Hi everyone, I got a 2002 durango SLT 4.7L and thinking about swapping out my stock headlights and fog lights for some new LED ones as the lights in the durango now are aboslute shit. Driving around the city, especially when its when (which it generally always is here in St. John's NL, Canada haha!) they are hardly noticable, and on the dark highways they are slightly better when in hi-beam but still nowhere near sufficient for our densly populated moose! hit one of those going 100 plus km/h and its safe to say bye bye durango, and possibly your life lol.
So what i'm wondering is if anybody else has switched out to LED lights. Are they simply plug and play or is there a bunch of fooling around with ballast and resistors and shit like with the HID's. Also are there any modifications needed to the light housing to make them fit?
From what i've seen in pics/videos and read from reviews from their customers, these new LED's are putting the HID's to shame, extremely bright, good quality, with a lifetime warranty. i'm just trying to figure out how hard are they to install and if any modifications are needed.
they do say that they are plug and play right into your existing wiring harness, but they look a bit bigger than a standard bulb. i'm wondering if any modifications are needed to the housing
The only time an LED will ever outshine an HID projector is if it's in an engineered reflector or projector designed specifically for the LED (which as of yet only come out of the car factories). When you stick an LED into a reflector housing designed for a halogen bulb, the output is horrible for the driver and even worse for oncoming vehicles because the optics don't line up where they're supposed to. It's even worse than using drop-in HIDs without projectors. Their reviews are by shills and uninformed idiots. Just don't do it.
Man ive been reading a lot of threads on here, most of which you have responded to. It hasnt taken long to come to the conclusion, as have many other poster, that you are an arrogent asshole that gotta shit on everything that isnt your idea or your way of doing things. Ive seen the results and these lights are amazing. Ive seen to many HIDs that flicker and give out rather quickly, no matter on the quality or the name. I asked a simple question about how to install them, that was it. Why do you constantly have to shit on people ideas about things? You may know a lot of things, but I guarntee it that you don't know it all, which you seem to have the mentality that you do. Get off your high horse and maybe, just maybe help/answer peoples question that they ask in a sensible manner instead of shirting on everything thats not done your way.
I guarantee I know a fuckload more than you do. The fact that you are being all pigheaded and are going to buy these pieces of shit anyway are proof of that. You asked for "any and all feedback", and I gave you truthful and honest feedback. Too fucking bad that it doesn't jibe with all the gumdrop hype you've already swallowed. You won't get any feedback from anyone here who's installed LED retrofits, because nobody here has installed LEDs - and you know why? BECAUSE THEY ALL SUCK. An LED CAN NOT be dropped into a reflector housing designed for halogen, for the exact same reason an HID can't - they produce a shitty beam with no cutoff that is glaring as fuck to other drivers.
I asked for opinions on installing them and how to do it, not quality of light, because anything is better than the stock headlights. As for the glare to other drivers, it sucks yes, but its things people learn to live with. Where im from the wider the angle of light off to the sides of roads and highways into the ditches and highways the better it is. Nice straight focused beams are useless, youll end up dead in no time
Have fun "learning to live with it" when you blind someone and they smash into you head on. Way to be the problem.
And FYI, projectors don't give a "nice straight focused beam" (see? you really don't know what the fuck you're talking about). They have a 160 degree wide beam but there is a razor-sharp cutoff at the TOP LEFT of the low beam - specifically designed to NOT blind other drivers. When the high beam is on, the shield is flipped out of the way and light is thrown higher and farther down the road.
This pic is from a country where they drive on the left, so the low cutoff is on the right, but it's a good comparison of glare from reflectors versus sharp cutoff from projectors.
sorry, i thought the pics would transfer lol, please look to my post on previous page where i have the images attached. does anybody know where i can get the hid projector retrofits for them and are those halos i'm seeing around the lights? i have what appears to be disconnect balast under the hood next to the headlights and wondering if they are for halos?
Suggestion 2: Add a nice relay harness (heavier gauge wire) to improve the voltage to the headlights. I didn't measure my Dakota, but on my 1991 Cougar, I picked up a volt on the passenger side. And that's about 8% more voltage, plus 8% more current, so that much more light! *Approximately 16% more power being consumed*
Suggestion 3: Pick up some Hella or other higher powered lamps to put in the headlight assemblies.
That keeps the factory cut off, adds more light, and adds more light. The higher powered Hella lamps, however, will tend to heat and damage the OEM headlight assemblies over a few years time, so there's a cost there.
If you don't do 3, then keep the headlight lenses clean and protected to keep the yellowing and the dimming down.
THEN ... add driving lights to your truck to fill in and extend over the high beams. That way, you've got the closer aim for low beams, the further aim of high beams, and filling in when you are in the country, without blinding Memaw and Papaw as they're driving in the grandpa car to see the new great-grandkid at the hospital ...
Uhhhh why? Those are probably the worst performing housings you can put on a Durango. Well, maybe duct taping a flashlight to the side of the truck might be worse (yes, I've seen that).
Suggestion 2: Add a nice relay harness (heavier gauge wire) to improve the voltage to the headlights. I didn't measure my Dakota, but on my 1991 Cougar, I picked up a volt on the passenger side. And that's about 8% more voltage, plus 8% more current, so that much more light! *Approximately 16% more power being consumed*
LOL you may want to go take a refresher on Ohm's law. Current and voltage are inversely proportional. Assuming identical loads, as voltage goes up, current goes down. It's not going to be 'consuming' more power either. There will simply be more voltage at the filament which means it burns brighter (since filament brightness is dependent on the voltage, not the current) - it's still going to consume 55/65 watts, but it will be about 20% brighter assuming that 1 volt difference.
Suggestion 3: Pick up some Hella or other higher powered lamps to put in the headlight assemblies.
That keeps the factory cut off, adds more light, and adds more light. The higher powered Hella lamps, however, will tend to heat and damage the OEM headlight assemblies over a few years time, so there's a cost there.
There is no "factory cutoff". It's just a bowl that pours light through a big holed strainer.
If you don't do 3, then keep the headlight lenses clean and protected to keep the yellowing and the dimming down.
THEN ... add driving lights to your truck to fill in and extend over the high beams. That way, you've got the closer aim for low beams, the further aim of high beams, and filling in when you are in the country, without blinding Memaw and Papaw as they're driving in the grandpa car to see the new great-grandkid at the hospital ...
Driving lights are NOT supposed to be used with your high beams. They are short wide throw and are supposed to be aimed at a point about 25 feet in front of you. Their purpose is to fill in the 'hole' in the foreground underneath your low beams. They are supposed to be wired to turn OFF when your high beams are on, because extra foreground (close up) light kills your background (distance) vision. That's also why your low beams turn off when the high beams are on, even in a quad-headlight system.
LED drop in bulbs are complete shit, no ifs ands or buts about it. They're even worse than pnp hids for glare, but manage to make less usable light. As was suggested, and hid projector retrofit (led projectors are starting to pop up, but are way more expensive) is the only way to go.
The projectors in those things are cheapo junk, but if you were going to run hids without doing a projector retrofit, those would be the ones to use so you're not blinding the shit out of everyone though.
thats what i was thinking, but in the description it said smoked lenses so i dunno
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