Upgrade your headlight bulbs to see more clearly at night Should you upgrade your bulbs? | | Modern car headlights are incredibly bright. Indeed, some may say that theyâre too bright, but they definitely allow you to see farther ahead than ever before.
But what if you have a slightly older car that doesnât have the modern HID/LED/laser lighting systems of todayâs machines? Older halogen bulbs can make you feel like youâre driving along dark roads behind a couple of flickering candles. And if something comes the other way with super-bright LED headlights, you can be completely blinded for a few seconds, partly because your own lights donât have a bright enough beam pattern to counteract the oncoming glare.
However, you can easily make a difference by upgrading the bulbs on your car, to make night driving easier. | | It is well worth upgrading your halogen headlight bulbs. Independent tests have shown that aftermarket bulbs can increase light by around 130%. Not only that, but brighter bulbs means less eye strain, which means less tiredness, so youâll be safer.
The only way to upgrade your old halogen headlights is to simply replace the standard factory bulbs with brighter aftermarket ones, such as Osram Nightbreakers or Philips RacingVision bulbs, which youâll find in car accessory shops and online.
What does the law say about HID and LED upgrades?
Using LED or HID bulbs, even with a conversion kit, is illegal if your car has H4 or H7 halogen bulbs. If you do fit them, youâll be leaving yourself open to a fine, and your car will fail its MoT test. This is because halogen lights require a reflector (the shiny silver bit at the back wall of your headlight unit) to focus their beam in the right direction.
However, because LED and HID bulbs need a focusing lens ahead of them instead of a reflector behind, fitting them to a traditional halogen headlight unit means theyâll end up being far too bright, and their beams will be widely dispersed, so theyâll end up blinding other drivers. In cars fitted with HID/LED bulbs, the actual glass front of the headlight unit is often the lens thatâs used to focus their beam in the correct direction. Hence, theyâre illegal in cars without this type of headlight unit. | | | Technical Editor, Martynn Randall has been with Haynes for approaching 30 years and has written more than 60 Haynes Manuals. | | | | | | |  |
