Light bulb experiment worked out fine (long) (archive)

Now I have an exceptionally good situation for testing the actual improvement here since the bulbs I had (6 months old) were exactly same kind of Philips but without the +30% feature.

I was surprised to find the two have even the same product number; the +30 bulb just has the letters "PR" after the product number. The number is 12258 for the "regular" bulbs and 12258PR for the +30% "Premium" bulbs.

So, I put them in and took the car for a test drive in the pitch dark Scandinavian autumn night and BOY DO THEY MAKE A DIFFERENCE!!! The lights are bright and light up the road well up until the "cutting point" which is very clear and sharp. I wasn't the slightest bit afraid when I switched from high beams to low beams way ahead of time when cars were coming from the opposite direction; nor was I in any kind of hurry to switch back after they passed. (This in speeds of roughly 110km/h/70mph)

Ever since I bought this car I have been dissatisfied of the VERY poor low beams; now it's just fine!

Mind you that I'm running on (illegal in europe) 100W Philips bulbs on my high beams that are incredibly bright and thus would need the low beams to be rather efficient as well so that switching to low beams wouldn't be such a shock. Now it isn't the slightest bit scary any more.

so, if someone is considering changing to any of these "Super White Ultra Blue Xenon Turbo GX-R VTEC Type-R" lightbulbs that are being marketed as "more powerful" which they certainly aren't (yeah I tried out of curiosity), I suggest you go and get yourself a pair of Philips +30% 55W bulbs. Perfectly legal, effective and will likely outlast any "never-heard-of" brand Super Xenon Ultra bulbs several times over.

Oh and I remember that someone said their light assemblies/wires/whatever had melted in some other-than-bmw cars because they were using higher wattage bulbs: Well, I've had 100W Philips bulbs on my high beams for about a year and I use the highs a lot. NO PROBLEMS WHATSOEVER. These aren't Toyotas as I often like to point out.

Hope you all found this informative.

Henkka
Put studded Nokia Hakka's on today and lubricated all the door/trunk/hood/sunroof seals with silicone. Already had the brake fluid and coolant changed. I'm ready for winter so let it snow, let it snow, let it snow... :-)

Pics of Christine

Follow Ups:

Re: Light bulb experiment worked out fine (long) Mark Petry 17:38 10/21/2001 (0)
I just did the 9006 to 9005 conversion WOW Winton 94 740iL 15:48 10/21/2001 (0)

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