I have had my 1998 Ford Explorer since last December when I bought it just off lease. I love this truck, except for one thing: the lighting is woefully inadequate!
Some history:
My previous transportation was an '89 Mitsubishi Galant with quad headlight system and good optical quality. Those lights lit up the road like daylight and where white. I have never had an accident or a 'close call' at night with that car.
When I got the Explorer, I found the headlights were like flashlight brightness on weak batteries. The light has a yellowish cast and is very dim. The pattern was terrible also--a general splotch of fuzzy light with no penetration on hi-beam and one bright area on low beam with no illumination of the curb (the effect causes blinding because of the bright local spot, making the dark curbside seem even darker).
After a month of ownership, I had experienced 3 near mishaps when driving at night due to inability to see where I was going, a phenomenon I had not experienced since way back when I had cars with sealed-beam headlights. In fact, the first night I drove the Explorer home from the dealer, it was raining and I missed a turn because I couldn't see the road in the face of oncoming traffic.
I had to do something, so the first thing I did was buy a pair of HID blue lamps--these were 80/100W bulbs with a blue coating on them. The light output was marginally better, but not by any magnitude one would expect, given the wattage gained. The reality was that the voltage at the lamps had decreased to 10 volts with the heavy current these lamps drew. I eventually scraped off the blue coating, which increased light output, but now the light was more yellow. I soon developed a habit of driving while holding the 'flast to pass' lever to get both filaments to stay on. This provided barely adequate light, but after a month, the socket ground terminals burned out. I replaced the sockets with heavy duty sockets and continued. The next thing that happened was the ground terminal on the bulb itself disintigrated. So, back to factory headlamps again for much of this year.
Some things really bother me about driving with these lights: not a night goes by where I don't suffer severe headaches from eye strain. The yellowish light makes everything feel surreal, like in a dream, and I get an overwhelming desire to close my eyes after about 45 mins of driving in the countryside where there are no city lights. I have to drive much slower than I normally would just to be safe, but that exacerbates the sleepiness I experience when driving with dim lights at night.
What I'm Trying to Do About It:
Sylvania offers a HID Xenarc lighting system for Ford Expedition and F150 trucks. This consists of the lamps, ballast and reflector/lens assembly. Why they don't have this kit for the Explorer, I don't know, but it was the subject of an e-mail I wrote to them this week.
Other HID kits are pretty hopeless. The Explorer uses a 9007 bulb, whose design contains two filaments. The HID bulb uses a single arc and as such, retrofits for the 9007 sacrifice the high beam function. There are "bi-xenon" bulbs out there that use a solenoid to physically move the bulb arc up and down to mimic the hi/lo beam angles, but I'm skeptical of the longevity of such a system and at $700 per kit, it's a lot to spend, sight unseen.
The other option is to install a heavy duty wiring harness with relays and go with either the Sylvania SilverStar series (seems to come in 55/60W version for 9007 type) or the PIAA Platinum Super White in a 100/110W version.
Without replacing the optics with a European-grade optic, I am concerned that simply increasing the luminous output will only result in more glare and not much gain in useable light on the road and curbside ahead. I find that the Explorer's stock lights actually created annoying glare off of reflective road signs--a problem I didn't experience with the Mitsubishi lighting system. This is because the Ford lighting goes out in all directions indiscriminately, whereas the Mitsu's lights have a cutoff above a certain elevation, illuminating only the road brightly.
Another serious problem I encountered with the Ford lighting became evident while driving in a snow storm: the severe scatter inherent in Ford's lights resulted in the bright illumination of falling snowflakes, making it impossible to see the road ahead. I have never experienced such glare in any other vehicle owned prior to the Explorer. This is something that brighter lights cannot fix. It is also a problem with fog for the same reasons.
I don't want to clutter up my vehicle with a cluster of auxiliary lights--they should not be necessary with a proper lighting system, and also, there is no rigid place within the grillwork to mount them solidly.
At the moment, I feel resigned to upgrading the wiring and deciding between the Sylvania and the PIAA bulbs I mentioned above. Has anyone made some objective comparisons between the two in terms of light output?
Theoretically, if both bulbs are receiving 12 volts, then the PIAA should be a lot brighter due to the higher wattage. I think that both bulb types claim output in the 4000°K range, which is pretty close to daylight, or similar to coated mercury-vapor lamps used in street lighting.
Has anyone here had the opportunity to test both bulb types under FAIR conditions (meaning that they both receive full voltage as verified with a VOM)?
I'm really going crazy now that the daylight hours have shortened so much. I drive 1200 miles a week as part of my work, often in unfamiliar areas, and my night vision is not the best. Excellent lighting is a must for me. Hopefully I can find a solution that won't alter the appearance of my vehicle, but works from within the standard components to provide a true white (not blue) light output that lights the road evenly and into the distance.
Some history:
My previous transportation was an '89 Mitsubishi Galant with quad headlight system and good optical quality. Those lights lit up the road like daylight and where white. I have never had an accident or a 'close call' at night with that car.
When I got the Explorer, I found the headlights were like flashlight brightness on weak batteries. The light has a yellowish cast and is very dim. The pattern was terrible also--a general splotch of fuzzy light with no penetration on hi-beam and one bright area on low beam with no illumination of the curb (the effect causes blinding because of the bright local spot, making the dark curbside seem even darker).
After a month of ownership, I had experienced 3 near mishaps when driving at night due to inability to see where I was going, a phenomenon I had not experienced since way back when I had cars with sealed-beam headlights. In fact, the first night I drove the Explorer home from the dealer, it was raining and I missed a turn because I couldn't see the road in the face of oncoming traffic.
I had to do something, so the first thing I did was buy a pair of HID blue lamps--these were 80/100W bulbs with a blue coating on them. The light output was marginally better, but not by any magnitude one would expect, given the wattage gained. The reality was that the voltage at the lamps had decreased to 10 volts with the heavy current these lamps drew. I eventually scraped off the blue coating, which increased light output, but now the light was more yellow. I soon developed a habit of driving while holding the 'flast to pass' lever to get both filaments to stay on. This provided barely adequate light, but after a month, the socket ground terminals burned out. I replaced the sockets with heavy duty sockets and continued. The next thing that happened was the ground terminal on the bulb itself disintigrated. So, back to factory headlamps again for much of this year.
Some things really bother me about driving with these lights: not a night goes by where I don't suffer severe headaches from eye strain. The yellowish light makes everything feel surreal, like in a dream, and I get an overwhelming desire to close my eyes after about 45 mins of driving in the countryside where there are no city lights. I have to drive much slower than I normally would just to be safe, but that exacerbates the sleepiness I experience when driving with dim lights at night.
What I'm Trying to Do About It:
Sylvania offers a HID Xenarc lighting system for Ford Expedition and F150 trucks. This consists of the lamps, ballast and reflector/lens assembly. Why they don't have this kit for the Explorer, I don't know, but it was the subject of an e-mail I wrote to them this week.
Other HID kits are pretty hopeless. The Explorer uses a 9007 bulb, whose design contains two filaments. The HID bulb uses a single arc and as such, retrofits for the 9007 sacrifice the high beam function. There are "bi-xenon" bulbs out there that use a solenoid to physically move the bulb arc up and down to mimic the hi/lo beam angles, but I'm skeptical of the longevity of such a system and at $700 per kit, it's a lot to spend, sight unseen.
The other option is to install a heavy duty wiring harness with relays and go with either the Sylvania SilverStar series (seems to come in 55/60W version for 9007 type) or the PIAA Platinum Super White in a 100/110W version.
Without replacing the optics with a European-grade optic, I am concerned that simply increasing the luminous output will only result in more glare and not much gain in useable light on the road and curbside ahead. I find that the Explorer's stock lights actually created annoying glare off of reflective road signs--a problem I didn't experience with the Mitsubishi lighting system. This is because the Ford lighting goes out in all directions indiscriminately, whereas the Mitsu's lights have a cutoff above a certain elevation, illuminating only the road brightly.
Another serious problem I encountered with the Ford lighting became evident while driving in a snow storm: the severe scatter inherent in Ford's lights resulted in the bright illumination of falling snowflakes, making it impossible to see the road ahead. I have never experienced such glare in any other vehicle owned prior to the Explorer. This is something that brighter lights cannot fix. It is also a problem with fog for the same reasons.
I don't want to clutter up my vehicle with a cluster of auxiliary lights--they should not be necessary with a proper lighting system, and also, there is no rigid place within the grillwork to mount them solidly.
At the moment, I feel resigned to upgrading the wiring and deciding between the Sylvania and the PIAA bulbs I mentioned above. Has anyone made some objective comparisons between the two in terms of light output?
Theoretically, if both bulbs are receiving 12 volts, then the PIAA should be a lot brighter due to the higher wattage. I think that both bulb types claim output in the 4000°K range, which is pretty close to daylight, or similar to coated mercury-vapor lamps used in street lighting.
Has anyone here had the opportunity to test both bulb types under FAIR conditions (meaning that they both receive full voltage as verified with a VOM)?
I'm really going crazy now that the daylight hours have shortened so much. I drive 1200 miles a week as part of my work, often in unfamiliar areas, and my night vision is not the best. Excellent lighting is a must for me. Hopefully I can find a solution that won't alter the appearance of my vehicle, but works from within the standard components to provide a true white (not blue) light output that lights the road evenly and into the distance.
in that little is done to make lighting safe and optimal, rather than stylish and cheap to make. 2 grand is 6 months' auto insurance premiums (NJ rates), or about 2/3 the cost of repair after hitting a deer, so I think it's worth it. Gosh, with the headaches and eyestrain these lights cause me, I can tend to wonder what medical problems can arise from extended driving over several years with such poor lighting.
