Beam Spread, and Philips Xtreme Vision vs. Ordinary H1 (on VW Golf IV)

Hello Everyone!

First post here. =) I've spent the last few weeks reading through the archives (wonderful forum, and it's great to see a forum with such strict (and knowledgeable!) moderation!), and would like to ask a question.

Background:
Seven years ago I purchased a set of Valeo E-code Golf IV headlamp assemblies from Daniel Stern, together with long-life H7 bulbs for the low beams, and +30 (or possibly +50? -- I'm afraid I've forgotten!) H1 bulbs for the high beams. The low beams have been very nice, but the high beams are a bit narrow for my usage: I'm often on low speed, hilly, tightly winding roads -- and on climbing curves I find myself driving into darkness. (Indeed, for several years I was regretting the purchase, as the original US high beams were so much broader and (on my roads) more useful than the E-codes -- but of late I've been noticing how cloudy all the stock Golf IV lenses have become around here, and I'm now quite grateful for the Valeo's glass lenses!!)

This autumn I'd like to upgrade the bulbs. The low-beams seem straightforward: many threads in this forum recommend the Osram Rallye 65W H7, which I expect should be a considerable improvement over the Hella long-life H7 I've been using. But I'd like your collective advice on what H1 bulb to purchase for the high-beams.

Question:
Many posts on this forum extol the Philips Xtreme Vision H1, and my first thought was to try this bulb for my high beams. However, yesterday I read the following post from Scheinwerfermann, in the ongoing Honda 2013 CRV thread:

"...with Philips Xtreme Vision you get less light, but better beam focus which concentrates more light at the "hot spot" of the beam for longer seeing distance. Beam focus isn't quite as tight with the Osram 70/65w, but you get more light overall. So you do get better seeing distance and you also get better intensity throughout the beam pattern."

Now, I understand that the above refers to the 9003/H4 bulb (for which there is a higher-wattage alternative to the Xtreme Vision), but presumably the principles still apply to the H1? If so, would the Xtreme Vision H1 still be the best choice for my high beams, considering that my beam pattern is already too narrow (for my preferred usage), and I don't particularly need increased high beam range?

Or to put the question another way: if my priority is beam spread, would I be better off with the Xtreme Vision, or with a plain-jane standard H1? I've learned (from this forum) that the Xtreme Vision has improved beam focus AND more usable light output (from the clever placement of blue filter bands on unimportant parts of the envelope, thereby permitting higher light intensity in the important parts of the envelope without violating regulations on total output). Would the heightened effective output give me more light outside the "hot spot", despite the tightened beam focus? Or would my vision beyond the hot spot actually decline (be it from actual intensity reduction outside the hot spot, or from the contrast between hot spot and periphery)?

Supplementary Note:
Auxiliary lamps would probably solve my problems, but for a variety of reasons (e.g., my wife has nixed the idea!) I'd prefer not to explore that option. =)

Thank you very much for any advice! (And if there are alternatives I haven't considered, I'd love to hear about them!)

Best Wishes,
-Ceilidh

P.S. -- I have some additional questions about the H7 / low beam, but wonder whether you (the moderators) might prefer that I put them in a separate thread. In general, what is your preference?: Should I be combining questions in a single post (if those questions pertain to a single car)? Or should I split things apart with separate thread titles? Please let me know if you've a preference -- I don't have much knowledge to add to this forum, but I'd like to be a Good Citizen participant!

Welcome to the board! It's no problem to group questions about a common subject (in this case, all about VW Golf headlamps) in one thread, so go ahead and ask your other questions. It's a pretty simple set of questions you've asked so far, or rather a pretty simple set of answers: Osram 65w H7s for the low beams, and Philips Xtreme Vision H1s for the high beams. Your low beams should remain lit with the high beams, and thus provide plenty of width in high beam mode, is that how the system is wired on your car?

Scheinwerfermann said:

Welcome to the board! It's no problem to group questions about a common subject (in this case, all about VW Golf headlamps) in one thread, so go ahead and ask your other questions. It's a pretty simple set of questions you've asked so far...

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Thanks very much for the welcome! =) My other questions are pretty simple too:

1) How's the stock headlamp wiring on a 2000 VW Golf/GTI Mk. IV? I haven't measured the voltage drop, but presumably the 65w Osram Rallyes should be ok, yes?

2) My car has DRLs via reduced-intensity low beams, and I originally elected for long life H7s as I thought the DRLs would quickly burn out other bulbs. But on another thread you mentioned a pretty big exponent for life vs. voltage (something like 13.x, perhaps?); can I therefore presume the DRLs won't unduly reduce the lifetime (e.g., if non-DRL use would give me, say, 3 years' life, then maybe I could get something like 2 years including DRL usage?). This is a minor point -- if the Osrams prove to have too short a life, I'll disable the stock headlamp DRL and use either the DRL-1 or else a Philips LED DRL -- but I'm curious how much these reduced-voltage DRLs really hurt.

3) Assuming my wife someday lets me mount 5 3/4" headlamps-in-Grote-buckets to the front of the car, which has the broader beam: the Cibie H1 Curved-Face; or the Cibie H1 Flat-Face?

4) For reversing lamps, candlepower.com lists a "796 Reverse Light Upgrade Bulb" that can take the place of the stock P21W. Would you recommend this "upgrade", or does it violate regulation or safety?

It's a pretty simple set of questions you've asked so far, or rather a pretty simple set of answers: Osram 65w H7s for the low beams, and Philips Xtreme Vision H1s for the high beams. Your low beams should remain lit with the high beams, and thus provide plenty of width in high beam mode, is that how the system is wired on your car?

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Yes, the low beams stay lit when the highs are engaged -- but the overall pattern is, well, a wide flat low beam under a narrow central spot. I can't see very much at all to either side of that spot. Let me see if I can use the keyboard to show you how things look:

--------
/ \ ______
__________| |______-- \
/ \
/ \

I'm having trouble showing how the usual E-code kick up appears towards the right (in reality it starts near the middle of the beam and slants up gradually, as it should), but you get the idea(!). On the winding New England roads I'm frequently driving (30 mph, with trees growing straight up from the non-existent "shoulder"), much of what I want to see is often to the sides of that central narrow spot (especially if the road is climbing) -- and with the Valeos there's almost no light in those regions (i.e, the central spot is not so much a "hotspot" as it is the only place above the low beam cutoff in which there's usable light at all). The original (stock) SAE lights had much, much more broadly distributed light above the cutoff, and were more useful in these conditions.

It sounds like I should just try the Xtreme Visions and see how they go. I'll do so this autumn, and will report back. Many thanks again!

- Ceilidh

Gosh, that was awful (something happened to the formatting when I submitted the post) -- let me try again(!):

..................................XXXXXXXX
...............................XXXXXXXXXXX
..............................XXXXXXXXXXXX
..............................XXXXXXXXXXXX
...XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
..XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
.XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

(It seems the forum editor doesn't recognize "spaces", so one has to fill in every line....)

This time I've left out the E-code kick up on the right, but the X's show where light appears in the beam pattern. To repeat from the previous post: On the winding New England roads I'm frequently driving (30 mph, with trees growing straight up from the non-existent "shoulder"), much of what I want to see is often to the sides of that central narrow spot (especially if the road is climbing) -- and with the Valeos there's almost no light in those regions (i.e, the central spot is not so much a "hotspot" as it is the only place above the low beam cutoff in which there's usable light at all). The original (stock) SAE lights had much, much more broadly distributed light above the cutoff, and were more useful in these conditions.

It sounds like I should just try the Xtreme Visions and see how they go. I'll do so this autumn, and will report back. Many thanks again!

- Ceilidh

P.S. -- sorry I didn't Preview the previous post before sending it in (newbie mistake -- my apologies!)

Yep, the European version of the lamp (whether Valeo or Hella) has a tighter, "hotter" (more intense) high beam hot spot for longer distance, but that's at the expense of spread. I'm not sure why VW specified an archaic H1 for the high beams in the European version rather than the H7 they specified in the US version. I don't recall whether the European version has independent aimability of the high vs. low beams; the US lamps do not (by US law). If the Euro lamps do, you could slightly "toe in" (cross-eye) the high beams so that they converge and cross at a calculated appropriate distance in front of the vehicle, then diverge and throw light on the curves.

But having said that...if you're going 30 mph, the curves ought to be adequately lit by the spread provided by your low beams...no?

The 796 reverse bulb is a really great upgrade, and a safe one.

You really ought to do a voltage drop test -- it's really the accurate way of telling the situation with your specific car, now that it has some age on it.

If you want to try an experiment and see if it gives you the extra spread you want, buy a handful of good-quality ordinary H1 bulbs and the smallest jar of "30-second etchant" from this site. Using a good-quality small paint brush, paint a wet line of the etchant, parallel to the filament, on the bulb glass. The line should be about twice as wide as the filament's diameter, so that'll be about 3 or 4mm. Leave the etchant on until it dries -- this is very hard glass you're working on -- then rinse it off in very hot water. Dip/swish the bulb several times in clean alcohol, let it dry, and install it. The etched area of glass will diffuse the light and should smooth out the beam pattern. The reason for buying a handful of bulbs is because you'll have to experiment with where (top, bottom, top and bottom, left and/or right sides, 2:00, 2:00 and 5:00, 2:00 and 6:00, etc.) your diffuser line gives you the results you want. Start with top and/or bottom.

The Cibie flat-lens high beam has broader spread than the curved-lens one.

Having said all that, I'm still a little confused by your description of the difficulty you're having. If you're going 30 mph, the width of the high beams shouldn't really be relevant; you're well within the safe stopping distance afforded by properly-aimed low beams.

As for the DRLs: Yes, the inverse exponential relationship between voltage and bulb life means the reduced intensity of DRL operation does extend effective bulb lifespan, but there are other safety issues with headlamp DRLs (mostly: drivers, even careful ones, often forget to turn on the tail/side marker lights after dark), in addition to the bulb and fuel consumption. You may still want to consider de-activating the headlight DRLs and doing something like this instead, or there are some very good purpose-made Golf IV LED DRL kits from legitimate makers like Hella.

Scheinwerfermann said:

Having said all that, I'm still a little confused by your description of the difficulty you're having. If you're going 30 mph, the width of the high beams shouldn't really be relevant; you're well within the safe stopping distance afforded by properly-aimed low beams.

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Don't know his car, but I have the same complaint on our 2010 Outback. The cutoff of the factory lights means that if there is any roll to the road surface such as the constant changes in elevations we see in central PA, I am often driving into darkness when going downhill with an uphill section in front of me. There is much less light to the sides than I am used to, so cornering is also limited. I can understand the complaint - the lights are great on straight and flat road but are not very comforting on real roadways. At least on our Outback the high beams (not projector) are more like what I am used to although the side lighting is not as good.

fangle, your complaints with the '10 Outback's lights can easily be addressed just about completely with specific bulb swaps (65w Osram H7 in the low beams, Philips HIR1/9011 in the high beams, then a careful and correct aim job) without introducing any new problems.

Scheinwerfermann said:

fangle, your complaints with the '10 Outback's lights can easily be addressed just about completely with specific bulb swaps (65w Osram H7 in the low beams, Philips HIR1/9011 in the high beams, then a careful and correct aim job) without introducing any new problems.

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Cool, thanks for the advice. I was hesitating to make much of a change in headlamp elevation. I've seen the tutorials for aiming referenced here and IIRC on Stern's site.

Will the wiring handle a 65W bulb in the low beams? I really don't want to melt anything. Will the Osram bulb make that much difference? (Candlepower.com says good things about them, I see.) One OEM bulb burned out so I replaced it with the Philips X-treme power bulb. (Ever change a low beam bulb in one of these cars? It took about an hour and require removal of the wheel well liner and trim and then working entirely by feel. Ugh) Running one factory bulb and one Philips bulb I can see little difference, other than the Philips bulb does have a slightly brighter hot spot in the center of the beam. This is so slight that I didn't see it until I looked for it, and is so close to the car as to be useless in most driving.

[Should I stop discussing this here and start a new thread?]

Thanks again!

fangle said:

Cool, thanks for the advice. I was hesitating to make much of a change in headlamp elevation. I've seen the tutorials for aiming referenced here and IIRC on Stern's site.

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Yeah when I had a Subaru not long ago (totalled by a runaway garbage truck!) I wouldn't let the dealer touch the headlamp aim. Why? Because I saw how they "aimed" headlamps: put the car 10 feet (plus or minus five feet) from an unmarked wall on a floor of unknown flatness, raise them about an inch, return the car to the customer and say "There ya go, that should work better for you".

Will the wiring handle a 65W bulb in the low beams?

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Yes.

Will the Osram bulb make that much difference?

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Yes.

(Candlepower.com says good things about them, I see.)

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Well, yes, they would...they're a vendor of them! (Do remember that they are not in any way affiliated with this site).

Ceilidh, "I know the feeling." When running lights that "really reach out" in a narrow beam, one swings around a tree lined curve (where I live, they are all tree lined, rock lined or occasionally a drop into a river), one sees the trees on the outside of the curve straight ahead of the car, brightly lit, while "on around the curve" appears to be in the dark. It's obvious with some pencil beams, and I experienced it fooling around on deserted rural highway, using the spotlights on my old cop car (one of several reasons the ancient trick of putting landing lights into 5-3/4" high beams never worked out well). Of course, I was running 50 mph or better, so it was annoying. Too bad you're not open to auxiliaries at this time. On my old Saab with four 5-3/4" headlights, using the curved lens Cibie H1 high, I added Series 190 Oscar+ driving lights to get a bit more fill in. My guess is, the flat lens 5-3/4" Cibie high in separate buckets would be your answer.

The careful etching that Scheinwerfermann suggested sounds like a really cool experiment. With a little careful shopping, one should be able to find a handful of matching H1 bulbs for not too much money. And it certainly would be a learning experience.

Ceilidh said:

For reversing lamps, candlepower.com lists a "796 Reverse Light Upgrade Bulb" that can take the place of the stock P21W. Would you recommend this "upgrade", or does it violate regulation or safety?

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Scheinwerfermann said:

The 796 reverse bulb is a really great upgrade, and a safe one.

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This is just my opinion, and is a subjective evaluation, but I did the 796 upgrade in my '95 Previa, and WOW. I also did a comparison between the old bulb on one side and the 796 in the other, and as far as I could tell the pattern on the garage door was the same shape, only brighter. I didn't do stepped measurements by pulling the Previa away from the door to see if I could find some "glaring" anomaly (get it? glaring!), but from the filament shape and position it should be the same-- just much brighter. It makes backing that ol' bus quite a bit easier. Seems like all the old bulbs did was light up (and perhaps they weren't as effective due to age, despite not being pearlized inside)-- these bulbs light THINGS up.

Just a thought for a Golf IV specifically... I had a GTI for a while and one of the things I didn't like about it was that the factory fogs were mounted in the headlamp assemblies. At one time Hella made a Micro DE kit specifically for the A4 that mounted Micro DEs in the little side grilles in the air dam. Maybe a nice upgrade would be to combine that kit with a modification of the headlamp assemblies to use dedicated DRL lights in the old fog light position? I actually still have the Micro DE kit in a box somewhere, I ended up selling the car before I got to install it. I left the DRLs alone as they were low beam on my car (2002, US model) I did get the Euro headlight switch though as at the time I often had to do night work at various secure installations and the guards don't like it if you don't kill your headlights when driving up to the guard shack. The stock US switch did not have a parking light position and when "off" the DRLs would be on, stupid stupid stupid...

Sent from my XT897 using Tapatalk 4

Interesting idea, N8N, but I can't think of a dedicated DRL that could easily or sturdily be mounted in place of the fog lamp projector in a Golf IV headlamp. Can you?

Nope, that's part of the reason I posted! Was hoping someone could either recommend something or shoot the idea down.

Actually I'm not aware of any DRL-specific (that is, not shared with any other function) lights made save for those used on the GMT800s, although I'm sure that my knowledge is not complete. And the GMT800 lights are a) part of a complete assembly b) much larger than the little round fog light section of the VW Golf/GTI headlamp and c) I understand those lights were problematic anyway.

If there were a little universal round LED-based DRL assembly, that would be the feline's posterior, but honestly, I was never a big DRL fan anyway. My feeling on them was that if they are so useful why not light up the rear and sides of the car as well. On my Bimmer I went ahead and enabled the DRLs (it lets you choose) because a) the angel eyes look cool and b) they were smart and lit up the taillights with the DRLs as well. And of course the combination of automatic light-sensing headlights and more importantly common sense and knowing when to turn the real headlights on is the best lighting/conspicuity related safety feature of all!

Scheinwerfermann said:

Interesting idea, N8N, but I can't think of a dedicated DRL that could easily or sturdily be mounted in place of the fog lamp projector in a Golf IV headlamp. Can you?

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Daniel Stern might have something available, but I'm not sure if what's on his products page is all-inclusive or if there're oddities salted away that didn't make it to the main page.

N8N said:

Actually I'm not aware of any DRL-specific (that is, not shared with any other function) lights made save for those used on the GMT800s

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BMW's angel eyes, Audi's LED arrays, Mercedes' LED arrays, Acura's LED arrays, the LED DRLs on the Chevy Volt, large numbers of aftermarket LED and incandescent DRL units...but none of them would fit in place of the fog lamp of a VW Golf IV.

I was never a big DRL fan anyway.

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They are an effective and cost-effective crash prevention device. The concept is good and not faulty. Those who don't like them are usually objecting to poor implementations.

My feeling on them was that if they are so useful why not light up the rear and sides of the car as well.

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The one does not follow from the other. It is not necessarily better for safety to have the rear position ("tail") lamps and side marker lights illuminated with the DRLs; in fact it is in many cases worse for safety. Rear position lamps in bright daylight can reduce the contrast between the "on" and "off" states of the stop lights, thus reducing the stop lights' conspicuity. And as you allude, vehicles running around at night with DRLs instead of real headlamps are a safety problem.

Scheinwerfermann said:

BMW's angel eyes, Audi's LED arrays, Mercedes' LED arrays, Acura's LED arrays, the LED DRLs on the Chevy Volt, large numbers of aftermarket LED and incandescent DRL units...but none of them would fit in place of the fog lamp of a VW Golf IV.

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true, I was dismissing all of the factory ones in an obviously unsuitable form factor. Not familiar with any of the aftermarket offerings though, although I did see a linear LED offered by Philips...

The one does not follow from the other. It is not necessarily better for safety to have the rear position ("tail") lamps and side marker lights illuminated with the DRLs; in fact it is in many cases worse for safety. Rear position lamps in bright daylight can reduce the contrast between the "on" and "off" states of the stop lights, thus reducing the stop lights' conspicuity. And as you allude, vehicles running around at night with DRLs instead of real headlamps are a safety problem.

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I keep forgetting, having driven Krautmobiles nearly exclusively for the last several decades, that some vehicles still use a dual filament bulb for stop and taillights, or similar LED arrangement. Typically in German cars, the taillight and brake light are different segments, in the best implementations separated by a reflector (although in some cases the reflector separating the brake light and rear fog *is* also the taillight) so that isn't a real issue in those specific vehicles - the brake light segments are always either "on" or "off."

Actually just had a thought.

Typically a turn signal is accepted to be suitable as use for a DRL, at least photometrically (I don't like the idea of sharing functions, hence my original idea.)

How's about taking a junkyard pair of headlamp assemblies, extracting the turn signal portion (use a GTI for the clear lens) and inserting *that* into the headlamp assemblies that you're going to use, in place of the fog light portion or dummy as the case may be?

All that said though, I probably put 40K miles on the car before selling it and despite having concerns about premature death of the low beam bulbs, never had to replace one while it was in my care, so really this is more thinking out loud than an attempt to address a real functional problem with the stock lighting. Simply installing the Hella Micro DE fogs probably would have made me happy from my perspective behind the wheel... (there were only a few occasions where I felt it necessary to use the stock fog lights, but when I did, I was pretty underwhelmed by their performance, having come from a car with Hella 550 fogs slung under the front bumper.)

Wow.

I go away for a work trip, and come back to an entire running thread! (Thank you very much for the replies!!!) =) At the risk of derailing parts of the discussion (e.g., N8N's and Scheinwerfermann's conversation about DRLs), let me try to catch up and respond to your (helpful!) comments. =)

Scheinwerfermann said:

Yep, the European version of the lamp (whether Valeo or Hella) has a tighter, "hotter" (more intense) high beam hot spot for longer distance, but that's at the expense of spread. I'm not sure why VW specified an archaic H1 for the high beams in the European version rather than the H7 they specified in the US version.

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You know, so naively taken was I with the idea that everything European is by definition better than US in the world of lighting, that when I purchased my E-code Golf IV headlamp assemblies, I thought that the H1 must surely be superior to the H7! So it was interesting to read (in another thread on this forum) your thoughts on how the US and European lighting regulations lead to "different" beams, as opposed to one type being inherently superior to the other.

In any case, yes, the Valeo lamp has a much tighter high beam hot spot (with better distance) than did my original US lamps -- when I'm on a straight highway, I can see much farther down the road than I could before. Unfortunately, that's not what I generally use my high beams for, and I kind of wish I still had the US Golf IV's high beam pattern, with its much, much broader (though shorter range) hot spot, and ample light to the sides of the hot spot.

I don't recall whether the European version has independent aimability of the high vs. low beams; the US lamps do not (by US law). If the Euro lamps do, you could slightly "toe in" (cross-eye) the high beams so that they converge and cross at a calculated appropriate distance in front of the vehicle, then diverge and throw light on the curves.

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Sadly, there's no provision for independent aiming of the high vs. low beams (nor for the fog lamps, whose cutoffs are uneven Left vs. Right when the low beam cutoffs are aligned; the high beams are similarly (though less significantly) misaligned, and I'm a little surprised by these vertical misalignments...). If there were such a provision, I'd love to try toeing in the high beams!

The 796 reverse bulb is a really great upgrade, and a safe one.

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Alaric Darconville said:

This is just my opinion, and is a subjective evaluation, but I did the 796 upgrade in my '95 Previa, and WOW. I also did a comparison between the old bulb on one side and the 796 in the other, and as far as I could tell the pattern on the garage door was the same shape, only brighter. I didn't do stepped measurements by pulling the Previa away from the door to see if I could find some "glaring" anomaly (get it? glaring!), but from the filament shape and position it should be the same-- just much brighter. It makes backing that ol' bus quite a bit easier. Seems like all the old bulbs did was light up (and perhaps they weren't as effective due to age, despite not being pearlized inside)-- these bulbs light THINGS up.

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Thank you both for the recommendation! I'll go ahead with the 796 upgrade!

(Just out of curiosity: the 796 will also fit a Golf IV's turn, rear fog, and brake lamps; I presume it's illegal / unsafe for those uses? If not, I'd consider putting a 796 in the rear fog lamp (I almost never use the rear fog, but on the rare occasions when I do (typically in a daytime blizzard/whiteout), I appreciate it being nice and bright!). But perhaps it's too bright for that application?)

Scheinwerfermann said:

Having said all that, I'm still a little confused by your description of the difficulty you're having. If you're going 30 mph, the width of the high beams shouldn't really be relevant; you're well within the safe stopping distance afforded by properly-aimed low beams.

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fangle said:

Don't know his car, but I have the same complaint on our 2010 Outback. The cutoff of the factory lights means that if there is any roll to the road surface such as the constant changes in elevations we see in central PA, I am often driving into darkness when going downhill with an uphill section in front of me. There is much less light to the sides than I am used to, so cornering is also limited. I can understand the complaint - the lights are great on straight and flat road but are not very comforting on real roadways.

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Hamilton Felix said:

Ceilidh, "I know the feeling." When running lights that "really reach out" in a narrow beam, one swings around a tree lined curve (where I live, they are all tree lined, rock lined or occasionally a drop into a river), one sees the trees on the outside of the curve straight ahead of the car, brightly lit, while "on around the curve" appears to be in the dark. It's obvious with some pencil beams, and I experienced it fooling around on deserted rural highway, using the spotlights on my old cop car (one of several reasons the ancient trick of putting landing lights into 5-3/4" high beams never worked out well). Of course, I was running 50 mph or better, so it was annoying.

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fangle and Hamilton Felix, thank you for chiming in! (It's nice to know I'm not entirely crazy.) =)

fangle, I've not driven much in central PA, but eastern PA definitely has roads that cause the same issues with my car (though the scale of everything here where I drive is a bit smaller). And Hamilton Felix, I've only once driven in rural Washington state (in a rental car), but my goodness what a beautiful part of the country you live in!!

Mr. Scheinwerfermann, I think I've done a terrible job explaining my situation, so please let me try to correct my previous murkiness: the roads I'm referring to are Colonial in origin, and pretty much have never been properly graded; hence every left-right curve is matched by a climb or a dip, and there's very little that resembles a constant-radius (one gets the impression that cattle or deer were wandering about, trying to minimize their energy use). The pavement is entirely unmarked (no reflectors or painted stripes), and the edges of the road undulate in and out pretty much randomly (i.e, the road's not a constant width). On these roads, the things you'll hit are generally leaning or projecting out over the roadway (mailboxes, century-old trees, lots of shrubbery and vegetation), so what you'd like to see is not the shoulder of the road, but what sits about 3 feet or so above the ground. In the daytime, when you can see all the trees etc., it's easy (and fun!) to maintain a comfortable 40-45 mph gait. At night, on low beams, nobody can safely do much better than 30 mph, particularly when the curving roadway climbs above the low beam cutoff. But most of the time there's no oncoming traffic on these roads, and on high beam it's usually easy to drive at ~40 mph: that was the comfortable high-beam pace when I still had my original US-spec Golf IV lamps (with its nice, broad high beam pattern), and that's generally how fast pretty much all my friends comfortably drive in a fairly wide range of cars. But with my "upgraded" E-code Golf IV Valeos (which have a high beam pattern like what Hamilton Felix describes), I can't see around the corners any better on high beam than I already can with the lows, so I'm trundling about at 30 mph. Hence I'm wondering if a Philips Xtreme Vision H1 (as a change from the current "+30" Hella bulbs in my high beams) would improve or worsen this situation: people tell me the beam pattern might become tighter, which would make things worse -- but people also say there's more effective lumens overall with the Xtreme Vision, so maybe the off-hotspot spill would improve matters?...

(For what it's worth, the Valeo high beams on my car are such that multiple passengers (including some who have no interest in cars or lighting) have commented on how difficult it is to see where the road goes; there's currently very little light to the sides of the high beam hot spot. I don't have anywhere near the multi-car experience that you and others on this forum can draw on, but I've never driven in a car with such a narrow high beam....)

P.S. -- I should also mention that aside from this narrow-high-beam quirk, I really like my E-codes! (The low beam pattern is really nice, and I appreciate the glass lenses.) Thus I'm not ready to go back to the US lamps (which I've long ago sold off, so I'd have to buy a new set anyway); I'd just like to broaden the usable beam. =)

Scheinwerfermann said:

You really ought to do a voltage drop test -- it's really the accurate way of telling the situation with your specific car, now that it has some age on it.

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I will do so, when I go home for Thanksgiving. Thanks for the recommendation!

Scheinwerfermann said:

If you want to try an experiment and see if it gives you the extra spread you want, buy a handful of good-quality ordinary H1 bulbs and the smallest jar of "30-second etchant" from this site. Using a good-quality small paint brush, paint a wet line of the etchant, parallel to the filament, on the bulb glass. The line should be about twice as wide as the filament's diameter, so that'll be about 3 or 4mm. Leave the etchant on until it dries -- this is very hard glass you're working on -- then rinse it off in very hot water. Dip/swish the bulb several times in clean alcohol, let it dry, and install it. The etched area of glass will diffuse the light and should smooth out the beam pattern. The reason for buying a handful of bulbs is because you'll have to experiment with where (top, bottom, top and bottom, left and/or right sides, 2:00, 2:00 and 5:00, 2:00 and 6:00, etc.) your diffuser line gives you the results you want. Start with top and/or bottom.

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Hamilton Felix said:

The careful etching that Scheinwerfermann suggested sounds like a really cool experiment. With a little careful shopping, one should be able to find a handful of matching H1 bulbs for not too much money. And it certainly would be a learning experience.

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Mr. Scheinwerfermann, that's a fascinating suggestion!! (Where does it come from? Is this an "old racing trick" of some sort??) Is the idea here to use the etched line as a sort of second filament (in terms of beam focus)? And if so, why start with top/bottom? Wouldn't I want to go left and/or right, if I wanted a wider beam? (Sorry if this question is naive; I'm a little fuzzy on how the beam pattern changes when you shift a filament sideways....)

I think I'll hold off on this experiment for a while (among other things, I have to remove the front bumper to change bulbs, and I'm parked on the street in a neighborhood that looks unkindly on unsightly auto repairs); but it sounds really neat, so hopefully someday I'll try it -- thank you for the suggestion!!

Scheinwerfermann said:

The Cibie flat-lens high beam has broader spread than the curved-lens one.

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Hamilton Felix said:

My guess is, the flat lens 5-3/4" Cibie high in separate buckets would be your answer.

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Thank you, both of you!

Hamilton Felix said:

Too bad you're not open to auxiliaries at this time. On my old Saab with four 5-3/4" headlights, using the curved lens Cibie H1 high, I added Series 190 Oscar+ driving lights to get a bit more fill in.

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I'd love to try the Oscar+ (I've only held one in my hands, years ago in a UK Halfords, but what a beautifully manufactured product!), but sadly they don't really fit on the front of a little Golf. As for auxiliaries in general: I don't mean to give the impression that my wife would absolutely nix the idea -- but she's always loved this car (starting from when we first met and I'd come pick her up at her dorm), and she even asked that it'd be our official conveyance at our wedding (i.e., friends were offering to loan us classic cars, sports cars, limos -- and she rejected all of them in favor of a 2-door Golf!). So she'd be a little sad if it no longer looked like the way it used to, and though she doesn't insist, I'm inclined to humour her on this. =)

That being said, N8N has made an interesting point:

N8N said:

Just a thought for a Golf IV specifically... I had a GTI for a while and one of the things I didn't like about it was that the factory fogs were mounted in the headlamp assemblies. At one time Hella made a Micro DE kit specifically for the A4 that mounted Micro DEs in the little side grilles in the air dam....

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Is the "Hella Micro DE" specifically a fog lamp? Or is there a driving lamp that would fit in this location? And if there is a driving lamp that would fit in the little side grills (under the front bumper), would it be legal to install driving lamps in such a low-to-the-ground location? Auxiliary lamps down there wouldn't substantially change the appearance of the car, so I'd be interested in trying such a thing, if it's legal, safe, and effective. =)

There's more I'd like to respond to concerning the DRLs, but this post is long enough for this evening. Thank you again, everyone, for the kind advice and interesting discussion!

Cheers,
-Ceilidh

P.S. -- If it makes any difference, I should mention that I went against Daniel Stern's advice when I purchased the Valeos and bulbs: Mr. Stern suggested that I install +30 or +50 bulbs in both the high beams and the low beams, but I was afraid of the low beams burning out (because of DRL use), and thus went with long-life H7 low beam bulbs. As mentioned in the initial post, I'm planning on replacing those long-life H7s with the much brighter Osram Rallyes -- perhaps the much brighter low beams might improve my country-road driving, even if the high beams stay narrow?...

Ceilidh said:

the 796 will also fit a Golf IV's turn, rear fog, and brake lamps; I presume it's illegal / unsafe for those uses?

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The halogen 796 would be too bright and too slow in stop (brake) and turn signal applications. Fine in a rear fog, but might be too much heat for the lamp assembly; I wouldn't chance it (the reversing lights are used for only short durations so there's no problem). To upgrade those other functions you'd want the Honda-made bulbs, part number 34903-SF1-A01 . These used to be available in original-equipment quality, made by the Honda OEM Stanley, as bulb number 3497. You can still buy 3497s, but all the aftermarket ones are of very poor quality, so you're best to get the genuine Honda ones.

Is the idea here to use the etched line as a sort of second filament (in terms of beam focus)?

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No, it's a diffusion technique. I picked it up (and the source for the etchant cream) from Dan Stern when he was doing some experiments with apparent lit area of transparent-lens tail lamps with "jeweled" reflector optics.

why start with top/bottom?

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Because typically it's the top and bottom of the reflector that provide the spread, and the left and right areas provide the high-intensity hot spot.

I'm a little fuzzy on how the beam pattern changes when you shift a filament sideways....)

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You would not be shifting the filament or simulating a shifted filament. The bulb's focal point would remain in the same location.

Is the "Hella Micro DE" specifically a fog lamp?

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They make a "driving" (aux high beam) version of it -- it's not very good, and mounting aux high beams down below the bumper severely detracts from their performance. They really should be up near headlamp height. The under-bumper location is well suited to fog lamps.

H7 low beam bulbs. As mentioned in the initial post, I'm planning on replacing those long-life H7s with the much brighter Osram Rallyes -- perhaps the much brighter low beams might improve my country-road driving

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They should.