Accord headlights are weak

[Daekar]

No...actually, you can't. I don't doubt that you think you can, but in fact you cannot.

I was afraid of that...

Make sure to test with all bulbs connected and powered. Testing the voltage at the unplugged socket doesn't tell you anything useful.

OK, will do... would you suggest piercing the wire with a probe?

Maybe and maybe not. Many of the "Wow, the headlights are so much whiter, and I don't know what you're talking about on short life; they've lasted over a year so far!" types of reactions to Silver Star (etc.) bulbs come from people with cars on which there's significant voltage drop across the headlamp circuit. The blue glass bulb covers up the brownish output of a starved bulb. Remember, bulb life changes with input voltage exponentially to the power negative 13, and light output changes with input voltage exponentially to the power 3.4.

As a Subaru owner myself, I can tell you a few things about the lamps on that vehicle: (1) They're starved by very marginal headlamp wiring, and (2) Subaru took a bunch of money out of the Legacy headlamps for the 1998 model year. The same-size/same-shape '96-'97 headlamps were a more costly, better-engineered design with considerably greater performance potential when fed properly and equipped with carefully-selected (H4) bulbs.

So... it sounds like bulb life decreases a lot faster than output increases? I think? I guess the first thing to do is rewire the headlamps... that should be pretty inexpensive I would think. I bet Deoxit on the contacts wouldn't hurt either.

The best 9007 bulbs on the market at the moment are GE Night Hawk and Philips Vision Plus, both of which have untinted (colorless) glass.

Do you have any recommended place you suggest ordering those from, or do you think pretty much anybody will have them?

 

[-Virgil-]

OK, will do... would you suggest piercing the wire with a probe?

Naw...if you're bound and determined to measure, you can backprobe the sockets by straightening-out a few small metal paperclips, inserting them alongside the wires going into the back of the socket, and using them as contact points. But you only need to measure if you're interested in actual voltage drop numbers. If you're trying to determine whether there's significant voltage drop, the answer is yes.

So... it sounds like bulb life decreases a lot faster than output increases?

Yes. What to do with that info is up to you. Some people never want to have to change their headlamp bulbs. OK...long-life bulbs on high-loss original circuitry is the way to achieve that. Beam output is ****-poor, but the bulbs last forever. Some people want to see as well as possible and don't mind changing bulbs oftener than is considered usual in North America. OK, good bulbs on low-loss circuitry is how you do that.

I guess the first thing to do is rewire the headlamps...

Depends on your priorities and your budget. If minimal expense is required, then yeah, keep your present headlamps and install relays along the lines of this writeup together with good bulbs. Make sure to run your large-gauge wire for both feeds and ground on each side of the car, and try to get good (preferably ceramic) headlamp sockets. The junk from the parts store, prewired for your "convenience" with 18ga wire, will not get the job done.

If you can find a good used set of '96-'97 headlamps you can afford, it'd be worth your effort to swap those in, because the components needed to wire them in won't cost you any more than the components to wire up your existing lamps. www.car-part.com lets you search for used auto parts across all of North America. Search results are in descending-price order and the "new" items are Taiwanese-made aftermarket units. The (uncatalogued but existent nonetheless) Osram 70/65w or 85/80w high efficacy H4 bulbs make a good choice in the '96-'97 lamps with good wiring and relays.

If your top priority is best possible seeing, spare no expense, then drop $650 or so on a Morette kit (Hella quad-beam projectors for the '96-'99 Legacy) and wire those up correctly.

I bet Deoxit on the contacts wouldn't hurt either

My preference is for Stabilant-22a, but yeah.

Do you have any recommended place you suggest ordering those from, or do you think pretty much anybody will have them?

They can be tough to find. Canadian Tire has them in Canada...Amazon.com has them in the US...do a web search. If Philips would ever get around to releasing the Xtreme Power 9007 they've been promising for awhile now, that'll be the one to pick.

 

[Daekar]

WOW - I looked at how much it would cost to order those Morette lights for my car - came out to like $950! While they would be great I'm sure, I think I'll do the relay fix... I e-mailed Daniel (he seems to have a lot of good information that's used over in the forums at subaruoutback.org) about a custom relay kit, recommended bulb upgrades, and suggestions for a pair of driving lights. We'll see what he says!

EDIT: Well, I got a response from Daniel over at DanielSternLighting.com (very prompt) and he gave me quite a bit of information, similar in some ways to what has already been posted. I think a lot of CPFers would benefit from the relay installation he talks about, and the nice thing is, I asked for a quote on a kit for my car and he offered options: I could either buy the kit, get the wire locally, and assemble it myself, or for around $150 he could just make up the entire new wiring harness himself and send it to me, ready to install. I'm short on time and expertise, so that's what I'm going to do. Well... I'm tossing around the idea of getting those Morette lights if he can get it for me for $650 like you said, but... well you know how flashaholism is...

If I'm pleased with how the new harness works on my car, I'm going to get one for the girlfriend's Jeep Cherokee too... she does lots of night driving and I worry about her. I looked on Osram-Sylvania's website and I didn't recognize the headlamp bulb type though, it said, "H6054"... do you know any equivalent bulbs?

 

[-Virgil-]

WOW - I looked at how much it would cost to order those Morette lights for my car - came out to like $950!

Yeah...this is not a fun time to be spending US dollars internationally :-(

If I'm pleased with how the new harness works on my car, I'm going to get one for the girlfriend's Jeep Cherokee too... she does lots of night driving and I worry about her. I looked on Osram-Sylvania's website and I didn't recognize the headlamp bulb type though, it said, "H6054"... do you know any equivalent bulbs?

Those are cruddy sealed beams. See my comments in this thread .

 

[Trashman]

We replaced our Accord's (1997) stock bulbs with Silverstar Ultras. The Ultras are supposed to be brighter and last longer than the regular Silverstars. (they should, considering they cost more) We've noticed a huge improvement in brightness and the beam is now white and bright, not yellow and dim. We probably replaced them about 6 or 7 months ago and they're still going strong.

 

[-Virgil-]

We replaced our Accord's (1997) stock bulbs with Silverstar Ultras. The Ultras are supposed to be brighter and last longer than the regular Silverstars. (they should, considering they cost more) We've noticed a huge improvement in brightness

Unfortunately, the "improvement" is an illusion. Your headlamps are now producing significantly less light than they would with a brand-new set of uncolored bulbs. See posts earlier up the thread.

 

[TorchBoy]

Unfortunately, the "improvement" is an illusion.

Is that even with some allowance for the old bulbs being somewhat blackened and so underperforming compared to new bulbs of the same type?

 

[-Virgil-]

Is that even with some allowance for the old bulbs being somewhat blackened and so underperforming compared to new bulbs of the same type?

C'mon, now, we have to keep it realistic. Comparing old bulbs to new bulbs would be like comparing engine performance with an old set of NGK spark plugs vs. with a new set of Champions, and from that "test" deciding that Champions are superior spark plugs. Or removing a bald set of Michelin tires and replacing them with a new set of Costco's private-label Chinese-made trash, and from that determining that the Costco tires are better.

 

[TorchBoy]

I'm not saying that they are better quality, but it might help explain why people think that moving to new bulbs, even if they're blue, look like they're better than the old bulbs they were using. Simply because changing to any new bulb would be an improvement.

Even moulded mud tyres, when new will probably perform better than completely bald tyres, especially in the wet, but they still wouldn't qualify as a better make and model of tyre.

 

[-Virgil-]

OK, yeah, I see what you were getting at. It's an interesting question. Reputably-made standard and high-luminance tungsten-halogen bulbs are routinely quoted at ≥90% lumen maintenance over their whole lifespan, and I think that's a reasonably accurate figure in the absence of extenuating circumstances (undervoltage e.g. DRL operation causing envelope staining). If we assume this ≥90% figure is accurate, then a standard middle-of-spec 9006 bulb producing 1000 lumens when new would produce ~900 lumens when old. but our blue-glass bulb is producing somewhere in the neighborhood of 860 to 920 lumens, so...naw, I really still think the "Wow, these are way better than my old bulbs!" claims are primarily down to marketeering psychology and color tint.

Now, if we're talking about replacing old long-life tungsten-halogen bulbs with new blue-glass ones, I think you win the argument. Long-life TH bulbs carry on growing dimmer and dimmer and dimmer long after standard or high-luminance TH bulbs would've failed.

 

[TorchBoy]

I presume that lumen maintenance figure is from the filament itself? I suppose they wouldn't typically last long enough to blacken much... Just checked a couple of old headlight bulbs and no, there's no sign of blackening.

I replaced the cabin light in my car yesterday with LEDs and the old bulb (non-halogen) was quite bad. Even a new bulb of the same type would have been a considerable improvement just because of the blackening, let alone the dim state of the filament.

 

[-Virgil-]

I presume that lumen maintenance figure is from the filament itself?

Whole bulb.

checked a couple of old headlight bulbs and no, there's no sign of blackening.

Yeah, it really only tends to happen when the bulbs are operated at significantly subrated voltage (e.g. DRL service, especially reduced-intensity high beam DRLs), which doesn't allow the bulb walls to attain the temperature needed for the halogen cycle to occur. If the bulb is only ever operated at or near rated voltage, no significant blackening occurs, and lumen degradation is primarily be means of uneven tungsten deposition causuing dendritic growth; the tungsten "stalactites" increase the emissivity of the filament, reducing luminance. But again, there's generally not enough of this over the life of the bulb to degrade the output significantly...unless it's a long-life bulb.

 

[Daekar]

Just wanted to revive an older thread and thank the posters for the valuable advice. I got hooked up with Daniel Stern, bought some Narva bulbs and a wiring harness, and the difference is amazing! Just the change from Silverstars to the clear-glass Narva-bulbs was nice, but with the wiring harness the color-temperature from the Narvas is almost as white as the Silverstars, and much brighter. I would recommend this solution to EVERYONE. My fiancee saw it and asked me to upgrade her headlights as her Valentine's Day present! :huh: :thumbsup: Now that should tell you something. Unless the headlights already have relays in them, all of my future cars will be getting this treatment, and I already have sent an e-mail off to Daniel requesting input for my fiancee's car.

 

[TorchBoy]

My fiancee saw it and asked me to upgrade her headlights as her Valentine's Day present! :huh: :thumbsup: Now that should tell you something.

= "She's a keeper." Got any more like that?