What are some good aftermarket brands for headlights?

[95C1500]

get a set with glare caps... such as these...

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The glare cap is the cover over the lowbeam bulb

 

[someotherguy]

No they aren't. Just as long as they are amber to a somewhat blueish and aren't too bright or are housed properly in projector. They pass inspection.

Passing inspection even in TX is just a lazy inspector or one that doesn't care.

HID conversions are technically illegal anywhere in this country as they do not comply with federal standards. It doesn't matter if you use housings with glare caps or even if you use aftermarket projector housings.

Do lots of people convert anyway? Yep. Do they get in trouble for it? Few do. And yes, the closer you keep the color temperature to stock 4300k the less likely you are to get hassled, and glare cap style housings help, but still don't correct the issues of running HID's in housings designed for halogen capsules.

And by the way, all those projector housings for our trucks, are horrible for light output. Worthless

Richard

 

[Geo's66]

Richard, how come? Just started with a tahoe and was going to do this... What would you recommend and why for better lighting?

 

[someotherguy]

How come what? That the projector housings are junk? They just are. You might find one or two people that bought them and won't tell the truth, but most people that have tried them discover the light output is worse than a fogged-up set of originals. They're just poorly designed cheap stuff intended solely to ride on trends in technology and buzzwords, with no real thought or care put into them as far as functionality goes.

What someone else mentioned earlier about retrofitting real (OEM style) projectors into the housings, that will get you some excellent results. Considerable amount of work and expense, but a few people have done it with these trucks.

I'll freely admit I have HID's in both my trucks currently, 35W 5000K inside some TYC Elegante housings. No, they're not legal (no HID conversion is) and they're definitely not an ideal situation even with the "glare caps" over the low beams in those Elegantes, but they are definitely bright. Problem is, in reflector housings (anything that normally uses regular halogen capsules) you'll get glare out of HID's and that's not cool for other drivers on the road.

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There can often be reliability problems with HID conversions too; they're just more Chinese cheapie stuff and it's very hit or miss on quality. While this truck sat in storage for a while, it seems to have started kicking on the HID's randomly (relay/relay harness issue) and burnt the relay harness along with taking out a ballast, good thing it popped the relay harness fuse or it could have done much more damage. Since I replaced the relay harness and ballast, it's still acting up a little with them not coming on every time, and sometimes doing this weird "UFO" intermittent momentary flashing while they should be off.

I've since purchased some HIR bulbs from http://store.candlepower.com/hirlighting.html but haven't gotten around to installing them yet. They're not going to get you that white/bluish light that most go for with HID's, and they still need to go into housings with the glare cap because the current HIR's available do not have the black coated tip that your standard halogen 9006 low beam bulbs do.

Richard