Poor Lights Forester 2004

i replaced the headlights on my 1999 Forester with PIAA H4 BULB: 60/55W Super Xtreme PIA-15760 $69.00 Twin Beam H4 Type Bulb is similar to Super Plasma, but has Xtreme White Low & Super White High. 60/55w = 135/125w SAE 4200K low, 3950K high. was well worth the $70. kurt

Have you checked the aim of the headlights? (A friend just got an '04 Forester, and I had occasion to drive it at night. I found the lights to be very good. you mention fog lamps. Of course, they are not going to help for normal driving. So, maybe headlight aim? Not knowing what the latest Civics are like, though, they may still not be as good as that. Higher wattage bulbs should help, though.)

Larry Van Wormer

there's a good deal of voltage drop in the switched-ground system that subaru uses. for some reason, they use relays to actuate the headlights, which is good, but they put them in the passenger's compartment under the glovebox, which is bad (you'd really like to have the current loop as small as possible to minimize losses in the cabling).

if you relocate relays to the vicinity of the headlights you can probably get a half volt or more across the filaments. that's actually a discernable ammount of light output. you'd have to buy some relays and connect them to the existing harness, which puts off a lot of people.

hth ken

Thanks,

I will take a look for those in Canada.

my impreza outback gets better milage than my 2000 neon ever did

my subaru is much more stable than any car i have had.

but, besides that I love

did you buy a subaru? :))

I used to do 550 km with my Civic now I do 420 KM with a bigger tank :-(( I only have 2000 km on it, maybe it is going to get better ???

I feel my Forester is better up to 140 but past 160 I like it less. My Civic felt better past 160. I know the Forester is not a car made for high speed but the STI was out of my budget.

It is what I read on the contract and the logo in front is Subaru logo :-))

Yupp!, it would put me off. I do not think I want to go to that mutch trouble, I will try other bulbs or get used to it.

thanks

Your '04 Forester surely is still under warranty. Take it to the dealer. Or (and perhaps you said it---I don't recall) maybe the dealer already said, "You're nuts. The lights are fine. That's the way they're supposed to be."

Does modifying the lights, e.g., putting in different bulbs as described in an earlier post in this thread, affect warranty?

HW

Likewise the lights on my 2004 Forester. I was amazed at just how good they are, and I am comparing them to my daughter's 2002 Honda Accord (which I always believed had the best headlights I'd ever seen.)

Compare to another Subie if you can. Something must be wrong.