HeadLights & TailLights Suggestions ---- Best Quality & Brightest Full Time ParkLights

[df2x4]

Quality leds are designed to plug/play with factory housings without blinding anybody.

That's what their marketing/sales departments will tell you anyway.

Any plug and play LED headlight module installed in a housing designed for halogen bulbs will put light in places it's not supposed to be. They'll be brighter, but it's impossible to focus the light in the same way as a halogen bulb. I strongly recommend if anyone wants to run P&P LEDs in the composite housings that they do it in the high beams only.

The only proper way to run LED low beams in these trucks would be to use a W/T grille setup with the single 5"x7" headlights. Then you could use a set of housings that were designed for LEDs from the start, like these Trucklite 27450C for example.

www.amazon.com/Truck-Lite-27450C-Headlamp/dp/B007ED7HNY

IMO the best and brightest solution if you want to keep the composite style headlight housings is to upgrade the factory headlight harness wiring and run a good set of halogen bulbs in the low beams. If you want to take it a step farther, the Arteb composite housings that others have mentioned have a better reflector and lens design than what we got here in North America.

Trimming 9011/9012 HIR bulbs to fit 9005/9006 sockets is another good upgrade, but be aware that the factory 9006 low beam bulbs in these trucks have a painted bulb tip to reduce glare and the 9012 HIR does not. For that reason I would not recommend running a 9012 HIR as a low beam bulb unless you're running aftermarket housings that have a "glare cap" over the low beam bulb.

 

[GoToGuy]

Factory OE led installs are a far different animal than the average doofus who can't see how Atomic bright blinding there LEDs are to oncoming drivers. Or the morons who drive with there fog lights on all the time.

 

[Caman96]

 

[Erik the Awful]

Back in '97 the feds changed the rules on headlights and removed the limitation on how many lumens the bulbs can produce. Since then it's been an arms race between manufacturers to produce brighter and brighter lights. For years I really hated these trucks because they were some of the worst offenders. GM really ramped up the brightness. Then BMW came out with their stare-into-the-sun headlamps that "automatically adjusted" to keep from blinding drivers, except that they never really did, and everybody just accepted getting spotlighted like a deer all the time.

I never had a problem with my lights in the first place. All my older cars had glass lenses and I kept the headlights aimed and my dash lights low. If the moon was full you could even drive by moonlight without too much issue, but I don't recommend making it a practice.

Now we have people driving janky cars with mis-aimed high-intensity lights x-raying your brain. Their junk isn't aimed right, so they go out and upgrade to frickin' lasers and duct-tape on some driving lights. Now I routinely lose the ability to see the road right in front of me because I'm trying to recover from having my retinas fried.

...and get off my lawn!

 

[Cackalacky]

Over $400/pr? Plus bulbs?
Suit yourself, but mine provides excellent lighting for a fraction of that.

First I replaced the headlight housings with ones made of glass.
That alone made a difference along with a "high beam conversion" kit.
Finally a set of quality LED headlights.

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Are your parking light housings also glass? Or what brand did you go with for them?

 

[Caman96]

I’ve never seen glass parking lights. Here’s my Spyder Glass mounted on NOS GM adjuster’s(Spyder adjuster’s are garbage). Not using them(setup below), maybe will use if I get another 400. IMO, the NOS GM headlights are better. Also, Spyder’s own website acknowledges they are only for halogen.

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[SUBURBAN5]

I’ve never seen glass parking lights. Here’s my Spyder Glass mounted on NOS GM adjuster’s(Spyder adjuster’s are garbage). Not using them(setup below), maybe will use if I get another 400. IMO, the NOS GM headlights are better. Also, Spyder’s own website acknowledges they are only for halogen.

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I have those lights. The leds fit well enough. No moisture and doesn't fall out. I had a rock hit mine and I can say they held up. The rock did chip a piece of glass off which made a pin hole. I love them

 

[pgutier1]

Toss these in your stock housing and you'll have 3x the brightness for under $40. If your stock housings are crazed over badly then swap them as well with some aftermarket OEM style units also available for less than $80 on amazon. Truck will look new and stock with 3x the brightness for $120 all in.

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What's your experience with the Novsight bulbs?

 

[RLC2020]

I have them in my 99 and bought a set for my excursion. I've learned that the brand doesn't really matter on Amazon, they're all generic and cheap enough, if one shorts out then just order another set and amazon will credit you for the bad one. That said, I've only had 1 failure and it was right out of the box. For $40 it's a bargain.

 

[pgutier1]

I have them in my 99 and bought a set for my excursion. I've learned that the brand doesn't really matter on Amazon, they're all generic and cheap enough, if one shorts out then just order another set and amazon will credit you for the bad one. That said, I've only had 1 failure and it was right out of the box. For $40 it's a bargain.

Copy that, thanks