Replacement car bulbs

baggiecat

Hello All,

Jusr need a bit of advice about replacing the bulbs on my 03 VW Bora, the standard lights just dont seem bright enough and so i thought about replacing with aftermarket bulbs that may give off more light, i dont like those blue items that the boy racers have and i dont want to convert to a gas system, just need something that will perform better than the standard items i have now. I hear the Osram range is pretty good, all advice kindly received.

Regards

s_b

osram highly rated and good quality
its the only make of bulb i will fit to my own vehicles
or philips if available
they are cheaper on ebay apparently but choose your seller carefully in case you get sold copies

plutoniumpilot

I have the osram night breaker plus bulbs in my car. Much brighter than the stock headlights in my focus.the only downside is they don't last as long as standard bulbs.

s_b

plutoniumpilot wrote: »

I have the osram night breaker plus bulbs in my car. Much brighter than the stock headlights in my focus.the only downside is they don't last as long as standard bulbs.

how do you quantify that though?
in all my years of driving i could fair count all my blown headlight bulbs on one hand and trust me here ive done some driving in my time
now if we are talking bulbs other than osram or philips then dont get me started:)

baggiecat

S B ,

I want to know your thoughts on this, and its ok to get 'started' we may learn something.

GolfBravo

Another vote for Osram Night Breaker Plus - very bright, good life, IMHO much better than Philips X-treme Vision (had two Philips sets, the first one lasted 9 months, the second 5 - now have Osram NBPs, trouble free for over 14 months). They give white light, definitely not boy racer blue.

baggiecat

Thanks Golf bravo, yr advice much appreciated.

Regards

plutoniumpilot

s_b wrote: »

how do you quantify that though?
in all my years of driving i could fair count all my blown headlight bulbs on one hand and trust me here ive done some driving in my time
now if we are talking bulbs other than osram or philips then dont get me started:)

Just speaking through what I have experienced. I have tried osram silverstar, nightbreaker and nightbreaker plus as well as stardard lights. The silverstars lasted about 2 years, nightbreakers 1 year and nightbreaker plus 6 months. I drive about 14k a year 2 hours or so a day, lights on most of the time.

avantra

We have Osram nightbrakerplus in the Fusion and when we needed new lights for the Passat I got the 50%+ from Lidl (£4.99 for the H7) and I can't tell the difference, they both as good, the Lidl ones are 15 month old now but the Osram's are a bit older.

Notmyrealname

Only problem is AFAIK one of the changes to the MOT test in 2012 introduces a test on the brightness of headlamp bulbs and people may find their new high output bulbs fail a MOT.

Stephen_Leak

Another vote for OSRAM NightBreakers. The new Plus ones have thicker filaments and a better mix of gas than the original ones, which were getting a bad reputation for premature failure.

The improvement on the OE bulbs with the combination H4's in my Fiesta is impressive, and with the H7's & H1's in my lady friend's Focus is little short of phenomenal. Brighter, better range, and a white light (with a very slight blueish tinge) that made the OE ones look like yellow French ones.

Shop around, though. My records show that my current pair cost me £12.85 (inc. P&P) on eBay. My last bulb replacement was on 23 May 2011.

The Philips ones claim the same extra light, range & whiteness, but are usually more expensive.