Yo!!! I've recently acquired a 2004 TD5 landmark, and love the headlights, great pattern, but I don't like the halogen yellow, so I was wondering about treating it to a set of LEDs instead blue-coated halogens to give it a whiter appearance. So I was wondering if anyone had tried this and found out what fitted / didn't?
Keith_L
Well-Known Member
Do you have any issues at MoT time?
1988smithy
Well-Known Member
Osram nightbreaker silver h7 in mine. Dont seem very yellow at all, good bulbs
300bhp/ton
Well-Known Member
Technically LED bulbs are not legal in this age of vehicle and would be an MoT failure.
As for what ones work or not, you really need to do some research (lots of YouTube vids for example) and then buy some and see. You really need to check the beam cut off, as withtout a good cutoff you'll just blind and **** off oncoming traffic. But there really is no way to know without trying.
As for colour. Halogen is generally very nice, they have 100CRI (colour rendition index). High Kelvin LEDs generally offer very poor CRI which tends to bleach out the greens and browns and makes things look more grey. Whiter (or bluer) light can also induce more eye fatigue too.
I'm not saying don't go LED. Just that it isn't 100% certain that they will be better. Brighter and whiter is not the only metric. And many LED bulbs will perform worse than a good halogen in a projector lens. Something like the Osram Silver is a nice halogen and 100% legal. I run these in my Range Rover:
NIGHT BREAKER SILVER H7 | OSRAM Automotive
Rated at 1500 lumens
*** many LED lumen claims are false. They rarely make more than 2000 lumens and often a lot less.
If you want cooler tint get the halogens with blue on the glass like these:
International Homepage of OSRAM | Light is OSRAM
Osram offers innovative and sustainable lighting solutions. The product portfolio of Osram ranges from modules, LED lamps and luminaires to light management systems.
Same lumens as the Silvers, just a different tint.
Or there are higher wattage halogens too such as these 1950 lumen 80w ones:
SUPER BRIGHT PREMIUM / SUPER BRIGHT - | OSRAM Automotive
Strictly speaking 80w is not legal either. But nobody would ever know. A LED is pretty easy to spot.
Something else to consider, most LED bulbs drop output due to heat. So they might start off brighter than a halogen, but can then dim after 'x' mins. So make sure whatever the cooling solution is, that it is up to the task.
Ideally you want an LED that mimics the light distribution of a halogen, so look closely at how and where the LED emitters are in relation to a halogen bulb. They will generally give you a better beam and performance.
sierrafery
Well-Known Member
+1 for that ^^^
Dervishi
Active Member
No issues yet...
But, we aren't allowed to put LED bulbs in if the headlamp assembly if it's not made for LEDs, no matter what the beam pattern is.
Will see in january on my next MOT.
I can't change the bulbs on my TD5 without taking out the bumper... sooo, fingers crossed...
Those look awesome!
That was an excellent write up, thanks for taking the time to write that. It's given me food for thought, I fitted an eBay xenon kit to one of our other cars, and it has weird lights, it will pick up reflectors like road signs and cats eyes for miles away, but there's a lot of non reflective matter that is somewhat dim, so I find myself second guessing the lights. I'm guessing this is an artefact of extremely poor CRI or poor choise of colour temperature on those eBay xenons? That being so I might be better with the high powered halogens, maybe the ones with the bloe glass will satisfy my desire for a white headlight?Technically LED bulbs are not legal in this age of vehicle and would be an MoT failure.
As for what ones work or not, you really need to do some research (lots of YouTube vids for example) and then buy some and see. You really need to check the beam cut off, as withtout a good cutoff you'll just blind and **** off oncoming traffic. But there really is no way to know without trying.
As for colour. Halogen is generally very nice, they have 100CRI (colour rendition index). High Kelvin LEDs generally offer very poor CRI which tends to bleach out the greens and browns and makes things look more grey. Whiter (or bluer) light can also induce more eye fatigue too.
I'm not saying don't go LED. Just that it isn't 100% certain that they will be better. Brighter and whiter is not the only metric. And many LED bulbs will perform worse than a good halogen in a projector lens. Something like the Osram Silver is a nice halogen and 100% legal. I run these in my Range Rover:
NIGHT BREAKER SILVER H7 | OSRAM Automotive
www.osram.com
Rated at 1500 lumens
*** many LED lumen claims are false. They rarely make more than 2000 lumens and often a lot less.
If you want cooler tint get the halogens with blue on the glass like these:
International Homepage of OSRAM | Light is OSRAM
Osram offers innovative and sustainable lighting solutions. The product portfolio of Osram ranges from modules, LED lamps and luminaires to light management systems.
Same lumens as the Silvers, just a different tint.
Or there are higher wattage halogens too such as these 1950 lumen 80w ones:
SUPER BRIGHT PREMIUM / SUPER BRIGHT - | OSRAM Automotive
Strictly speaking 80w is not legal either. But nobody would ever know. A LED is pretty easy to spot.
Something else to consider, most LED bulbs drop output due to heat. So they might start off brighter than a halogen, but can then dim after 'x' mins. So make sure whatever the cooling solution is, that it is up to the task.
Ideally you want an LED that mimics the light distribution of a halogen, so look closely at how and where the LED emitters are in relation to a halogen bulb. They will generally give you a better beam and performance.
