Why are my Lo Beams burning out?

[kennythewelder]

...and the mucking featheads that use fog lamps when it's not foggy.

It's gotten so that around here, folks will use six friggin' headlights, in town, with oncoming traffic.

We have the same crap here, and all LED lights. So you have this jacked up truck coming at you with 6 blinding LED lights, none of them properly aimed. It's not just the trucks though. I followed a friend back to his store and lock after the car show. He was in his 2006 Vette and needed a ride back to his Dailey ride that was in. He keeps his Vette, a Suzuki samurai with a 4.3L GM in it, and his 23 T bucket at a store and lock. Anyway, He swapped the headlights in his Vette to better LED headlights. Thing is, he was lighting up the whole area in cluding the trees. An on coming car flashes him for dims, but that was his dims. I couldn't believe how much road and surrounding area was lit up. I was rite behind him in my truck, and I could have turns off my lights. I didn't need them at all.

 

[Hipster]

Just my 2c, and it's been mentioned briefly already in this thread, When I'm in my 19 Silverado I'm that guy who everybody flashes their hi-beams at. It's totally stock. I dislike driving it at night. I feel like I'm out driving my headlights. I can see farther into the darkness and shadows in the old truck or the old Honda.

I don't think more light or the wrong bulb for the headlight housing is necessarily better. You get to a point where too much light is what limits your eyes from adjusting.

 

[Frank Enstein]

Just my 2c, and it's been mentioned briefly already in this thread, When I'm in my 19 Silverado I'm that guy who everybody flashes their hi-beams at. It's totally stock. I dislike driving it at night. I feel like I'm out driving my headlights. I can see farther into the darkness and shadows in the old truck or the old Honda.

I don't think more light or the wrong bulb for the headlight housing is necessarily better. You get to a point where too much light is what limits your eyes from adjusting.

 

[Hipster]

Kinda like looking at what a flash light illuminates then glancing into the darkness/low light and not being able to see shyt. Never had an issue with what came in our old trucks as long as the reflective coating inside the housing was satisfactory.

 

[GMCTruck]

Even people on the barren wasteland Canadian prairies complain bitterly about LED headlights being way too bright.
I think some manufactures have realized this. I am not sure which manufactures it is, but over the past few years, I have seen vehicles with a new feature. When the headlights are on and the turn signal is activated, the headlight on the same side as the turn signal temporarily goes OUT so that you can SEE the turn signal. Otherwise the blinding LED headlight would wash out the turn signal.

 

[Schurkey]

When I'm in my 19 Silverado I'm that guy who everybody flashes their hi-beams at. It's totally stock. I dislike driving it at night. I feel like I'm out driving my headlights. I can see farther into the darkness and shadows in the old truck or the old Honda.

Wild Guess: You need someone who KNOWS WHAT THEY"RE DOING to re-aim your headlights. There's a really good chance they weren't aimed properly when GM built your truck; and/or they may have gone farther away from optimum depending on vehicle loading.

When the headlights are on and the turn signal is activated, the headlight on the same side as the turn signal temporarily goes OUT so that you can SEE the turn signal. Otherwise the blinding LED headlight would wash out the turn signal.

Far as I know, that's not the "headlights". That's the Damned Daytime Running Lights, which may use one of the headlight bulbs (at "reduced" brightness.) I see the same thing with the LED halos around some vehicle's headlights--the halo goes dark when the turn signal on that side is blinking.

If only we had a functional NHTSA/DOT to make stupid stuff illegal, instead of seeing thousands of complaints on their web site, and doing NOTHING.

 

[HotWheelsBurban]

Part of that is the way newer vehicles are wired. The wiring used to being juice to the headlights/DRLs is also used for the turn signal. A computer routes the electricity to the correct place, and runs it a different way if the full lights are on at night. So I've read anyway....

 

[Schurkey]

The wiring among the various "computer modules" (ABS, Air bags, Instrument Cluster, Body computer, Engine computer, Trans controller, etc.) in the vehicle can be done via a network--each module can be programmed to share a remarkably compact wiring harness, to accept or reject certain information sent by other "modules", and to prioritize messages that would otherwise be sent at the same time.

By the time the wire harness gets to individual devices--light bulbs, for example--it works the way it always has. If it has power, the light is on. If the power is shut off, the light is out. And if the power is intermittent, at high frequency, the light is on at partial-brightness.

 

[Donald Mitchell]

off subject but I read where almost a third of a new Caddillac's weight is in wiring and computers. Gee!

 

[dave s]

Wild Guess: You need someone who KNOWS WHAT THEY"RE DOING to re-aim your headlights. There's a really good chance they weren't aimed properly when GM built your truck; and/or they may have gone farther away from optimum depending on vehicle loading.



Far as I know, that's not the "headlights". That's the Damned Daytime Running Lights, which may use one of the headlight bulbs (at "reduced" brightness.) I see the same thing with the LED halos around some vehicle's headlights--the halo goes dark when the turn signal on that side is blinking.

If only we had a functional NHTSA/DOT to make stupid stuff illegal, instead of seeing thousands of complaints on their web site, and doing NOTHING.

I second that aiming tip. Got my new 20 Silverado work truck and first night on way home on low beams I was getting the high beams from oncoming traffic. When I got to the woods near my home I saw I was spottin squirrels they were aimed so high! I adjusted them on my garage door and threw a couple pieces of tape on the door so I knew where I started. Took two tries but now I can see just fine and no one flashes me anymore.