Nothing weighs more than safety for a car. Regular inspection, repair or replacement of your headlights is strongly recommended. Also, it is illegal to drive with a broken headlight and you may have to pay a substantial fine.
Most replacement headlight assemblies on the market might come without new bulbs. You can remove the old bulbs and sockets for reuse or directly change the headlight bulbs. So how do you know which headlight bulb you need?
There are a few different ways to help you find out the bulbs fitting for your vehicle. First of all, you may need to know the type of headlight bulbs you already have installed. To get you started, here is an introduction to the three main headlight bulbs and their duration.
Halogen, HID and LED Bulbs
Modern headlight bulbs are usually one of three types:
Halogen Bulbs
You may notice that most cars on the road come with halogen bulbs. Halogen bulbs have been around for over a decade, and they are still very popular today. That’s because halogen bulbs are inexpensive and easy to replace. They make use of tungsten filament similar to household bulbs, but are filled with halogen gas which is a combination of bromine and iodide. These gases are used to help the filament burn much hotter and produce a brighter light.
Estimated lifespan of a halogen bulb range from 500 to 1,000 hours.
High-Intensity Discharge (HID) or Xenon Bulbs
HID (high-intensity discharge) bulbs, also known as Xenon bulbs, have an arc between their two electrodes instead of a filament like halogen bulbs. Although xenon is the gas that’s used to ignite the arc, it’s the vaporized metals like metal halides and mercury that keep it alight. HID bulbs generally are more costly to produce. While HID bulbs last much longer than halogen bulbs, their light output tends to depreciate overtime.
A HID bulb should last anywhere from 2,000 to 3,000 hours.
LED Light Bulbs
While other bulbs make use of filament or arc, LED bulbs function by passing electricity through one or more light-emitting diodes. LED bulbs are brighter and more energy-efficient, but the cost of them is typically higher than halogen and HID bulbs.
A LED bulb can last as long as 30,000 hours.
Finding The Right Headlight Bulb Fitting For Your Vehicle
If you purchase headlights from Vehicleaid, you can view the individual product page to find bulb information on the second product image and additional information tab.
You can also contact your vehicle manufacturer for the fitting information, which may take a long time to hear back. Additionally, you can simply take a look in your vehicle owner’s manual. There should be a section on dimensions, statistics and manufacturer-recommended replacement parts near the back of the manual. You can find the bulb type and part number you need. If not (or if you don’t have your manual handy), an online search for the make, model and year of your vehicle with “headlight bulb type” should get you the information.
If you are still not sure what type of bulb will fit your vehicle’s headlight, one method you can try is checking the base of your old bulb. The base is the bottom part of the bulb that connects to the socket. You can simply remove the old bulb and take a look at the base for the information of fittings around the casing.
Need to clean your headlights at home? Check here:
How to clean headlights at home