Headlight thoughts

I recently had one of the low beam headlights burn out on my truck. I have never been super impressed with the factory lighting and questioning if I should replace it with something aftermarket. What are you thoughts? Should I replace both sides with brighter bulbs or leave them both factory? I don't want something that blinds passing vehicles. They can't be white lights since the high beams are still yellow. What options do you recommend for bulbs either oem of aftermarket?

There are a number of headlight discussions in the forum, I would do a search and read through what others have found and used.

There are any number of solutions, some of which are better than others. I've found that the halogen housings on 4th gens are some of the worst headlights I've ever used. Different halogen bulbs won't make much of a difference. Possibly upgrading to LED will make them brighter, but at the risk of blinding oncoming drivers. The best solution would be to go with one of the reputable companies which sells complete housings. As suggested, you can find these brands mentioned in the discussion threads which already exist.

I hear you when you say you don't want to go LED, and you don't want to annoy or endanger anyone with super brights. I don't recommend LEDs in halogen housings, as the reflectors overly spread the light.
For reasons, I decided to do just that, and see if it's terrible, as I couldn't see with stock bulbs, and wasn't up to spending $900+ for quality aftermarket headlights. I spent $80, got LED for highs AND lows, adjusted them, and then had my wife, in her little compact car drove in front of me. She said they were bright, but not blinding. Here's a picture of the cutoff. You can see that there isn't a bunch of spill over the top.


If you are interested, I can provide make/ model of the LEDs. Our than that, follow Mikeru's suggestion of aftermarket headlights

NOTE: if you are lifted/ leveled DO NOT DO AS I DID. you would end up adjusting the lights so low you wouldn't see them

Swapping in LEDs is technically against the law.

In the United States, lamps, reflective devices, and associated equipment are regulated by the US Department of Transportation (DOT). Even though these types of LED lights can be used in place of an original halogen light bulb, it is not legal to use on vehicles registered for on-street use. This type of modification can only be done when used in a fog lamp application, dedicated off-road application, or in jurisdiction outside the USA where this is allowed.

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If your looking for more light to drive with when on those dark country roads use the LEDs in the high beams. They're typically used when no other traffic is around.
As for using LEDs in the fog lights, yeah it makes they really bright but sorta useless for use in fog/snow. If you want a great performing fog light, the DiodeDynamics SS3 SAE Pro level fogs lights are an excellent choice. They've proven themselves in dense fog and near white out snow conditions several times.

crash68 said:

Swapping in LEDs is technically against the law.

If your looking for more light to drive with when on those dark country roads use the LEDs in the high beams. They're typically used when no other traffic is around.
As for using LEDs in the fog lights, yeah it makes they really bright but sorta useless for use in fog/snow. If you want a great performing fog light, the DiodeDynamics SS3 SAE Pro level fogs lights are an excellent choice. They've proven themselves in dense fog and near white out snow conditions several times.

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Hence my saying I don't recommend. I also neglected to say that I'm a dumba**

Technically illegal, yes. It's enforced less than tint laws though. In fact I can't remember the last time I heard of anyone getting in trouble for that. I don't support doing that but no one will have to worry about breaking those laws unless they're extreeeemely unlucky.

This is what I did to the Quad lights on my 2013 Ram 1500 Tradesman Quad cab 4x4.
I had a High beam out on the passenger side so Just thought I would try something different That might help some without having to buy new Headlights and be legal.

Not hard to do at all

Helped quite a bit on the Low beams though definetly not a night and day difference.

The High Beams seemed to help more but remember I had one of them out.

And I may not have them adjusted right.

Downside is most report less life than a standard bulb although some report good life from the Modified bulbs.

This will save you some time looking up the Modifications to the bulbs.

Just got through doing the modifications to the bulbs so I have no idea how long they will last.

Cost was about $80.00 ordered from Walmart


Hope this is of some help to you.

H9 mod if you want to stick with halogen. This bulb performed really well, and won't blind anyone. It's slightly whiter than stock, but not led white. Quick modification of the bulb and it fits. Having run all kinds of led bulbs in stock housings, I was not at all disappointed with these bulbs compared to LED. They won't last as long, but the benefit is worth it, imo.
HELLA H9 2.0TB High Performance... https://www.amazon.com/dp/B078SHPZWQ?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_share

mikeru said:

Technically illegal, yes. It's enforced less than tint laws though. In fact I can't remember the last time I heard of anyone getting in trouble for that. I don't support doing that but no one will have to worry about breaking those laws unless they're extreeeemely unlucky.

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Not recently either, but back in mid to late 90s, I was driving an Olds Cutlass, and had some of the "bright" white fog lights installed on my car, but I had put them behind the grill, down low, because I had different fog lights mounted in the "proper" spot before, below the bumper, on another car, and while driving into a sharp incline driveway, ended up ripping them off of the car.

Anywho, I ended up getting pulled over by a cop for having "blue" lights and not being authorized to have them. I tried telling the officer they were not blue, but compared to the standard sealed beam halogens on the car (which looked yellow-ish) in comparison, he didn't want to hear it. Luckily, he didn't give me a ticket, just told me to remove them. I took that to mean don't turn them on when I am in that town again.