Hey guys,

My dad wants some brighter headlight bulbs in his 05 Dodge ram. the stock ones suck and these aftermarket white ones he bought are HORRIBLE, absolutely unsafe they're that bad. i put the stock ones back in for him and they're 10x better but still suck..

I was looking at HID's but they're pricey and i'm not sure whats involved?? some kinda conversion.

Is there any GOOD awesome spectacular headlight bulb replacement out there??? thanks for any reccomendations!!

Brandon

 

oh and what HID would you recommend if he does wanna pay for them?? 6000k ?? lookin' for a nice white low beam,

 

I stuck some plain old silverstar ultra's in our van, and what a difference from the original ones. I'm going to put a set in my truck, advance has them $8 off a pair right now.

 

don't buy into the 'whiter = brighter' hype . . .
the method used to get the whiter light is by filtering out the other colors. so by filtering the light colors, that actually reduces the light output. it appears brighter, but it is only whiter.

your best bet is to add some auxiliarly lights, but that can be costly and time consuming.

next best bet, and much cheaper is to find some high wattage bulbs. these bulbs are for off-road use though, DOT may not like it if they find out somehow . . .

 

The problem with these headlights is the housing/reflectors, not the bulbs. These bulbs are used in a lot of other cars with 100% better results. I put 110w bulbs in a Prelude I had, they were bright but melted the plugs. I swapped my fog light bulbs from 9006's to 9005's (1000 lumens to 1700 Lumens) and put a relay and jumper wire so they come on with my brights (my truck is an '05 so there isn't an option in the ECM for this) and they actually work really well now. The problem with HID's is we have single bulb headlights and HID's don't have bright and dim bulbs. Most factory HID systems either use Halogens for the brights (is300 Lexus is this way) or have actual projector lenses that move. I have an Acura TL this way, the bulb never changes it had no bright or dim, on "bright" the lenses tilt and project the light farther out. As far as I know there is no kit for our trucks that do this.

 

The internet is full of cheap bi-xenon "drop in" HID upgrade kits. They are essentially an HID bulb that fits where a 9004 or 9007 halogen would go. It comes with a ballast, and the bulb contains a moveable shutter that provides a high-beam position when activated. These kits do provide a far greater amount of light than a comparable halogen, but a stock reflector style lamp will not aim the light out onto the road into a proper beam.

Some users of these kits say that there is so much light that they happily ignore the scattered beam, but it is very hard on oncoming traffic.

 

I run the silverstars as well, but if you go hid, 4300k is the brightest whitest light you can get, I have them for my fogs and off road lights and they are absolutely bright. My sylverstars are brighter than the 6000k I had ran before, and superior to my brothers 8000k he runs for fogs.

 

I installed Silverstar ultra's in 06 and I'm happy with the results. There is a bit more light, though you can still tell the reflector is poorly designed..On a dark highway at night they really throw the light out the side..Too bad I want it down the road more..

 

See my dad is lookin' for width...

even though the 05 and 06 headlights are different i guess silverstars it is..they're priced decent.

 

In an earlier post, someone gave a website that clarifies info on wattage and candlepower/lumens, danielsternlighting.com. Great info on lighting. I took their recommendations and ordered the following items from candlepowerinc.com.
Item Unit Price Qty. Cost
9005 (HB3) Bulbs: Narva® RangePower+30® High-Output 9005 (HB3) 65w Bulb $17.10 2 $34.20
Philips Xtreme Power H13 / 9008 (TWO PACK) $38.33 1 $38.33
Subtotal: $72.53
Shipping: $5.63
Tax: $0.00
Total: $78.16

They work great.

 

Has anyone tried the LED bulbs?

 

LED headlight bulds?

 

Thats a pretty good chunk of coin to spend on something that DC should have addressed in the design phase of these headlights. Edited due to profanity me off that a guy has to throw good money after bad...needless to say I live in deer country and drive alot, guess I need to address the poor light capabilities. Are they they same numbers for the older style headlights?

 

[needless to say I live in deer country and drive alot, guess I need to address the poor light capabilities. Are they they same numbers for the older style headlights?[/QUOTE]

Not sure on the bulb #s for the different yrs., but the website seems user friendly. I agree w/ you on the poor oem headlights. This is better than a dead elk/dead truck or dead skunk/stinky truck. Been there, done that.

 

I didn't bother with the headlights themselves but I did get the Fogzilla mod from Genos which allows you to run almost double powered bulbs in your foglights. It makes a huge difference in the "width" you are looking for. I did Silverstars in my old 03 truck and while they did help, it was not that much and they tend to burn out after about a year. That was my experience anyways.....