I blew a headlight bulb the other day on #project Hilux, so I thought it might be time to shout her a new set of headlights. As they do one thing led to another and next minute I am under the bonnet with the side cutters removing the old spotties as well.
Being scared of the dark I decided to put in a set of Narva LED headlight bulbs, converted over from the old H4 60/55w as well as the new (ish) Ultima LED spotlights, also by Narva.
Headlight bulbs first,
Install
Out of the box they are pretty straightforward to change over, old ones out. New ones straight in. Just have to find a place to cable tie in the ballast that plugs into the back of the bulb. No changes to the existing harness, just plug and play. Piece of cake.
Performance
Impressive, albeit I was only replacing a pair of 60/55w bulbs so at around $200 a set they would want to be good. On high beam, this is where I could really notice the difference. There is not so much distance but better quality and more light in closer to the car. As with all LED sign glare is always going to be a problem and these are no different, especially large signs. It is almost to the point of dipping the lights. Are they worth the money? If you do a lot of driving I think they would be, if you only ever drive around town maybe you would be better off with a set of performance bulbs like Plus100’s.
Spotlights,
Install
As soon as you open the box you know that these are a decent set of lights. Heavy, proper mounts, deutsch plugs. You get 4 different coloured bezel rings, so you can change the outside ring to yellow, black, red or use the blue ones already installed. I was lazy and went with blue.
Wiring Harness
Because these lighs have 33 x 5W LEDs in them they can draw about 15amps per light. So its recommended you use the wiring harness that Narva sell to match the spotties. Everything is there to get your lights going, my only gripe with the harness is the crappy little switch for inside the cab. The give you a small stick on version that looks like rubbish, is hard to mount and is hard to use. Disappointing they used a low end switch for such high end lights. Straight to the bin for that one. Other than that the harness is easy to install and with a bit of nip and tuck here and there to get rid of some excess cabling it when in a piece of cake.
Performance
They are bright. Bloody bright. 1 lux at 950M is bright. Although I think that the best part about them is how big the light is. They give you a big cone of light that shines brightly out to the sides of the road rather than 2 long pencil beams that shine along way down the road. These lights also don’t have any light degradation like some of the cheaper LED spotties can, some lights will actually lose performance the longer they have been turned on. As with all high perfoirmace lights reflective signs shine back at you pretty hard. Big green or white signs can be pretty irritating and sometimes you have to dip or turn them off. Thats been a problem since HID though.
Should you buy them?
Same answer as the LED bulbs, if you are spending alot of time driving at night you could justify the price tag easily.
If you are scared of the dark you could also justify it as well.
I would love to see a flood light version to be used as worklights. (without ADR) I think with how wide the driving lights shine so wide of the road a flood version would be handy.
Verdict – Buy if you have the $ to spare, but not essential.
