Bright White Bulbs On E-Bay ??

[Aletank]

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=7951872854&ssPageName=STRK:MEWA:IT

I know the PIAA's are the preferred tried and tested bulbs of the forum But i was wondering if anyone has tried these bulbs from E-bay.
The old saying "You get what you pay for" is in my mind here though

What do you think ??

 

[andy_k]

read the guys feedback - the bulbs are not street legal in the UK.

We bought a pair on the same basis as you did - after complaining to paypal we got a full refund and he said keep the bulbs - if you want the bulbs to try out let me know they are sitting on my desk now

Andy

 

[pammy]

but if they're xenons don't you need the self levelling, washing etc? Aren't the bulbs just one part of xenon systems?

Isn't this add just a little misleading in that aspect?

 

[andy_k]

not misleading, nearly all halogen bulbs have a small amount of Xenon or bromine gas in them, it helps the glass of the bulb stay clean on the inside by not allowing the burned halogen particles to stick to the glass or at least that's how I understand the "science". so advertising halogen bulbs as Xenon charged is not misleading it's actually totallly honest

what this guy is doing though is selling bulbs with no E markings on them which makes them illegal for UK roads. He advertises them as 100% street legal but he doesn't say which countries they are legal in

As I said above - we bought a pair of H4s and got a refund - if anybody wants to try them drop me a line they are yours

Andy

 

[Aletank]

Thanks for the replies
I think I'll give them a miss, definatly a case of "You get what you pay for" and "Too good to be true" lol
Thanks for the offer to try the Bulbs Andy - Mines H7's & H1's though I think anyway - lol

 

[Howard]

not misleading, nearly all halogen bulbs have a small amount of Xenon or bromine gas in them, it helps the glass of the bulb stay clean on the inside by not allowing the burned halogen particles to stick to the glass or at least that's how I understand the "science". so advertising halogen bulbs as Xenon charged is not misleading it's actually totallly honest

what this guy is doing though is selling bulbs with no E markings on them which makes them illegal for UK roads. He advertises them as 100% street legal but he doesn't say which countries they are legal in

As I said above - we bought a pair of H4s and got a refund - if anybody wants to try them drop me a line they are yours

Andy

Hi Andy,

Is the light any whiter though ? my bulbs are ok but i would like a whiter light without spending loads (cheapskate ). Obviously i don't want the car to look all chavved up, though.

Would it be possible to try your bulbs ? i don't really mind if they are not street legal as long as they aren't dazzling other road users or an annoyance , also i don't want any that are likely to get me pulled over ....

If you don't mind, then if you pm me your paypal address i can send some cash over for postage, or a cheque. Or if you are going to Bruntingthorpe i can meet you there !

cheers for your help !

H

 

[andy_k]

no stress on the postage Howard - just PM me your address and I'll send them over

Andy

 

[Will]

Now that's the spirit of the forum!

 

[C240Sport97]

I had PIAA's on my C240. My mate bought me some Philips side lights and Osram main lights to complement the Xenons ...

Well, the Philips and the Osram bulbs are rubbish .. not very white light at all, and nothing like and nowhere near as good as the PIAA. The PIAA is not even that much more, if at all, expensive.

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=7951872854&ssPageName=STRK:MEWA:IT

I know the PIAA's are the preferred tried and tested bulbs of the forum But i was wondering if anyone has tried these bulbs from E-bay.
The old saying "You get what you pay for" is in my mind here though

What do you think ??

 

[Ian B Walker]

I use PIAA Extreme Whites bought from Jimmy after a rather harrowing trip to France overnight. All I can say is its the best cash I have parted with, results awesome. Give Jimmy a PM for prices. You wont regret it. BTW I have no commercial interest in Jimmy's business, just a very satisfied customer :bannana:

 

[pammy]

I use PIAA Extreme Whites bought from Jimmy after a rather harrowing trip to France overnight. All I can say is its the best cash I have parted with, results awesome. Give Jimmy a PM for prices. You wont regret it. BTW I have no commercial interest in Jimmy's business, just a very satisfied customer :bannana:

Can second that too. The PIAAs I put in my side beam make a massive improvement on the weak yellow kack that was in before Jimmy's are an excellent price and top notch service.

 

[C240Sport97]

seconded .. and heartily so :bannana:

Can second that too. The PIAAs I put in my side beam make a massive improvement on the weak yellow kack that was in before Jimmy's are an excellent price and top notch service.

 

[jimmy]

Thanks everyone, wish all my customers were as easy to please!

 

[Satch]

More than you ever wanted to know here:

http://www.autolamps-online.com/home.htm

Worth noting that higher colour temperature is not always better because the human eye is far less sensitive to blue light than yellow, so do not be fooled by marketing crap screaming 10000K!!!

Mercedes OEM HID lamps are 4200K, which is about right

 

[abbos]

I have been looking at buying a complete set of bulbs for my w202. I looked at so many types on ebay and also checked out the site that Satch posted.

The trouble is that there are so many to choose from I am just now more confused than ever.

I basically would like a slightly "bluey" colour similar to like what the real xenons look like.

Should I be going for the Philips Blue Vision Ultra or the SuperBlue HID Look?

Have a budget of about £40 for a complete set if thats realistic.

Would appriciate any advice.

 

[Satch]

You do have to be careful in fitting aftermarket stuff into existing reflectors.
HID lamps are good indeed in terms of light output but, as usual, that is only part of the story.

HID lamps can produce headlight beams of different colours depending on the optical system. OEM and expensive aftermarket HID headlight systems use projection lens systems which capture all the light and project a beam out through a mask and lens. Variation from one system to another is quite small, the only differences usually around the edge of the lenses where chromatic aberrations give the beam that blue/purple coloured fringe. However, that is the least useful form of light and the main output is intended to be white. The blue/purple fringe effect from OEM HID lights is mainly the result of lens imperfection.

Strange then that a lot of people have been led to think that is a good thing.

Worse, some of the lamp plus ballast only aftermarket HID kits put in normal reflector style headlights could have a yukky yellow or green-ish colour in the upper area. That light would usually originate comes from the bottom of the reflector. Alas light hitting that part of the reflector has got the bottom of the arc tube in the way and there are yellow-coloured molten salts which take out a lot of the blue light.

So the higher colour temperature HID lamps for the "reflector" aftermarket create extra blue light to get rid of that but do tend to end up looking more blue than pukka projector HID units. Go too high in colour temperature and you get the blue/purple horrors.

Now the blue and blue/purple output may be bright and look cool but is not too clever in wet conditions: water soaks up a lot of the upper end of light spectrum so you get less light reflected back to you. What does get back is not that useful because the human eye is less sensitive to blue/purple. If you have a blue tinted screen then that makes it even more difficult. So there is a reason why fog lamps were traditionally yellow (can get yellow output HID's btw)

Tend not to have found any of that in the marketing literature? How strange.

So if you are going for aftermarket HID lamps plus ballast kits to go in existing conventional reflectors make sure they are specific for that purpose and not too high in terms of colour temperature. A couple of mates have fitted kits using a Phillps 6000k lamp and that seems OK.

 

[Satch]

And of course you were asking about halogen units! Sigh.

I would get PIAA Platinum White

 

[Shude]

And of course you were asking about halogen units! Sigh.

The ebay auction is misleading anyway:

High quality xenon charged HID lamp, (2 times brighter) with no extra current draw

There is nothing HID about them.

Genuine HID bulbs or capsules cost about £100 each brand new and are only legally sold in pairs due to matched colour temperature.

If you see a bulb listed as "xenon" or "HID" and it's H7 or H1 or H4 then you can safely assume it's just a normal bulb that may have been xenon charged or something because there is no such HID bulb with those fitment types.

 

[andy_k]

The ebay auction is misleading anyway

which is why, after a bit of a row we got our money refunded and the bulbs are on their way to Howard :bannana:

Andy

 

[Aletank]

I'm still not sure whether to bother or not yet - just that the £15ish for a full set on E-bay seemed reasonable if they was OK
If buying separately I'm not sure if buying bulbs for you Fog lamps and Full Beam makes sense really, as how often do you use these.
So i'd be inclined just to go for Side Lights and Dipped Beam (H7)

PIAA Platinum White H7 & SideLights would cost £56.29 delivered from APP

After reading the AutoExpress reviews Bulbs - Standard --- Bulbs - Plus 30 per cent --- Bulbs - Plus 50 per cent I'd be tempted to go for the Osram Silverstar H7's with "Free" lol Philips Blue Vision W5W sidelight bulbs for £24.95 delivered from PowerBulbs

Thats just my thinking at the moment - there's alot of choice, type and price variations etc though - so hard to tell what to do

The PIAA's seem expensive at twice the price of the above - But they are tried and tested - lol THe PIAA's aren't even mentioned in the AutoExpress reviews which leads me to think - Maybe they are a different type of bulb - ArhhhhhhhH too many choices!!!