I've had SilverStar H1's in my low and high beams for almost 3 months. Well, yesterday my left low beam quit. My original stock H1's were good at 2-1/2 years of use. Fortunately PepBoys has a 3 month guarantee and gave me a pair of new SilverStars.
What gives? Do these lamps not last long? I don't touch the bulbs when installing them.
Poor quality lamps with high heat and short life. Lots of info on the web about them. You will be replacing them every 3 months.
They have an average rated life of 150 hours, according to Sylvania's spec sheet.
Why? Because they overdrive the filament to create enough light output. The light is "whiter and brighter" because there is a bluish filter on the glass that filters out yellow light. Because of this, they natively put out less light then a regular clear-glass bulb.
To compensate, they overdrive the filament, which puts out more light per watt but decreases the lamp life. It's a tradeoff - more light or more life. Similarly, the "extended-life" bulbs put out less light then a regular bulb because they aren't driven as hard.
Daniel Stern probably could give a much more thorough explaination if you wanted to know more.
So, doing the math, one could expect to get ~5200 miles out of a set (assuming 35 MPH average speed and lights are on during all 5200 miles)
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