When winter starts we get this question all the time:
"How to I upgrade my lights without too much time, hassle or expense?"

LED and HID upgrades often paint the light poorly and cost a lot of $$.

So here is my original thread asking for suggestions from 2 years ago and the happy outcome:

viewtopic.php?t=15828

do they have a yellowish tint vs the more recent white/blue ones ?

Have been searching for a quality HID upgrade for a 2011 V8 R51. The below are a compendium of posts discussing this topic spanning pre- (2005-07) and post-facelift (2008-13) R51s posted over the last 2-3 years.

From what I gather there is no easy upgrade for post-facelift R51s. It appears true HID projector style headlights are only available via shipping out a set of headlights for customization.

Some R51 owners have found moderate improvement via switching out bulbs to Sylvania Silver Star etc.

Some of the posts below are a bit dated so my question is whether or not an direct bolt-on HID upgrade has been recently made available. If not, is there consensus on the next-best headlight upgrade for post-facelift r51s?

viewtopic.php?t=16338

viewtopic.php?t=15975

viewtopic.php?t=16027

viewtopic.php?t=14998

viewtopic.php?t=15163

viewtopic.php?t=15615

viewtopic.php?t=13675

V8Pathy wrote:do they have a yellowish tint vs the more recent white/blue ones ?

I consider them white but they are not the cold white a lot of folks now seem to ask.. I heard a friend say they had a , to him, undesirable, yellowish hue...
To me I just want the maximum illumination for the money.

There are upgraded bulbs out there that have that cold almost blueish light but they accomplish this with a blue filter painted on the front of the bulb.. in other words taking out some light..

Interesting reaction on the LED bulb conversion. I did that for an old motorcycle (2001 yzf) and I thought it worked great. The reflector housing was still obviously designed for halogen, but the increased visibility at low/high beam was amazing.

I'd really like to do an LED conversion on my 2006 pathy, but this all giving me second thoughts.

I had LED's for a while...went back to normal halogen. The disperal pattern was wrong. I've messed with aftermarket housings in other vehicles and don't have much interest in a not-quite-Nissan fit in the front of my truck.

Best thing I've done is take my 3" orbital polisher with plastic polish to the headlamps and keep them haze and scratch free. I also replaced my fog light lenses which are glass, but were getting a little dirty on the inside. (Oh and I sealed the replacements with butyl rubber for headlight housings, to try to make them last a bit longer.)

This keeps plenty of light coming out the front.

If anyone's interested, every single other light in my truck except the license plate illuminator is LED. Every two years or so, or whenever one burns out, I get slightly brighter interior lights based on what's new on Amazon. Getting both turn and brake lights in behind the rear light housing is a PITA and I had to get a couple different sets to make it fit, but now that they're in, no one nearby is going to miss that my truck intends to make a turn

I should add, I’m not using “normal†halogen. I’m using the Silverstars that are half-blue tinted so the headlights appear bright white when you look at the truck, but I still have some yellow spectrum in the light that hits the road.

Aside from the beam pattern, the other reason I switched back from LED was the color temperature was too high. Around 5,000K I think. At this level black tarmac and a lot of other things disappear, and while you are putting out a lot of light it’s not necessarily useable light.

I expect in the next few years we will see useable LED’s with 4300K color temperatures that will make me interested again. On my mountain bike headlamps where LED is the only way to go in 2019, I’m finally able to order slightly warmer color temp lights from major manufacturers. (Some like Serfas’ TSL series were already pretty warm, and one of those is still a favorite of mine five years later.)

Anyway...try the orbital polisher on your headlamps, if they’re more than a few years old you should see a significant boost in light output!