Going LED in my truck

Seems I had to change out my headlights, again... Let's go back in time, March of 2015, I had an encounter with an elk cow, did a bit of damage to the front of my truck. PB managed to get everything put back into place, mostly.

Of course after damage like that, unless you are willing to get things professionally repaired ($$$), things are never really back where they belong, and the fact that I drive on unpaved mountain roads, my truck takes a beating every time I drive around my neighborhood. Things vibrate and bounce much more than they did before on the front end. 

I have had to replace my headlights once or twice a year ever since that encounter, regular halogen lights with their spring filiments, they just keep breaking, going out, specifically the passenger side, the bright light on that side blows out over and over, it will last around 6 months, then bam, it stops working. It did it again a few weeks ago, I decided to go with LED bulbs, something with no moving parts. I expected them to be more expensive than the lights I had been using, which weren't cheap, I tended to buy the more expensive lights because I wanted the brightest lights I could get, the better to see the critters with... 

I was pleasantly surprised to find a set of LED lights that were a 1 to 1 replacement for my lights, no need to make any changes to my current system. And they were significantly less expensive that my previous go-to lights. These are for any vehicle that uses the H13 9008 style bulbs, these fit my 2008 Ford F150 perfectly.

 

https://amzn.to/3akKjBo

I just got to put them in this last week, haven't had any real chances to give them a good night-time test. They do light up, are significantly cooler in color, leaning heavily to the blue side of white. I can tell they are brighter than my former headlights, I can also tell that I need to adjust my lights better. Before it  didn't matter as much, but with these very directional lights, it does matter. Another thing I noticed, there seems to be little difference between the dims and brights, much less that my former lights. I have always thought that on some vehicles, as they were driving toward me with their brights on, once they turned off their brights, it didn't seem to go much dimmer, just a pattern change in the lights. Mine do that now. There is definitely a difference in the light pattern as more LEDs are lit, but little change in the actual brightness, meaning the dims are a lot closer in brightness to the brights.

One thing I definitely need to do next is replace the entire headlight fixtures /assembly. These are the ones I'm looking at, they look nice, I like the dark color, and more importantly , the price is right...

 

https://amzn.to/3xhI09Z

The ones I purchased right after the elk encounter have served me well but are showing their age, the lenses are scratched and look yellowed, I know you can polish them, and I have, but they are getting to the point where that isn't helping as much. One of the fixtures has a broken piece bouncing around, that little metal dome that covers the end of the light bulb, and no, it isn't on the same side as the bulb that kept going out. For now, it's functioning well enough, once more money comes in, I'll be replacing all of those parts. 

Hope your day and week are going well!!!

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Wretha,

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