Hey, guys.
Andrew Esquivel here back with another review.
Today I’m going to be reviewing an LED headlight conversion kit to convert your halogen headlights
into LEDs.
Now first off, let's go over the specs.
This headlight conversion kit comes from a company called The One.
Once again, we are working with the infamous 9007 socket series which has been known to
have compatibility issues with aftermarket products.
Now, together both bulbs at maximum output produce 10,000 lumens.
Each bulb pulls 50 watts.
They have a color temperature of about 6,000 kelvin, a lifespan, estimated of course, of
about 50,000 hours.
As far as a warranty goes, nothing on the box, nor in the box, or on the Amazon web
page where I got this bulb, states any kind of warranty beyond the 30 days that you get
when you purchase from Amazon.
With that being said, let's actually now talk about the bulb physically.
All right, let's talk about why the 9007 series sockets have compatibility issues with aftermarket
products.
You can see I have one bulb already ready here to go but in order to understand why
it's such an issue we have to take out one of the other bulbs.
Here's the thing, when it comes to 9007 series socket headlights, they all have a single
issue involving aftermarket headlights.
The circular retainer lock.
This circular retainer lock has to go on in order to keep the bulb from falling out of
the socket in the car.
Now, getting it in place can be a bit of a conundrum because normally with a halogen
headlight you would just plug in the halogen headlight, then put the retainer over it,
lock it in place and then you would plug the power in.
But you can't do that for these headlights because if you're trying to plug the bulb
in you would find that, well, you can't fit the circular retainer lock over the heatsink.
Don't worry, most manufacturers have found a clever way to fix this issue.
Thankfully, it's not hard to rectify with this particular set.
You see, this gasket comes off if you twist it and then you pull up.
That would allow you to put the circular retainer lockdown in the middle where it would normally
go.
Then you can put your gasket back on and just twist it back into place, and voila, everything
is ready to go.
Thankfully, this doesn't require any modification of the circular retainer lock in any way.
Meaning it is truly plug-and-play.
Both of these connect up to the LED controller via this nice connection that screws tight
and then plugs into your factory wiring harness.
It shouldn't be hard to get everything where it needs to go.
Now that really all remains to be seen is just how well they perform in real life, so
let's go ahead, connect it to the car and see how well they actually do.
All right, we are here at my 2003 Mitsubishi Outlander LS and we are going to plug the
headlights into the headlight socket.
The headlight socket is right there.
It shouldn't be hard to get in, you just sniggle it.
And wires get a little caught, so putting it in, you want to make sure you get the gasket
in properly because the gasket is slightly keyed.
With the headlight in place, now all we have to do is take the connection that goes to
the factory wiring harness and just plug it on in.
And like that the conversion kit is complete.
Just out of curiosity I wanted to see if in fact only two of the four lights light up
on low beam and that does appear to be the case.
You can see they're very bright and if I was using the microphone on the phone you'd be
able to hear the fans.
The fans are kind of loud.
When you're idling at a stop you might be able to hear them but let's disregard that
for right now and connect the second bulb up to the headlight assembly and go out for
a drive and see just how well these perform in the real world.
Okay.
What we're doing right now is looking at the beam pattern that the lights produce.
This is on low beams and looking at the beam pattern I can say with all honesty is I'm
very impressed.
There's no patchiness, no scattered beams, everything is diffused very well.
Which is surprising because most bulbs really don't do well my reflector unit.
Now let's go ahead and switch on the brights.
You can see that they are considerably brighter than the low beams and on the door, once again,
the diffusion is spot-on.
Let’s go ahead and take this on the road and see what it looks like when you're actually
driving.
All right, we are on the same stretch of road that I use to test every LED headlight conversion
kit that I get my hands on.
While we're sitting here we can kind of get a better idea of what everything looks like.
As you can see on the camera, things don't look all that great.
Things tend to look a lot more promising on the door test, which is why a lot of LED manufacturers
only show you the door test.
When you're actually looking down road the throw distance doesn't really appear to be
all that awe-inspiring.
In fact, if we turn the high beams, yes, things get brighter but it doesn't increase the throw
distance like you would expect it to out of a halogen bulb.
But we're just sitting stagnant on a road here, how about let's actually go and drive
down the road.
What we are going to do is go down to a part of the neighborhood that has no assisted lighting
whatsoever.
Meaning there's no street lights at all so we'll be able to gauge the actual performance
of these headlights purely by using their own light and no other light source.
While we're doing it we can kind of gauge and see just how everything is going as we
film, as we go along.
Right now I'm just driving with the low beams on.
I will admit, in darker areas it definitely provides really good contrast on the road.
The thing about it is, when you film at night it doesn't give you a true representation
of what I'm actually seeing which is why I am narrating everything that's going on.
There's a little better angle there, sorry about the camera positioning.
We are almost at the location.
Now, what I'm going to do is, I’m going to just turn right here and that will bring
us to our nice little spot.
As you can see there's no assisted lighting on this road.
Now, all on.
I'd say the throw distance is adequate at best, nothing stunning.
Let's go ahead and turn on the high beams.
The thing about the high beams are they really don't throw any distance down the road.
what they really do is they increase the light output on the left and right side of the vehicle.
That might be able to be adjusted if we can adjust the positioning of the bulb inside
the light housing.
However, I’m only going off of what instructions were provided, which really there were no
instructions provided in the kit.
They didn't say to position the ball one way or another, so I just went in with the default
key setting for the gasket.
Because the gasket inside when it goes inside the light housing is keyed so it only goes
in one particular way.
Or at least that's how it's supposed to work.
Sitting here, throw distance is not really increased, brightness down the road not really
all that increased, but definitely to the left and right there is a huge difference.
Let's continue going down this road because what I'm going to do next is I'm going to
go down another road that will help provide some sort of visual explanation as to the
differences between high and low beam with this particular headlight set.
Now, as I'm driving down I do want to talk about the different types of headlights that
you can get that come in LED form.
Typically, what you'll find are LEDs that are two-sided and they'll tend to have two
sets of diodes on each side of the bulb and that would equal four diodes, but they face
180 degrees away from each other so they only go in two directions and they might have a
reflector unit built into the bulb itself to kind of spread out the light in some ways.
Those bulbs fail miserably in my car because I have a reflector headlight unit.
Now, bulbs like those that are two-sided tend to perform much better in projector style
headlight units, and in a reflector headlight unit you need the LED to try and mimic what
a halogen would do in terms of producing light, and if it doesn't, you get really scattered
and patchy beams.
What we're going to do right now is I'm going to drive down this road going between high
and low beam constantly and I'll tell you what it's on.
So we're on low beam, high beam, low beam, high beam, low beam, high beam, low beam,
high beam, low beam, high beam, low beam, high beam, low beam, high beam, low beam,
high beam, low beam.
Hopefully, that gives you guys a little bit of an idea of what it looks like as we go
down the road switching between the two.
Now, like I was saying, in a reflector style headlight unit typically those headlight units
are designed to use a halogen which produces light in 360 degrees from the center of the
bulb, meaning light is coming out in every direction around the bulb.
The thing about LED diodes are they are very directionalized which presents a huge problem
in a reflector unit.
You see, the reason I prefer white bulbs that use corncob styles, that are either three
sided or four sided, is because it tries to mimic the way light is dispersed with a halogen
headlight, which is why as you look on the door right here, the light is so incredibly
even and diffused perfectly because that's how it's supposed to look.
That's how light is supposed to be dispersed and these lights do an extremely good job
of that.
I don't think I've seen another pair of LED headlights corncob style or otherwise diffuse
light as good as these.
However, there is still an issue with throw distance.
Now, as I was saying before, you might be able to adjust the lights by twisting them
but considering that they're the same diode on all four sides I can't really imagine that
twisting them in any particular manner would increase the throw distance.
Unfortunately, what we have is a situation where we have really good light diffusion
but pretty poor light output and even worse throw distance.
Ultimately, the question we all are wondering needs to be answered, do I recommend these
LED headlights?
The answer is, maybe.
Here's the thing, I have definitely seen better throw distance, and output, and performance
from three-sided car bulbs than I have from this particular four-sided car bulb.
If you look in my other reviews here on Youtube, you'll be able to find it.
Now here's the thing, the three-sided car bulb had insanely good brightness, and its
throw distance was pretty good, but its high beams were absolutely pitiful compared to
its low beams.
Now here with this four-sided version the low beams are modest and they do well, and
the high beams are definitely a huge improvement over the low beams in terms of how much light
is being thrown out.
The reason I say, "maybe," is because almost every reflector unit is different but they
all require the same thing which is 360 degrees of light output.
These bulbs provide that light output.
Do they do it in a manner that will be adequate for your vehicle?
It's very, very hard to tell.
My reflector unit is extremely picky and so far I have not found the perfect LED headlight.
That being said, your reflector unit might work better and if you have a reflector unit,
not a projector unit, it is seriously worth your time, if you have Amazon Prime, to try
these bulbs out and see if they work.
The reason I say if you have Amazon Prime is because you can get the bulbs with free
shipping and if they don't work in your car you can send them back for free.
Don't forget to comment, rate, subscribe, show your friends.
Check out my other videos, I've got plenty of them.
And as always I'll see you next time.
Drive safe and happy holidays.