Main beam bulb options

B

Bombardino

Member
 North Shropshire
Please forgive me if this topic has already been covered numerous times, I would like to replace my main beam bulbs to a brighter & whiter bulb.
What would be your recommendations? I already have 6000K HID's in the driving lights & LED side lights so as you can probably tell I'm after a whiter looking bulb put at the same time it's got to be functional.

Cheers.
 
Doubt you'll get anything to colour match at 6000k aside from perhaps LEDs which won't really be functional.
 
Best bet is some of the Osram nightbreaker that are a bit whiter, but not LED or xenon colour temp. I have them as flash to pass in the Zed and another car.
 
Yes, I've been reading some good reviews of the Orsam nighbreaker, the other bulb that comes highly rated is the Philips X-treme Vision +130% although it's a bit more expensive.
I think it's going to be a toss up between the two.
 
Bombardino said:
Yes, I've been reading some good reviews of the Orsam nighbreaker, the other bulb that comes highly rated is the Philips X-treme Vision +130% although it's a bit more expensive.
I think it's going to be a toss up between the two.
Click to expand...

Please post your results which ever bulb you choose as I'm thinking the same for my 3 series touring and be interested on your opinion after a night drive.
 
If you've got HIDs and they're adjusted well I don't think you'll get much more useful light on the road from the high beams. I find with mine they just illuminate higher up but don't put any more light on the road if that makes sense.
 
Quick update

I went for the Orsam nighbreaker, Maybe my expectations were a wee to high as to be perfectly truthful there doesn’t appear to be a lot of difference between the OEM bulbs & these, it could be down to me already having HID’s fitted that throw a lot of white light onto the road that you don’t really notice the additional light output of the upgraded bulbs.

Took me about 1hr to change them, I must say though I’ve had my fair share of car’s & this has to be close to the top of this list for being the most awkward to change the headlight bulbs on.
 
Considered these led bulbs?

http://www.auto-lighting.co.uk/product-eng-5763-H4-H7-H8-H9-H11-HB3-HB4-LED-Headlight-Bulbs-KIT-3000lm-Lumen-with-CREE-XML-chips.html

-Bulbs-KIT-3000lm-Lumen-with-CREE-XML-chips-5763_2.jpg
 
Bombardino said:
Not to sure about LED's for the main, the spec looks good on paper though.
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This previous discussion suggests that to get any value out of LEDs or HIDs you would need to replace the optics as well as the bulbs. In the end I went for the Philips X-treme, and I'm reasonably happy with the result. IIRC they cost about the same as Osram on Amazon.
 
Bombardino said:
Quick update

I went for the Orsam nighbreaker, Maybe my expectations were a wee to high as to be perfectly truthful there doesn’t appear to be a lot of difference between the OEM bulbs & these, it could be down to me already having HID’s fitted that throw a lot of white light onto the road that you don’t really notice the additional light output of the upgraded bulbs.

Took me about 1hr to change them, I must say though I’ve had my fair share of car’s & this has to be close to the top of this list for being the most awkward to change the headlight bulbs on.
Click to expand...

Probably expectation too high. End of the day it's still just a halogen build, albeit perhaps running a thinner filament and maybe different inert gas to squeeze a bit more out of it.
Still old tech
 
You can get more usable light on the road by dropping your HIDs to 4300k - I found 5000k tiring on long drives, don't have that problem now and still look plenty white.
 
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