Hey guys Andrew Esquivel back with another review.
Today, I'm going to be reviewing the Broview V SERIES V8 LED Headlight conversion kit to
convert your halogen headlights into LEDs.
Now, this particular set claims to have some pretty incredible specs.
We'll go over there in just a moment.
But just remember that none of these specs on any of these LEDs have ever been independently
verified, so its really completely a gamble in terms of whether these specs are accurate
or not.
But let's go over them nevertheless.
First off, this is running the 9,007 socket which is infamous for being incompatible with
after market parts.
We may or may not have to do some fiddling to make this work in a 9,007 socket light
housing.
Total, these bulbs produce 12,000 lumens or 6,000 per bulb.
Instead of going with 6,000 Kelvin like most LEDs do, these ones go with 6,500 Kelvin and
the unit pulls 72 watts, and comes with a two-year warranty if you're able to contact
the manufacturer.
Let's go over the bulbs themselves.
The material is interesting.
It's not like super gaudy or heavy or anything.
You'll notice, this little thing right here, this metal piece kind of like half cap.
That's so that it shines like that way and these some other LED down here is shining
up that way.
It's got vertical and horizontal lighting which tries to emulate what a halogen does,
because a halogen produces light in 360 degrees from the center.
From all around of the radius, so the center, it's shooting light all the way around.
That's something that LEDs have a hard time mimicking.
When they don't do it right, they end up having scattered beams or patchy spots.
Having proper light diffusion is very difficult.
Now, this particular set does kind of address that issue by saying, hey, if you adjust the
gasket right here.
In which you can adjust it to twist it in certain ways, so that when you plug it in,
it fits differently.
Soo that when it's in your housing you can shift it and customize the beams that it's
producing for your housing.
What I see a lot of LEDs doing is they have either a good beam pattern for the most part
on the low beams.
But when you put the high beams on instead of shooting for throw distance down the road,
it just widens the angle of the beam which is problematic.
This is trying to solve that issue by trying to tell you, hey, you need to adjust it, to
focus it from going wide to a little more narrow.
In this case, with the reflector unit in my Mitsubishi Outlander, you're going to have
to twist it around to adjust it and just until you get it just right.
It will take some work.
Beyond that, let's talk about the compatibility issue.
Normally, with a halogen headlight, you would plug it in.
Well, you would put it into the socket and the gasket here will hold it in place for
just a little bit.
Then you would put the retainer lock, the circular retainer lock over the bulb, lock
it in place and then you would plug in the power.
In this case, that's not possible because like every other LED with the heat sink, the
bulb is not going to fit through here.
You have to figure out a way to get the retainer lock on.
Now, these retainers that I have for my Outlander are a bit raised up, which can be problematic
because those few millimeters that it is raised can prevent it from fitting in between the
heat sink and the gasket.
Never fear though, there is a way to get it on.
You twist it just a little bit and it unlocks and will come off.
Now that it's off, instead of putting the bulb in first, we put the retainer lock in
first.
I'm sorry I'm doing this with one hand here, so it's a little a lot difficult here.
That's how you would get the retainer lock back on.
Now, right here is something that's a little unexpected because I've reviewed four other
LED bulbs and it all had the same issue, where the distance between the heat sink and the
gasket was not wide enough and I had to modify the retainer lock.
I'll will show you what I mean really quick just for the sake of explanation.
As you saw it was raised up a little bit and this is a modified retainer lock.
This is modified to fit those other LEDs where this little bulge right here, was preventing
it from fitting in the place.
That means I had to grind it down, which means those modifications, and it was not plug-and-play
as we use technically speaking.
But this is the first set of LEDs that I've not had to do that with.
As you can see, these are raised up ones and it still has a little bit of wiggle room to
spare.
The gasket is incredibly, completely down all the way which means we may actually have
the first plug-and-play LED that I've ever seen for after market.
Now, keep in mind that this set is a little bit more expensive.
What I consider the low-end LED bulbs price range is about 50 dollars.
Mid range is about 75-80 dollars and high-range is 100 and over.
Why the 50 dollars being the low?
Because anything under that low-end spectrum of 50 dollars gets you lights that have been
consistently unreliable.
For that reason, I will not consider those bulbs safe to use.
50 dollars is the low-end and this mid-range set which about 84 dollars is actually pretty
impressive thus far in terms of its build quality, its design which is the vertical
and horizontal reflecting design, which I have seen work well on the past with other
bulbs in the mid tier or in the low tier range.
On top of all that, everything seems to be built pretty well.
All that remains to be seen is how well they actually perform inside the car.
Now, this means I'm going to have to go in there and fedidle with the position of the
bulb in order to get the reflecting pattern that this beam or the pattern that these beams
put out to reflect properly in my headlights.
It's going to take a little bit to figure that out, but once I get all that in there
it should be easy, squeezy lemon beezy.
Let's go ahead and do it.
Here, you'll see the socket in which the light bulb with be placed in.
It's not too hard to get the bulb in there.
Simply just take the bulb, put it in, make sure the gasket gets in there and fits in
place properly.
But you may have to turn it a little bit to make it fit right and then you screw in the
retainer lock.
That's what it holds it in place.
That should be good.
Next, it just hooks up to the factory wiring harness which is right here.
All we got to do is to plug that in, put it together and now we can turn the vehicle on
and see how they function.
We have them installed on both sides here.
I want to show you something that makes these bulbs a little special.
The way they're designed, they have a little locking mechanism on the gasket that you can't
see from back here but it allows you to turn the bulb in place until it reaches about 90
degrees.
I'm sorry.
Yes, about 90 degrees turns.
You can adjust it and that's important because if we look over here, look at the way the
pattern changes as we turn it, it can go from where it needs to be to really, really out
of whack.
This is so that it can adjust to the reflectors in your headlight if you use a reflector system.
Now, this sounds well and great and on the low beams, I have been able to get them spot
on to where it's perfect.
But the high beams present a particular issue that I have not seen before in an LED which
really bums me out.
I'm going to go ahead and show you what that is.
Okay.
We're in the car right now sitting on the same road that I have tested every other every
other LED that I have reviewed on.
At first glance, everything seems to be, well, not bad actually.
It's pretty decent.
The light diffusion could be better.
It's just a little patchy.
It' s livable.
But here's the kicker.
This is the low beams.
Watch what happens when I turn on the high beams.
You notice something?
Let me tell you what's going on here.
This is the low beams, they've been focused in and honed to be right in front.
That's fine, that's all well and good, that's what we want.
But, the low beams use the two diodes on the top of the bulb.
The two diodes on the bottom of the bulbs don't have reflectors so they're actually
producing light in a completely different direction.
When I change it, instead of having light directly in front of us which is what we tuned
the low beams for, we have the lights jutting out the sides.
They're very left and right instead of up and down inside of the reflecting headlight
unit.
This is sort of what it's supposed to do but here's the thing, the reflectors and the cars
don't do very well with this.
It's relying on the reflectors to do diffusion and projection of the beam distance rather
than the bulb's design itself.
This means we have light on the left and right of us but nowhere in front of us which is
really bad because this is a low beam, this is a high beam.
The high beam is supposed to extend the usable distance in which you can see.
These bulbs do not do that at all.
Here's the thing.
I decided that maybe my car's headlights were not working light.
Maybe it was just the design of my headlight unit.
So this is a Japanese vehicle.
We decided, okay, let's try it in a different 9007 vehicle and we did.
It was an American-made vehicle, in a mini-van that uses 9007 headlights.
Well, we found that the results were even worse in his car -- my friend's car.
We're not quite sure why it's worse but it really was.
We're left with this really bad excuse for a high beam.
This is high beam, that's low beam.
Let's take a drive.
Since we always take a drive to show what's going on here.
We're going to go down this road here and we're going to be led into an area that has
no lights and my headlights will be the only lights.
Now, driving along, the usable light distance is reasonable.
Not as good as my stock halogens which is unfortunate.
Because my stock halogens are for me Sylvania Silver Stars, not the silver star plus but
the Silver Stars which are about 1500-1700 lumens.
These are 12000 lumens.
A heck of a lot brighter but the throw distance is much worse.
Diffusion is not as good and the high beams don't direct the beam angle down the road
further.
It just makes it go to the left and right which is unacceptable.
We're just about to hit the area where it's completely dark.
We're just going to turn in here.
And, slow in case there's incoming traffic.
Here we are.
These are the only lights.
You can see right here how far ahead of me I can use my lights.
It's about as good as halogens.
We turn on the high beams, now I can't see much of anything.
Where did the light go?
It's getting out jutting to the left and right and even a little bit of light in the sky.
Make no mistake, you cannot adjust for a low beam and high beam.
You have to choose one or the other because of the way the bulb is designed.
The high beams have no reflectors on them to try and mimic what the low beams do.
Overall, the design is just not functional.
It's not practical.
It doesn't work which is really disappointing because this is one of the most well-built
sets I've seen.
It is insanely bright.
If I take the bulb out and take a look at it, it will blind me instantly every time,
way, way brighter than my halogens and yet they don't perform as good as my halogens.
Some might argue, "Well, just use the low beams then."
That's not what this is designed for.
It advertises low and high beam and it doesn't do what a high beam is supposed to do.
This low beam is the best low beam I've used in a while.
It definitely does the trick but it's no where good as my halogens, which is really disappointing.
My Sylvania Silver Stars, I can get for $20 on Amazon.
Some might argue that Silver Stars don't last nearly as long but I've used Silver Stars
for over a year or two without having any of them malfunction on me.
With halogens, the key is really just installing them properly and not touching the light bulb
itself because then you get oils from your hands on the bulbs which will inevitably destroy
it.
That's why you got to be careful as you install it.
But if you do it right, then they last a pretty decent amount of time.
All these LEDs claim a lifespan anywhere from 25,000 to 50,000 hours which theoretically
is true, the diode.
But everything else, it's not necessarily the case, the fan, the heat sink, everything
else involved the system could be completely susceptible to failure before the diodes.
Once again, illustrating.
This is low-beam, this is high-beam.
Low beam.
High beam.
Low beam.
High beam.
This is not a low-end set.
Low-end, like I said before, is about $50.
This one's about $85, give or take a dollar or two.
It's actually really disappointing because I honestly thought that this set would be
the one to do it, but unfortunately it looks like I'm going back to my halogens again.
This makes LED bulb number five that did not work as advertised.