Hi, to all on the group. I wanted to know if anyone had any experiences with sylvania silverstar lamps in the 96-00 minivans or had any other good results trying to get their weak known chrysler headlights brighter.
Thanks for any info
How are the plastic lenses? Mine cloud up terribly. Had very good results with a cheap plastic lens cleaner made for this.
Can you pl give details of your plastic cleaner? Thanks
Not much in the way of details. I just picked up a $1 pouch of some plastic lens cleaner made by Meguiar, looks like toothpaste. It worked.
Now Pep Boys has a bottle they sell for $7. Almost all the auto stores have some plastic cleaner or other. Novus makes them, #1 #2 #3. 3M makes them. I would start with the mildest, preferably with some UV protection if possible.
On the internet, you can find whole kits, with little buffers for around $30.
Or a motorcycle shop will have stuff for this since also a problem with those plastic windshields. I was intending to stop into a cycle type of shop.
In any case, these cleaners do work. How long? Mine lasted about 6 months. Some of the cleaners will help the UV which is what nails the plastic. Meguiar's was not bad.
Enough details?
Thanks for the quick reply. I have a 2000 caravan and the bad headlights are getting worse. I'll look for a plastic lens cleaner with uv protection.
Thanks again
You're welcome, let me add:
For the record, I used a $1 packet of Meguiar's PlastX, purchased at AutoZone. The Pep Boys product I referred to was Blue Magic, but I personally have not tested that. Although my headlamps were very cloudy and failed an inspection, they cleared up to pass inspection without getting into wet sanding and buffers. Used only a brand new rag [socks] and not much hand buffing.
The Sylvania Silverstar bulbs actually put out less light than the standard bulb! (due to the coating on the glass). Go to a large Wal-Mart and pick up a set of GE Night Hawk bulbs. These bulbs sport a standard current load and voltage and long life, but also the highest output bulb out there for this application. Still, the lights on the 97 Voyager, at their best, are inadequate by design.
Richard
Richard.
The first thing to do is to clear the cloudy lens as previously discussed. You could easily pick up 50% more light if they are really amber/cloudy. Also bulbs dim with age, so just replacing the bulbs 9even though they are not burnt out) will usually throw better light.
To answer your question, Sylvania Silverstar's throw considerably more light (and whiter light) which makes seeing better. I use them on both of my cars.
Although you can't actually see farther (they have the exact same light output* as compared to regular halogens) they will fill in the road better and make it easier to discern what's ahead (the whiter light makes distant objects easier to make out than the yellow light of a regular halogen.)
*Both standard halogen and Silverstar's (bulb number 9007) are rated at 1000 lumens @ 55 watts (low beam), 1350 @ 65 watts (high beam) For color temperature, standard halogen's are rated around 3200k (yellow white) while Silverstars are rated around 4000k (white/white).If you decide to change over to new bulbs, remember to never touch the glass bulb material, as the oil on your fingertips will result in a hot spot causing the halogen to burn out much faster. If you do touch the glass, clean it with alcohol or Windex before placing it into the headlight assembly.
On the minus side, they cost more and their rated life is much lower than standard halogen. (My car doesn't have the daylight / headlight feature so the shorter life isn't really a factor in my case.)
I recommend them as their better visibility far out weigh the added costs.
That's interesting. The Sylvania site is good. I did not understand their graph. When they say the opposite ends are yellow and blue, I gather they are referring to their lights? In general, the electromagnetic spectrum's end, if "looking" at only the wavelengths, are blue then the invisible, for humans, ultra-violet, and at the other end are the reds and then the invisible, to humans, infra-red. Some animals can see infra-red or ultra-violet.
So the more yellow, the less visiblity, the more blue they add, the more visibility because one is getting near white light.
I noticed with my computer monitor, as the Kelvin goes up, from 5000 to
9300, the warmth goes out, so better for text but not for pictures. I gather that's the yellow leaving, and yellow is what, a secondary formed by two of the primary red/blue/green? Yellow is formed by red and green. And adding in blue will decrease yellow and go near white. I gather that's what Sylvania meant with their graph. Have to study that again.Red, blue, and green form white light, fasinating to me. For printing and painting, it's mmagenta, cyan and yellow are the primary colors.
In any case, green is the best color I find at night to see and red is the worst. In other words, a green light appears to illuminate far more than the equivalent red lights. This is easily seen in the use of night lights. A green light will tend to illuminate an entire room whereas the red barely gets past the bulb itself.
In any case, thanks to your excellent and pithy comments, I changed one of my monitors to 9300 Kelvin, and it's much clearer for text reading now. I had set it low for photographics and forgot. And I'll check out my replacement headlights that I carry around.
The Silverstar line in North America is a short lived, relatively expensive bulb that puts out less light than their standard bulb. Less light because of the blue coating, less life because they have to crank its output to overcome the blue coating. Their Xtravision line puts out about 15% more light than their standard bulb, has standard life and no colored coating, it is their best bulb line in my opinion. But GE's Night Hawk line put out almot 40% more light, has standard life and no colored coating. They are not as expensive as the Siverstar's, last longer and put out significently more light. To me this is a no brainer.
Richard.
That is absolutely incorrect. The human eye, under mesopic (night driving) conditions, is most sensitive to yellow/yellow-green light. Blue light is all but useless to us for seeing purposes. And, there is no such a thing as "whiter" light. Sylvania's site is peddling blue-glass bulbs, not offering facts on how human vision works. Want facts? Look up "V-lambda" and "mesopic vision", read
"Kelvin ratings" have no validity in the realm of automotive lighting. They are extensively used to sell blue bulbs, however.
What you need for seeing at night isn't this color or that color or some other color: It's light. Lots of it. As much as possible, directed to the places where you need it and kept away from the places where it causes glare to you or others. The way to get maximum light is not by installing blue- or purple-glass bulbs or gushing over "Kelvin ratings". It's by installing the bulbs with *clear* glass that produce the maximum allowable amount of light.
Of couse it's a no-brainer, but facts don't stand a chance when they get in the way of high-dollar pseudoscientific ad campaigns like Sylvania's for their Silverstar junk.
"> all but useless to us for seeing purposes. And, there is no such a thing
That's just plain nonsence.
I use the Silverstar's on both cars and they are indeed very much 'whiter'. There's nothing blue abut them; it's a pure white.
You are mistaken in your belief that the bulbs are useless for seeing purposes. I can see much better, and apparently so does everyone else who has ridden in the car at night.
The pictures I referenced in my earlier message is a very good example what the difference appears like. These to pictures are exactly the difference that you can expect.
I guess the only way you will ever be able to test this for yourself is by actually using a pair on your own car and see what difference they make for you. Until that time, you would be better off not making false claims for products you have never used.
And yes, I also agree that yellow - yellow/green lighting is the most cost efficient for overhead lighting. It is however; they would probably make great headlights if they were ever offered. (Of course they could only be offered in HID as it's the only way the light can be produced.) Makes one wonder if the technological problems are too great; assuming that auto bulb makers have probably already thought if it.
"Kelvin ratings" have no validity in the realm of automotive lighting. They are extensively used to sell blue bulbs, however.
A rating of degree Kelvin is simply the color temperature of the light. There is a complete science of color temperature in automotives, and federal standards which have exacting requirements for automotive lighting by several factors; not just color temperature. I'd love to tell you that your full of shit, and because based on your ridiculous statement you really are, but it's obvious you never heard of the FMVSS or any of the required standards that automotive manufacturer's must comply with to build and sell an automobile here in the US, so it would probably just be a waste of time anyway. But I'll try anyway.
Automotive lighting is governed by Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard No.
108, "Lamps, reflective devices, and associated equipment". It governs the maximum wattage, color temperature (in degrees Kelvin) and light output (in lumens). Also specified are angles of visibility, mounting locations and other physical characteristics. That's mandated for new car manufacturers. Once the car is sold and on the street, state laws govern whether it can be modified and to what degree. All states have laws which match the federal laws and this is why a manufacturer (like Sylvania) advertises the bulb parameters; to show that their products are 'street legal'. Many you see at Pep Boys, Wal Mar and the like are not. Look for the DOT certification ON THE PRODUCT. (Some Chinese products are being sold with a "letter of certification" and are not approved.)Anyways, your completely wrong about the light bulbs. They may be expensive (I bought mine off EBay) and shorter lived, but the light is white and visibility is much improved.
Actually it puts out the same amout of light (in lumens).
I didn't consider Xtravision as I had seen the SilverStar in my nieghbors car and was immediately sold. In looking over the Sylvania site, it appears that the Xtravision lights have the same color output as standard Halogens (3200K) and the same lumens (1000 for low beam) (re: bulb 9007).
My guess is that they have the same extra distance visibilty as the SilverStar's, with the color of a standard Halogen. A good comparison is to see both headlight's output: Xtravision:
General Electric advertises that this bulb has 33% better brightness (than a standard Halogen) (39% for sealed beams). Couldn't find anything about the rated output, color temperature or rated life on the GE website. All I could find was a reference to being their brightest. Although they discuss color and lifetime of their other headlight, nothing on the Night Hawk. My guess is, it has similar ratings to Sylvania's Xtravision; both in color, lumens and life span; which would justify the lower costs comparable to the Sylvania Xtravision (as compared to the SilverStar.)
At this point, I don't believe that I would recommend either over the SilverStar for vision. If cost is a factor, I could see using Xtravision bulbs (over the GE bulbs for no other reason that Sylvania gives more information for one to base a decision on).
As to the rated life for all three bulbs, I can't find any published information relating to the rated hours of any of these. Granted, the hotter bulb (SilverStar) will have a shorter life than either the Xtravision or Night Hawk. And of course you can automatically assume that both of these will have shorter lives than a standard Halogen.
Your argument that this is a "no brainier" is baseless. Apples-to-apples it's a choice between GE's Night Hawk or Sylvania's Xtravision (which are probably similar in color and brightness and rated life). For the best seeing (other than going full bore $300 for a HID system), the best lighting is still SilverStar.
No. Nominal ratings are not the same as actual output.
The Sylvania Silverstar bulbs, like all others with blue glass, do have very short rated life, because the only way to get legal-minimum flux (amount of light) through the light-stealing blue glass is to overdrive the filament. It works, but there's no free lunch; filament life is extremely short.
The little "Really, we promise, these blue bulbs are street legal, honest..." slips of paper that come packaged with Silverstar bulbs (to show to the officer when he questions the legality of your lights) don't list the bulbs' actual luminous output, but rather just list the nominal output.
Here is an easily-readable tabulation of most of the bulb types legal for use in headlamps in the US (49CFR564 light source list):
If you want the info directly from 49CFR564, you can find the legal specs in full for each bulb type in DOT docket 3397, accessible via
It's readily available in the manufacturers' engineering specbooks. Can you think of a reason why they might make it difficult for the average consumer to find?
No, GE's equivalent to the Xtravision is the High Output (and Philips' is the High Visibility). Sylvania does not presently market an equivalent to the GE Night Hawk, but Philips does (VisionPlus).
There is no factual basis for this assertion. You're certainly entitled to your opinion, but it's based on nothing more than optical illusion and advertising hype.
Not a legal or safe option for most cars,
Could be, as I stated, I wasn't able to find any spec's on the GE website.
I liked my neighbor's lights when I went fishing with him last May (SilverStar) and got a set for both cars. It was a case of liking what I actually saw, not read. I knew what I liked and didn't do much of any comparing of various brands, etc. These work fine not withstanding all hype about price and life.
As far as price you can pick up a pair of 9007 on EBay for $18 +shipping ($6 for me). And 150 hours will last me for about 2-3 years. I can live with that.
I still do not agree that you lose a lot of visability with the SilverStar. Whether it's opinion or not, I do see much better with the Sylvania SilverStar vs. the stock Halogens. I notice that I can see distant objects which have some reflectivity to them much better, as well as the fill of medium distant objects. (I would be the first to jump to an Orem if I could find a H13, but I never found them offered in a configuration I could use). Sorry if you can't accept this, but I LIKE the white/white of the SilverStar. For me, it's not illusion nor opinion nor any other degrading remark you can devise. It's just gives me better perceptibility at night. Did it ever occur to you that certain people CAN see better with this light (even if you can't)?
As I'm 'slightly' older, ahem, perhaps we more "experienced" drivers can see better with a bluer spectrum bulb over a yellowier spectrum bulb. I did read a study on this relating to aircraft several years ago, but can't remember the results, but color did seem have an impact on seeing relating to age.
FYI, I did find some rated hours (Sylvania), 500 for 9007, 1500 for H13,
150 for SilverStar.For now, based on my personal experience, I'll stick to the SilverStar's and continue to recommend them. I like the white light and better visibility.
Take care, Dennis
That's fine, but you're disagreeing with physical fact.
Subjective impression.
THis doesn't make any sense. H13 bulbs only fit headlamps designed to take H13 bulbs. You can't install an H13 in a headlamp designed to accept a
9007.
That, I have no problem accepting. It's considerably different from the baseless claims you've been making about better seeing, though.
It's not a question of my experience vs. yours, it's a question of physical fact. Science and fact trumps opinion and preference.
That hypothesis has been studied and tested, and found not to be the case.
That might be applicable if planes were allowed on interstates.
You admit that th these bulbs have a blue coating on the glass but still insist that the light is more white. The coating does not change the color output of the bulb other than filtering out part of the color output of the bulb that is not blue. Thus part of the color output of the bulb that would help you see in the dark has been filtered out. If you think this is going to get you to see better in the dark fine, but it is without any scientific basis. Every comparitive test I have read, and my own experience, supports what Stern is trying to get through to you.
Richard.
Richard you might find the following article on color interesting. It relates to why fog lights are yellow, and why yellow is not any more effective that other colors. Interesting article.
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