If your car is currently equipped with the halogen headlights that are standard in most vehicles, you may want to consider upgrading to LED bulbs—LED headlights have dropped massively in price and offer a number of major benefits. They're much brighter and do a better job of illuminating the road in front of you, which keeps you safer while driving at night. The best LED headlights are also much more reliable than halogen headlights and don't burn out suddenly. Best of all, they can give your car a whole new, updated look. Read on for four benefits of replacing your current halogen headlights with LED ones.
1. Provides a More Powerful Beam of Light Than Halogen
The first thing that you'll notice about LED headlights is that they're much more powerful than standard halogen headlights—LED headlights offer a much higher lumen rating, making them appear brighter. When an LED bulb is properly positioned inside your headlights, the extra power enables it to light up the road in front of you much better than a halogen headlight. This helps to keep you safe when you're driving down the highway at night—you're able to see hazards and react to them sooner with LED headlights.
2. Broadcasts White Light Instead of Halogen's Orange Light
In addition to being more powerful, LED headlights also have a much higher color temperature than halogen headlights. The high color temperature makes the light from LED headlights appear bright white with a very slight blue tint, whereas the lower color temperature of halogen headlights makes the light cast from them appear orange.
This can help you stay awake when you're driving down the highway late at night. The orange color of halogen headlights most resembles natural daylight when the sun is setting. This can influence your body's circadian rhythm and suggest that it's soon time for bed, which can make you feel more tired. The bright white color from LED headlights, in comparison, is more similar to the natural daylight you would see around noon—it helps to wake your body up and keeps you more alert.
3. Offers Increased Reliability Over Halogen
LED headlights typically function for ten times longer than halogen headlights—in fact, it's unlikely that you will ever need to replace them. The price of LED headlights has continually dropped since they were first introduced in the late 2000s. At this point, quality LED headlights are less expensive than premium halogen headlights. When you combine the low price and the fact that you don't need to replace them, installing LED headlights in your car ends up being cheaper than continuing to use halogen headlights.
This increased reliability has another benefit as well: you don't risk having a headlight burn out when you're driving in a rural area, far away from any shops that sell auto parts. Halogen headlights burn out unexpectedly, and this means that you could easily end up driving around in the dark with one headlight—nobody carries spare halogen headlights in their cars so that they can replace dead ones. This can result in a very dangerous situation.
4. Makes Your Car Look Newer
Finally, installing LED headlights in your car is a very inexpensive way to update its look. LED headlights are becoming increasingly common in newer vehicles, and it's easy to tell which cars have them—they appear a very bright white color due to the high color temperature. You'll share this bright white appearance after you install LED headlights, which gives your car an updated appearance for very little money.
If you'd like to upgrade your current halogen headlights to LED ones, you'll need to find out if your headlights are single-beam or double-beam. This refers to how the headlights operate when you switch from low beams to high beams. Single-beam and double-beam headlights are wired differently, so they're not interchangeable.
If your car has two pairs of headlights on the front, with one pair lighting up if you're using low beams and both pairs lighting up when you're using high beams, then you have single-beam headlights. You'll need single-beam LED headlight bulbs to replace them. If your car has only one pair of headlights that simply become brighter when you turn on your high beams, that means you have double-beam headlights.
Once you've purchased the correct LED headlights, installing them is easy. If you're handy with cars or have a friend who is, it can be done in fifteen minutes on most vehicles. After you've installed them, all that's left is to enjoy the increased visibility and reliability of your new LED headlights.
