Wonder if anyone happens to know, or if not possibly someone else with a 94 lhs would at their convenience do a little experiment for me...
Rarely drive late night anymore; today I did. Low beams were acceptable, but then I got on virtually deserted highway, and used the high beams. Not too good at all, in fact I preferred the lows.
Noticed that if I gently pulled the stalk, as a signal perhaps. Not all the way to click it, just enough that I might be asking an approaching car to lower theirs, that all 4 (2 low, 2 high) came on, and it looked good.
However, pulling further to actually switch to high, caused (I think) the lows to go out.
Question is when high is selected should all 4 filaments be on, or only the 2 highs?
Can't find any info on this, so appreciate any advice on whether or not I have something to fix :)
That makes one of you. The rest of the world thinks these headlamps are garbage, 'cause they are!
Great way to burn up the woefully undersized headlamp wiring.
Correct. That headlamp uses one 9007 high/low beam bulb on each side of the car (not counting the useless inboard auxiliary lights).Two-filament headlight bulbs are pressurized to about 10 atmospheres COLD. Basic chemistry (PV=nRT) tells us what happens when a gas is heated but not permitted to expand: The pressure rises! They are not designed to handle the heat (or the current on the common filament support lead) of running both filaments at the same time for more than very brief periods during beam changeover or headlight flashing. Doing so carries the very real risk of the bulb grenading inside the headlamp, destroying it. Some people who think they're clever wire it up this way anyhow, and the "Brite Box" people have made a business out of this "clever" (not) modification. Running the lows with the highs can only be done safely if the lows are produced by different bulbs than the highs.
Which version of the headlamps do you have?. The early-production '93-'95 units have a reflector lamp inboard of the main high/low headlamp; the late-production '95-'97 units have a projector lamp (with round "eyeball" appearance) inboard. Neither of them is especially effective. Are the lenses marked SAE F, SAE Y or SAE Z?
I know you are no fan of the Honda's but my wife bought herself a 2005 Accord Hybrid. The low headlights are terrible. Probably not as bad as my old 94 LHS but darn close. Do you have any suggestions (other than trade it in) to improve them?
Not necessarily true. I don't want one, but it would be silly to deny they are well engineered and built.
American Honda took a decent optic and defocused it for what they perceive as American preferences in lighting. Don't ask me, it doesn't make any sense to me, either.
That's one case in which there *is* actually a "magic bulb" solution. The 9011-9012 HIR bulbs do a good job of bringing those headlamps up to snuff without causing negative consequences. Go send e-mail to snipped-for-privacy@candlepowerinc.com to get set up.
Also, American Honda did their usual dance with the rear lamp clusters on the '05, changing the turn signals to red for "model year identification" and because "Americans prefer red turn signals" (were you ever asked to vote?). Do your wife and your future insurance costs a favor: Swap on a set of '03-'04 outer rear lamp clusters (w/amber turn signals). Neither difficult nor expensive to buy, see
formatting link
. You'll need the amber 7440A bulbs, which canbe tricky to find locally; Candlepower's got those, too. Please don't respond on here; I'm almost never in Usenet any longer.
Tried to write you directly, it bounces. (fyi, it 550's with your name doesn't exist, but that you may exist at umich.edu; however that too bounces)
What in the heck was wrong with the good old 4 lamp sealed beam halogens?
Worked great, 10 bucks and 5 minutes to replace them... and even it they were aerodynamically inferior, makers could have put a plastic cover over them.
And it doesn't matter much to me, rarely go out much at all, and even rarer for it to be after dark. However, grandkid
2 doors away is eligible to try for her "go by herself" class license next month, and if she succeeds will almost certainly want to use it to go to school. Here in Manitoba, Canada in the worst of the winter it'll be dark(ish) before she gets home, so...
Sadly can't find any SAE designation on the lenses, I'll send a url to a pic it it's helpful, perhaps you can recognize it.
And I sure don't understand the optics, never thought of putting a light source *behind* a reflector :) When I look in there, it looks to me like there's nothing but a black hole :) Sort of like someone had stolen the bulb, or at a minimum hadn't seated it in it's socket :)
By the way your LHS probably has fog lights too. They are not very good either but might help when using brights if they stay on when brights turn on. My 94 LHS was sold a long time ago so I can't check for you.
Sounded like a great idea :) so I just went out to the driveway to check it out...
Unfortunately they go out with the high's, but that might be not too difficult to modify.
And while I'm here, have to correct my previous thought... looked into the headlight while it was on, and I see that the reflector goes much further back than I thought, so the bulb isn't behind the reflector at all. There's some kind of black shield around much of the bulb, along with the top of the bulb being black.
AMEN! This trend started with the rectangular sealed beams, and the "design kids" had the legal beagles at the Big 3 pay off the NTSB and other government watchdogs to allow inferior headlighting on newer cars. I did a comparison between a new 300 and my old M-body tank with quad rectangles using Sylvania "Silver" halogens. You can see a LOT more with the old system...a LOT more.
It's dangerous now headlights are so bad. Chryslers seem to be the worst, but maybe it's just my Chryslers. I really suppose I should add a few old-skool headlightz to my LHS so I can see where I'm going.
Aren't fog lights required to turn off when high beams are on? (Why would one turn on high beams in the fog anyway?)
Maybe you need some good driving lights, which only go on when high beams are on. Fog lights really should be turned off when it's not foggy and especially for oncoming traffic, since they have a diffused output that causes a lot of glare for oncoming cars, rather than an aimed beam of a headlight. Then again all of the car manufacturers seem to be pushing crappy "fog" lights that don't do much other than cause glare on the road and clueless buyers just leave them on in clear weather thinking they're special.
A smart person wouldn't, that's for sure. In many states, driving with fogs lights AND high beams is a vehicle code violation.
NOTHING drives my blood pressure up more than some MORON approaching me with "driving lights" on, and that includes the toads on Harleys with their always-aimed-too-high driving light bar, too. I let 'em get good and close...and then give them all four Sylvania Silvers, illegal in itself.
They're the ones I have a special injury wish for. Here, asshole...have a million candlepower spotlight in your right eye!
OEM "fog lamps" on cars I've seen from GM are all but useless, and are there for looks and an ego boost only. The ones I've seen on 300s seem to be more effective, but idiots leave them on when they're supposed to be OFF.
There is (or was, if not killed already by the aftermarket industry) a bill before the California Legislature already this year to make the use of "driving lights" illegal on two lane highways whenever within a mile of an approaching motorist, or a half mile of a followed one. Also, the limits for approaching and following high beams are also proposed to be lengthened. This is in response to a California Highway Patrol report that "driving lights" and late-to-dim high beams on new cars are an increasing cause of night blindness multi-car accidents. They also reommended making cell phone use by any moving driver illegal as well, but Cingular and Verizon put the brakes on that immediately through our less-than-bright kraut governor. It's back on the table again, despite AHHHnuld saying he'll veto it...if he survives November. The current round of "Arnold and George W. Bush" campaign commercials is having an immediate negative effect on AHHHnuld's poll numbers according to InstaPolls taken by the statewide Field Poll today. These are reaching the dumber side of the bell shaped curve; smarter people already know he's a fraud and a shill.
The round sealed beam systems weren't necessarily excellent, but in their day they were better than many of the replaceable-bulb systems of the last 2 decades. The 7" round one-per-side sealed beam system gave better low beam performance than the 5-3/4" round two-per-side, while the latter gave better high beam performance. Beam focus and formation worsened when rectangular sealed beams were permitted, and then worsened considerably when halogen sealed beams replaced regular ones. Glare became a problem due to the sloppy focus, but light color got whiter, and that's the only thing the marketeers care about. Shortly thereafter, in the early '80s, Ford and Sylvania collectively scoffed at the stupid rest of the world's headlamp system and foisted their own garbageful made-in-America "innovation" on us all, that was the 9004 bulb and polycarbonate plastic lenses on thermoplastic semi-sealed reflector housings. We all know how well (not) that worked out, and we all *knew* how it was going to work out before they did it: England had tried almost exactly the same course of development before giving up on it and going to the rest-of-world ECE headlamp standard in the 1970s. But, y'know, America's right and the stupid rest of the world is wrong, so we got stuck with another couple decades of weak beams with piss-poor focus and lots of glare. Happened again with GM's abominable mini sealed beams in 1986. Happened again with Ford and Sylvania's 9007 bulb in 1992, and again with Ford and Sylvania's DC HID system in 1996.
There are some very good replaceable-bulb headlamps on the North American market, but good headlamp performance isn't required, so you're stuck with whatever the automaker chooses to give you, and a great deal has been lost since we abandoned the requirement for standard-size headlamps: Headlamp replacement cost has soared, meaning people drive around with damaged or degraded lamps rather than spend hundreds of dollars for new lamps that'll just degrade again. Owners are locked into whatever level of optical engineering and build quality the automaker selected when the car was new, whereas with standardized lamps you got the newest innovations whenever you replaced a headlamp, and economies of scale kept costs down. The sealed-beam construction itself makes a great deal of sense for the harsh service environment on the front of a car: it is proof against environmental degradation and willful tampering (blue bulbs, overwattage bulbs, etc.). But, the implementation is another question altogether: there are lots of ways to make a bad, cheap and legal sealed beam, and that's pretty much the only kind you can get any more. GE's NightHawk sealed beams are the
*only* ones I'd buy now, for sure. Sylvania's entire line is poorly made and produces poorly-focused, low-performance beams-the worst being their heavily-hyped, overpriced, underperforming SilverStar items.
cover over them.
Well, no, because Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard 108 prohibits covers or styling elements, even transparent ones, in front of operating headlamps. That's why the transparent plastic covers on the Dodge St. Regis of about '79-'81 swung up/down out of the way of the beam when the headlamps were turned on.
it it's helpful, perhaps
Don't know what we're talking about here, but sure, I'm pretty good at automotive lighting device ID. Send your photos to the address provided above.
That depends on which new 300 you compared: The one with halogen headlamps, or with Xenon units.
Also, Sylvania Silverstar sealed beams and headlamp bulbs are garbage. Your seeing with them is significantly worse than with even just regular sealed beams-not better.
Just to piggyback on this: What replacement bulbs would be recommended for the PT Cruiser. My wife's 2005 PT Convertible has terrible headlights. My 6v 1940 Chrysler has better lighting!
Again true. There was a trickle of complaints when rectangles were permitting and started showing up around '76, but they were well justified. The LA Times did a story on it back then, saying that rectangles offered 1/3 the lighted area on low beam as the 6001/6002 quad system in use since 1958. The only improvement offered by the quad system was on high beams.
Again very true.
The later model Silver Stars with the segmented reflector work a lot better than previous offerings...which, in a rectangular bulb, ain't all that hot to begin with. The original Silver Stars had the same old clipped parabolic reflectors, and were dismal, but still better than crap marketed by Wagner at the time. I went to the segmented Silver Stars because I got tired of not seeing anything at night! However, when I drove a 300 at night, I was immeidately taken aback...it looked like I was driving in the dark with a couple of tightly cropped "hot spots" in front of me. The Sylvanias I have provide a pretty good horizontal fan beam, but as the previous poster said, doing anything with the rectangulars is sort of putting lipstick on a pig. The SS's "look" better to most, because the light temperature on this is fairly high, in the "green" area. Previous Sylvanias I had went into the garbage...worst focus I'd ever seen, bar none, and they had a real propensity to leak, making focus even worse
Interesting as well is the fact that I can't find GE headlamps anywhere in my area, else I'd try them..
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