Best type of LED lights for driving

[crazymaci]

I'm looking to get some driving lights on the front of my cherokee, I do have a winch mounted up front and decided that mounting a led bar on my fair lead mount may not be the best idea. Since I want to run them full time to make for the poor headlights, I was looking at pod lights, I heard 16 watt would be the limit? And spot or flood ? I was looking at a vendor on naxja, Zeus. Trying to take advantage of some sale prices. What do you all think?

 

[the_midwesterner]

why not address the crappy headlight issue and run these:

or if you have some coin, then these:

 

[Olympus Off Road]

The 16w pod beam pattern will still blind other drivers. I treat them as I would my high beams and turn them off when there is other traffic.

Our LED drop in headlights in the right housing work wonders however. We have tweaked them a few times and they have gotten better each time. Clean cutoff and crazy bright! On sale this week too! Check out the vendor forum!

 

[Johnnie Walker]

I will say that I like what I have seen as far as what Olympus off-road offers.
But, have you upgraded your headlight harness? That helps SO much.

 

[Talyn]

Fix your headlights. Get a good housing not the crystal things you have now. Most of those pod LED lights will blind other drivers.

 

[MaxGravy]

I will say that I like what I have seen as far as what Olympus off-road offers.
But, have you upgraded your headlight harness? That helps SO much.

+1

I did the harness upgrade and the improvement was amazing. Pretty easy to do as well.

 

[XJLI]

Fix your headlights. Get a good housing not the crystal things you have now. Most of those pod LED lights will blind other drivers.

x2. real housings with good H4 bulbs and upgrading wiring does wonders.

 

[sunburned]

I'd just drop the coin on Trucklites or JW Speaker headlights. Fix the source of the problem instead of buying crapy LED aux lights and blinding the whole world.

I did the Autopal H4 housings and the light was marginally better. Maybe the new harness would have helped.


On another note, in the next month or so, Rigid is coming out with DOT legal duallys and small E-series bars for fog/driving lights.

 

[thepdk]

I did these retrofits, took about a day. Next pair would only take a few hrs. total cost was under $150 and tons of light output 55w HID without blinding everyone

 

[Olympus Off Road]

My personal rig running First Gen Olympus H4 LED headlights in Hella E-code housings. On stock wiring from 1978 at that. Nevermind the left headlight, adjuster is broken at the time of this photo!

The current Gen that is shipping now eliminates the driver, you literally just put the light in the housing and plug it in like you would a sealed beam. Oh yea, lifetime warranty!

 

[crazymaci]

Thanks, I did buy some aftermarket, supposedly bright headlights a few years back, so I'm not sure if it's remove able bulb or not, also is there a kit for the wiring harness upgrade? Maybe that would help my existing lights, I think I'm going to get Olympus pod lights with the covers,yellow should make on the street use acceptable?, that I can also use off-road. If I have plug in in type bulbs I'll go Led that route too

 

[mechbullxj]

Placed a 10" Baja Design light bar on the cowl between the windshield wiper arms. I'll take a few pics, and pass on details once complete.

 

[Talyn]

Thanks, I did buy some aftermarket, supposedly bright headlights a few years back, so I'm not sure if it's remove able bulb or not,

If you are talking about the ones in your picture, then yes the bulb is removable. However no bulb will help the terrible beam pattern the housings create.

 

[crazymaci]

Ya the beam pattern is super sucky, like there is no beams. Like driving in the fog always

 

[freerider15]

Back when my XJ wasn't yet a buggy, I did an upgraded harness, with E-Code housings and Hella 90/80 bulbs (or whatever it is near that).

HELL of a difference.

I'm all about LED Lights (soon to be a vendor myself ), but would be too afraid to run LED's for headlights considering my luck, I'd break one. As well, unless the LED headlights have a built in heater, it can suck to have to scrape your lights since LED's won't put off the heat that regular bulbs will.

Here in CO that can be a rather daily issue...

 

[Talyn]

Ya the beam pattern is super sucky, like there is no beams. Like driving in the fog always

Get rid of those housings and get a good e-code. Auto pal, Hella, Cibie. All better than those. I prefer Cibies myself, but they aren't the cheapest. Then get a upgraded headlight harness. Then some good bulbs. And then correctly aim the lights.

I'm all about LED Lights (soon to be a vendor myself ), but would be too afraid to run LED's for headlights considering my luck, I'd break one. As well, unless the LED headlights have a built in heater, it can suck to have to scrape your lights since LED's won't put off the heat that regular bulbs will.

That and I am not convinced that they can replicate a halogen bulb well enough to keep a decent beam pattern.

 

[Olympus Off Road]

Thanks, I did buy some aftermarket, supposedly bright headlights a few years back, so I'm not sure if it's remove able bulb or not, also is there a kit for the wiring harness upgrade? Maybe that would help my existing lights, I think I'm going to get Olympus pod lights with the covers,yellow should make on the street use acceptable?, that I can also use off-road. If I have plug in in type bulbs I'll go Led that route too

For what its worth. My Olympus headlights smoke my 16w olympus pods with the yellow lenses. I point the pods outwards a bit. Can see the deer hangin' out on the side of the road better. I always turn them off for oncoming drivers though.

Back when my XJ wasn't yet a buggy, I did an upgraded harness, with E-Code housings and Hella 90/80 bulbs (or whatever it is near that).

HELL of a difference.

I'm all about LED Lights (soon to be a vendor myself ), but would be too afraid to run LED's for headlights considering my luck, I'd break one. As well, unless the LED headlights have a built in heater, it can suck to have to scrape your lights since LED's won't put off the heat that regular bulbs will.

Here in CO that can be a rather daily issue...

I have driven my truck with the LED headlights every time it has snowed thus far this year. Hasn't been an issue and all of my customers agree.

 

[freerider15]

I have driven my truck with the LED headlights every time it has snowed thus far this year. Hasn't been an issue and all of my customers agree.

Fair enough.

It just seems to be the thing I see 99% of guys with TJ/LJ/JKs bitch about with those headlights (them getting iced over).

I haven't run them myself, just relaying what seems to be the biggest issue I've heard of.

Maybe I'd run them in the buggy or DD XJ if Truck-Lite didn't want an absolutely obscene amount of money for them.

For that money a retrofit HID kit into some XJ headlights would be far more worth it.

I've yet to see an LED headlight in person match a good HID kit, even Truck-Lite's.

 

[crazymaci]

X2 on getting new headlights,fix the problem. Basically my wife is looking for Xmas gift ideas so the pod lights are easy, and I could use them. I'll dig into the headlight option. Do they come with new wiring harness on the xj side? What does the harness consist of? Will I be taking the wiring out of the factory harness and running a seperate circuit and power?

 

[skasner]

I just upgraded to Truck-Lite headlights last week and I am thrilled with their performance so far. My other ride (GTI) has bi-xenon HIDs so driving the XJ in the dark was misery with my stock lights. We haven't had a big snow/ice since I installed them so I can't speak for their winter performance yet, but as far as visibility goes its flat-out amazing. I paid $360 for the pair which obviously isn't cheap, but if you have toy money to blow they are worth looking into I assure you.