halogen bulbs, but I think I will stay away from another plug and play setup as I previously thought I may do by replacing 8000K bulbs with 4300K.