LED retrofit headlight bulbs... good or garbage?

So, the "new hotness" seems to be LED retrofit headlight bulbs. I am seeing these all the time on Amazon for around $50/pair. I was thinking about trying a set in my 2012 Mazda 3, which has halogen projectors. When I ordered the car, I wanted to get the optional HID's, but they were only offered as part of a $4500 tech package, which I thought was ridiculous. Right now, I'm running H9 bulbs instead of the H11's it comes with for some extra light output, and after re-aiming them, they are much better than the stock lights. They still not that great, and they also tend to burn out faster due to the higher wattage of the H9 bulbs. No one that I can find makes a H9 bulb that's an upgrade over the regular ones, a la GE Nighthawk or Sylvania Silverstar.

I know that retrofitting HID's is a giant PITA on these cars. I've read, heard, and seen HID's in the stock Mazda 3 halogen projector housings, and they can pull it off without blinding other drivers. The appeal of a true plug-and-play LED bulb that will be brighter and last a lot longer than the H9's is tempting, but I've heard that LED bulbs cannot disperse the correct light patterns for car headlights in a stock housing. Has anyone tried these things, or should I just stick to the H9 setup?

I put 55 watt hid bulbs, ballast and relays in dad's 15 mazda 3. Working great. No glare or other issues from the halogen projector housing.

I actually just got some in at work today for testing. We are going to test them out over the next couple weeks and see how they work. I can report back with the results.

I really like the 72watt LED bulbs I put in my bike.

Fixed all the crappy factory lighting issues.

Would love to see the results.

Do you have a website of the test reviews of the various aftermarket lighting options?

I have seen them in halogen housings, good light and pattern. Not enough heat to melt snow.....

Do you want objective information or just anecdotal? There are a lot of anecdotal reports about how LED and HID "upgrade kits" do fantastic things for your headlight output.

Objectively speaking, they are detrimental to headlight output. Why? Reflector systems for halogen headlights are very specifically designed to reflect the output based on the halogen bulb having the filament in a very specific spot - which is part of the specification for any individual bulb type.

The problem with both LED and HID kits is that the filament can't possibly be in that very exact spot BECAUSE THERE ISN'T ANY FILAMENT AT ALL.

Will you get more light? Possibly. Will you get more useful output in the proper areas in front of your car? absolutely not! Will having the "not a filament" in the wrong place dazzle and blind oncoming drivers? Probably.

If you want to do more reading on this topic, the "Automotive" section at candlepowerforums.com is full of knowledgeable and intelligent people who can give you a more detailed explanation.

I don't have any experience, but I too am considering a set of LEDs for my W126's sealed beams. GE makes a direct fit "sealed beam" styled bulb that I am anxious to try.

+1 for what EvanR said. They're basically a more energy-efficient ghetto HID retrofit. They'll blind oncoming drivers without the proper LED reflector. "Sealed beam" LED units aren't a bad idea. They're a lot cheaper than they used to be, but it's still a lot of money.

Personal, not anecdotal, experience says that yes, throwing HID bulbs into a regular halogen headlight will give you more light. It will also piss off oncoming drivers with glare, even though they are "aimed" properly.

I'm currently researching retrofitting HID projectors into my headlights. They have the proper cutoff, to avoid the glare.

The experience I have with LED headlights is with units that were specifically designed as such. On a motorcycle, they're awesome, going straight. They suck in corners, though, because the cutoff makes the light disappear when you lean over.

my personal experience regarding whether or not it's blinding to oncoming drivers, is that it varies a lot.
some of them are pretty good, some of them are very blindey. so, mileage varies there.
My personal experience on my cars, is that the 'HID into a halogen projector' is way less offensive than 'HID into a halogen reflector'. HID in a halogen projector may still scatter a bit, but it's not on the same level is the blinding white orb effect that you often see when someone plops HID's into a reflector and it's like the sun is coming at you at night.
I would love to do LED retrofits, with the concerns (as mentioned) that if the LED 'bulb' that is being inserted doesn't have the light source coming from exactly the same spot that the halogen bulb did (probably down to the millimeter), it can affect where the light gets thrown, and also how well it lights the road.
As I understand it, there are LED bulbs out now that will plug directly into halogen slots, and the best ones have a heatsink and/or fan attached to the rear of each LED bulb.
It's also my understanding that LED's that really put out enough lumens, generate a fair amount of heat (enough to require that cooling), and if they don't have cooling onboard, they probably aren't as bright as advertised, or bright enough to light the road.
What I did in the meantime, is on one car I bought some inexpensive (Amazon or eBay) bixenon projectors that thread right into my H7 (or whatever) bulb slot, they lock into place, and they work okay. I still had to heat up and remove the front glass from my housings to install them (then reheat, and reattach the front glass), but it wasn't too bad with a heat gun. And as a bonus, the bixenon keeps my lows and highs aimed properly relative to each other. on one of my other cars I did the Acura TSX projector retrofit, which involved cutting the reflector bowls on the headlights, attempting to aim them (I didn't do a great job, so my highs and lows aren't calibrated to each other very well).
just some thoughts, good luck :)

RealMiniParker wrote: /snip I'm currently researching retrofitting HID projectors into my headlights. They have the proper cutoff, to avoid the glare. /snip

I did this earlier this year. SO INCREDIBLY WORTH IT. Yes I am yelling. I wish I had done it years ago.

Unless I can find a capsule-esque LED bulb for a reasonable price, I guess I'll either keep looking for a better H9 bulb or see if I can source a cheapish set of 2010-13 Mazda 3 Grand Touring HID headlights. It's probably a lot cheaper than hacking in TSX projectors. Remember, this car came with HID's as an option.

(EDIT: Scratch the second option. Not paying $800+ PER SIDE, USED!!! )

And yes I know all about how halogen projectors aren't the same and they can vomit light all over the road. Depending on the car and bulbs, it can work out just fine without pissing everyone off like all the brodozers with reflector housing HID's running around here. I did a HID swap on my stock projectors on my WRX, and it was fine. A friend did HID's on his previous gen Mazdaspeed 3 Sport and they were also fine. In fact, the MS3 even had provisions for the aiming motors, so we thought that they got lazy and put the HID projectors in his halogen car.

In reply to SilverFleet:

I would try HID's in the stock projectors, they are so cheap now its worth trying....

If you already have projector housings it should take a retrofit HID/LED conversion well. It's putting those bulbs in standard reflector housings that make crap output due to "filament" location.

In reply to java230:

My only gripe with going this route is that I did before in my old WRX and they didn't last very long. In fact, I still have the kit, and they are H11 bulbs, but I'm not sure what failed. I would hate to waste 5 hours of my time installing these and having them crap out like the last ones.

Wow, HID's got cheap. I'm seeing HID sets with ballasts as cheap as $29.99 on Amazon shipped.

In reply to SilverFleet:

5 hours?? They are nearly plug and play, maybe 1 or 2? I guess I have nto been under a MS3.

And yes very very cheap now.... 55W is good

I think I might toss in one of the ones I have from the WRX and compare them to the H9's in there now. I don't know where people were getting "5 hour install times" from because a regular bulb takes about a minute to replace. If it looks good, then I'll go that route.

Haven't tried the LED bulbs myself, but I did an HID retrofit on my 98 dakota into some eBay housings and it turned out great. Took a long time and a good bit of effort though.

If you have something that uses 7" round headlights you can get Truck-Lite, which are sealed beam LED headlights. I put a set in my 97 miata and I like them. Not quite as good as HID, but plug and play. (I actually had to solder new plugs on mine because I found the second gen which isn't generally available yet, but with the military plugs. Second gen brings built in defrost.) Truck-Lite and the other one similar (LG i think?) are on the expensive side though. ~$300/pair.

Xentec is the eBay brand of cheap rebased hid lights in have had the most success with.

Dusterbd13 wrote: Xentec is the eBay brand of cheap rebased hid lights in have had the most success with.

I've heard this brand id decent for eBay HID kits. Haven't tried them though.

I used DDM tuning HID bulbs, ballasts, and projectors for my dakota retrofit. Cheap, decent quality, great light output, and I'm pretty sure it has a lifetime warranty.

DDM's "lifetime" is one year. I will never buy from them again....

They are ok, their slim ballasts seemed to last about 2-3 years. Bulbs I went through faster....

Ah well, I have already sold the truck I put them in, so I won't know for myself unless I try them again.

Over the weekend, I dug up my old HID kit that I bought for my old WRX. I re-tested them in the Mazda, and sure enough, one of the ballasts is fried. Both bulbs still lit and looked good. I went on Amazon looking for a set of ballasts, but ultimately decided that I would splurge the extra $7 and get a new set of HID's.

Cheap HID's

$30 shipped still blows my mind, and there's a good chance that they will be awful, but they are cheaper than the H9's I've been buying, so I'll give them a shot. I got the 6k ones because they were the cheapest. My other bulbs I already have are 5k, so if the 6k look stupid, I'll toss the others in.

Oh, and my driver's side headlight went out, so the timing couldn't have been more perfect.