Fake Philips HID bulbs very common now, in fact on the internet most are Counterfeits

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XeRay

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FYI

80% of "Philips" bulbs in the aftermarket are counterfeits / fakes
Buyer beware.With rare exception, 80% or more of the "Philips" bulbs listings for new bulbs on eBay, Amazon and other locations are fake, Counterfeit look alike bulbs made in China. The Chinese have done a very "good" job to closely duplicate the labeling and the construction of the real Philips HID bulbs when making the fakes. 99.9% of people cannot tell the difference, in terms of appearance. We have purchased some of the fakes and will soon add some photos (High Resolution), comparing real with fakes. We will show you what to look for. This will help you determine that you are buying the real thing. This comparison will help all buyers and sellers to know what is a real Philips bulb. If we did not know what to look for we could be fooled too, the fakes are that "good" in appearance. HID bulbs claiming to be Philips and they come from China or some broker in USA (marked made in Germany), they are fakes. Likely some do not know that they are really selling fakes.
There are at least 2 companies in China making these fakes. We have been approached by them to switch over and greatly change our profit levels. The Chinese copied Philips can be purchased labeled as D2S 85122, 85122+, 85122 CM and 85122 WX, also D2R 85126, 85126+, 85126 CM and 85126 WX, All of these fake bulbs can be purchased from China for about $8.00 each (in quantity) with a very good (tempting) profit margin. They are also making fake D1S, D1R, D3S, D3R, D4S and D4R bulbs as well and offering them for less than $10 each.

So far we have not seen any copies of the Philips DL50/740 The market for them is so small I doubt the Chinese would bother to even copy the labeling for this model.


A true 6000K Ultinon bulb from Philips will always have red colored salts in the arc chamber not yellow colored salts. Wholesale (not retail) from Philips the Ultinon is about $80.00 for 1 bulb. If you are paying less than $90.00 plus shipping for 1 Philips 6000K bulb it is most likely fake or used. Also, the ceramic tube will be blueish purple colored not brown or other colors. We do not sell any of the higher color temperature bulbs including 6000K Philips Ultinon (they are not DOT legal to use in USA) so you will need to look for another seller for those.

We only offer the standard Philips 85122 and 85126 4200/4300K color (yellow colored salts), These are the standard bulbs the car typically comes with from the car factories.
We purchase our bulbs directly from Philips USA. In the last 6 months we have seen a significant increase of the fake Philips copies coming from China, land of the fakes. Fair competition is fine, but this is not ok. We and the customer are the losers in this. The fakes are being sold in many cases for more than the real bulbs. In most cases the prices are about the same, real or fake. The fake bulbs will not have the same life (2000 - 3000 hours+) as real Philips bulbs. Chinese HID bulbs typically last 500-1000 hours and frequently much less. This is NOT a good deal for the buyer. They will damage your plastic headlight lenses and reflectors inside. UV light will yellow clear lenses over time. The fake bulbs do not have good UV (ultraviolet) light filtration by the outer glass tube on the bulb. Philips uses high quality UV stop quartz glass. You the customers should be upset about this and make sure you are getting what you were promised and paid for.
In many or even most of the fakes, the arc chamber (where the light comes from) is off position front to back on the bulb length axis. This means the light beam from your headlight will not be accurate compared to an OEM authentic bulb. From the many samples of fakes we got recently, some of them were off by as much as 2 or more millimeters. 1/2 were off by at least 1 mm. Even 1 mm is a lot in this technology. For this reason alone, all of these bulbs would be considered rejects by Philips and destroyed. Philips bulbs are made with very tight computer controlled tolerances (precision). Each one is optically tested at the factory to be within very tight optical specs and others.

We know the origins of our bulbs so we know 100% they are real there are no 3rd party brokers involved in our Philips bulb purchases. We also have ethics and would never knowingly sell fakes as real. We get our invoices from Philips USA. Because we buy bulk in trays we do not have Philips individual bulb boxes, we do our own single packaging.
 
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LuxLuthor

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Thanks Dan. This is welcome information, and the photo comparisons would be very helpful. Also, in summary from what you wrote that the main downsides are the shorter life, more UV output (yellowing the plastic), and improper bulb/beam axis? Is the color and brightness the same (which is how most people would judge)?

Glad to know they aren't messing with those DL-50 Fatboys that BVH, me, and a couple others bought about a year ago from that surplus warehouse in NJ.
 

XeRay

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Only the DL50/740 is in production (not the fatboy) if they were to mess with any DL50 it would be the newer /740 model.

Yes, the color is not accurate between bulbs and the brightness is not the same either. You would likely need some test equipment to verify the output lumens difference.
 

ma_sha1

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Wow, this sucks. So many fakes.

A while ago, I did a mod with Philips D2S bulb in this thread:
http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb...ark-with-the-smallest-possible-HID.&p=3578636

I paid about $40 for one bulb on ebay & I don't remember if I bought a used or new bulb, it gained a huge 40% in throw just by swapping bulb alone. Most of the thread was lost due to CPF crash, so the thread appears not finished.

but there is one photo left with the ebay Philips bulb, perhaps you could tell if its a real one or not?

Stock H7 bulb on left, my ebay Philips D2S bulb on right:

dscf8218.jpg
 
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XeRay

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You have to wait until I post the photos then you can check for yourself. The photo of yours is not detailed enough to tell.
 

bshanahan14rulz

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I bought mine from XeRay, so I'm pretty confident in my 85122s. Still, this piques my curiosity. They sure are good at counterfeiting, eh? What are the main things to look for? Specific shape of the capsule or something?
 

fyrstormer

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Keep in mind that the concept of counterfeiting doesn't really exist in China, because they don't really have any intellectual property laws like we have. So from their perspective, all they're doing is making a comparable product available to people who can't (or don't want to) buy the original product. Which is to say, from their perspective there's nothing wrong with what they're doing.

What I really wish for is that cops would start busting people for HID retrofits in reflector housings, regardless of bulb quality or origin. They are absolutely rampant where I live and it drives me crazy.
 

XeRay

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Typically the fakes the arc chamber is not very round Outside diameter (pea shaped). Not like ( ) for real more like this l l for fakes.

I will make photos available sometime this week. I assure you we have never sold a fake Philips bulb ever. I can say this because I am sure Philips USA does not send us fakes.
 

XeRay

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Keep in mind that the concept of counterfeiting doesn't really exist in China, because they don't really have any intellectual property laws like we have. So from their perspective, all they're doing is making a comparable product available to people who can't (or don't want to) buy the original product. Which is to say, from their perspective there's nothing wrong with what they're doing.

What I really wish for is that cops would start busting people for HID retrofits in reflector housings, regardless of bulb quality or origin. They are absolutely rampant where I live and it drives me crazy.

You could go educate your local cops on how to tell kits from legal. Seems with the local governments strapped for tax money they would jump at another stream of income.

China is a member of the PCT http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patent_Cooperation_Treaty So in theory they should consider IP issues. The reality is, the government does little to no enforcement. So every opportunistic company will do anything for profits until someone stops them. Money is God in modern China, not much else matters. Philips has their Lawyers working on it as we speak. I supplied them with samples which went to Germany.

China even has an significant internal problem with Counterfeit money RMB or Yuan its called. Thats one reason why, maybe the biggest reason that the largest bill they make is a 100 worth about $15 USD currently. With the current costs in the bigger cities similar to costs in USA such a small bill is a PITA. They don't want to make a 200, 500 or a 1000 bill because the counterfeiting problem would do even more damage. I have done some vacationing in China recently so learned all of this.
 

XeRay

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I bought mine from XeRay, so I'm pretty confident in my 85122s. Still, this piques my curiosity. They sure are good at counterfeiting, eh? What are the main things to look for? Specific shape of the capsule or something?

Here is a link for a .pdf of the comparisons between real and fakes. any variation from the real ones on any of these details means its fake. They (Chinese) will likely improve on some of these issues once they see their sales dropping.
http://www.hidbulbzrus.com/vs.pdf
 

XeRay

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I found Amazon itself also selling fake Philips bulbs, not only the other sellers on Amazon operating there. I am confident they did not realize it. I had a long conversation proving the point to an Amazon representative, I expect they will deal with it soon. So it is now even more important to verify when you receive the bulbs. We have added more information on our fakes pdf so feel free to download it or look again. We now have details on the mercury free versions D3S or R and D4S or R. Also more info on D1S and D1R. We found many sellers selling bulbs on ebay and Amazon with the same serial number on both D1S or D1R bulb. That is impossible. The chinese just print the same label over and over again. http://www.hidbulbzrus.com/vs.pdf
 
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Ualnosaj

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Suffice to say if the bulb you bought isn't packaged like this it's not a proper Philips product or possibly an OEM only bulb.


See Rule #3 Do not Hot Link images - Norm



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get-lit

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With P-VIP lamps, Osram in Germany contracts with a Chinese company to manufacture the lamps, but then the manufacturer sells them outright on Alibaba. Identical everything because they're made on the same production run at the same facility.
 

Ualnosaj

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With P-VIP lamps, Osram in Germany contracts with a Chinese company to manufacture the lamps, but then the manufacturer sells them outright on Alibaba. Identical everything because they're made on the same production run at the same facility.

And that's just fine as long as they don't go around labeling Philips or "Philips patent license". They can even go around and copy the overall box look but just don't call it Philips. Philips Europe has the same practice.


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XeRay

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With P-VIP lamps, Osram in Germany contracts with a Chinese company to manufacture the lamps, but then the manufacturer sells them outright on Alibaba. Identical everything because they're made on the same production run at the same facility.

Philips does not make any of the Automotive HID type bulbs in China, The fakes are clearly fake. They use the same serial number over and over. The bulbs (samples) have been sent to Philips and they confirm they are fakes. Your story, scenario does not apply in this case.
A close inspection and the bulbs are clearly inferior to the technical eye. An example: on the average the arc chamber (electrode gap) is offset by 1 mm, in some cases almost 2 mm. Also, the bulbs dont last well either. The outer envelope is not UV stop quartz, the electrodes are not thoriated tungsten, just plain tungsten.
 
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get-lit

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Very disappointing. Thanks for the heads up. Hope this stays on top long enough for everyone to see.
 

bshanahan14rulz

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^ I had always suspected that China bulbs have less than satisfactory outer envelopes. Can't wait until a cheaper flashlight moves to the P32/d base.
 

Ualnosaj

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Philips does not make any of the Automotive HID type bulbs in China, The fakes are clearly fake. They use the same serial number over and over. The bulbs (samples) have been sent to Philips and they confirm they are fakes. Your story, scenario does not apply in this case.
A close inspection and the bulbs are clearly inferior to the technical eye. An example: on the average the arc chamber (electrode gap) is offset by 1 mm, in some cases almost 2 mm. Also, the bulbs dont last well either. The outer envelope is not UV stop quartz, the electrodes are not thoriated tungsten, just plain tungsten.

Philips in fact does make automotive bulbs and some Xenarc ballasts in China.


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