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Hey guys, recently I've taken Hella comet 500 for my Ford Freestyle long highway drives and have fixed it on the grill.


The light throw is good but is not lighting up the entire road. It's leaving two bright patches of light at a far away distance and is slightly lighting up objects at a distance.


I thought the problem was with the stock 55W bulbs and upgrades to 100W Roots bulb but the problem still persists.

Kindly suggest me the best place to mount these lights for optimum road visibility.

Thanks,
SK.

Hi SK01, the lights have been placed perfectly, you have chosen the wrong pair of lights for your purpose. The Comet 500 basically is pencil beam pattern and is best applicable for lighting up distant objects. What you need is something from the FF or Free Form series.
I too am in the same Dilemma. i have Superlees Fx1100 lights that are good in lighting up the road nearby and to some extent distant objects. I wanted something similar to what you have now but couldn't get the lights as I was in a hurry. Have attached 3 pics for your reference, the first shows the light spread of the lights as per Hella, with the last pic of the spread of the lights on my car.
Have you upgraded your stock headlamp lights? if not here's what you can do-
1-Upgrade the stock lights to a higher wattage bulb, or
2- Install projectors in place of the stock fog lights (thats what I have done), this will take care of lighting up the area nearby
2- The aux lights will take care of lighting up the distant objects.

Thanks for the detailed inputs @rakesh_r:)

I already have 55W HID Bi-Xenon Projectors in my HLs. I'm not satisfied with those lights as most of my commute is on highways during night and decided to sell. (Below two pics Projectors low beam + LED fogs & projectors highbeam + LED fogs)



Will upgrade to Phillips Rallye 100W H4 bulbs.



Second, I have LED foglamps which are better than stock, but doesn't cover enough distance and are not useful on highways either. (Below pic LED fogs + Hella comet 500)


Can I take Hella Rallye 500FF or 700FF or any other budget flood beam in the lower body or shift comets to the lower end of the body and fix Rallyes on the grille? How would that combination work coupled with 100W Philips Rallye HLs?

Below are attached pics of HLs + Fogs + Hellas and individual lighting.

Low beam + Fog

Highbeam + Fog

Highbeam + Fog + Hella

Low beam + Fog + Hella

Fog + Hella

Only Hella





PS: HLs & Fog lights look really bright and good in an open and absolutely dark area but on highways during speeds above 80kmph and with HBs from opp traffic and behind traffic, the drive is scary.

Thanks,
SK.

Looks great. Can you please share information on costing and procurement of parts in Hyderabad? I saw couple of them on Amazon, but the reviews were bad, and few of them were also mentioning them as fake ones. I'm planning to get a set for our Innova Crysta, if price works out well. The OEM headlights are just okay in city but very insufficient for highway usage.

I'm planning to install a pair of these Hella Comet 500 and 550 each on the car. Previously on Innova I upgraded to all LED headlights including LED light bar. Was contemplating the same on Crysta as well but my brother wanted to retain halogens as the car does frequent night and early morning drives, and Halogens give better visibility during rainy season and upcoming winter season.

https://www.amazon.in/Hella-Comet-50.../dp/B01FQG104W

https://www.amazon.in/Hella-Comet-55...df_B01FQG0ZTS/

I will suggest you to look at using different brand of bulbs (Morimoto or FE Retrofit with 4300k colour temperature) and to check the alignment of the headlamps themselves. Stock reflectors will have nowhere the light output of the projector assy. Also, using 100W bulbs will burn out the reflectors in a few months (Figo / Aspire / Freestyle already has the reflector burn out issue).

I will suggest you to get 3" bi-xenon fog projectors with 35w 4300k HID kit. These two alone should suffice you for brightness of highway drives at night.

If you feel Hella 500/700 is not sufficient; look at Hella Rallye 3003 (a size too big for freestyle) or 3003 Compact with 100w bulbs. These will have far superior light output compared to Comet Series.

But frankly speaking; your current setup seems bright enough for highway drives. Remember that you are blinding oncoming traffic with excess lights and run the risk of someone crashing into your car due to the excessive brightness for their eyes.

Am telling this as I run Philips Xtreme Vision G-Force 60/55w bulbs in the stock headlamps of my pre-facelift Ecosport and run a 3" fog projector with 35w 4300k HID kit. See the brightness of the light output in below image. I can run at 100-110kmph at night safely without taking any risks.

I suggest you try the projector fog lamp route and realign the lamps before trying on Rallye 3003 / 3003 Compact auxiliary lights.

Hope this helps.

Cheers & Safe Driving

I will suggest you to look at FE Retrofit 3" bi-xenon fog lamps with 55w 4300k HIDs in place of the OE fog lamps.

This should give you the light output you are looking for; while retaining stock looks of the car. This will help avoid stoppage by cops citing any modifications during interstate drives.

Also, you can avoid external lamps fitment which will draw excess current from the battery and lead to future electrical issues as well.

You can see the Automotive Lighting Experts FB page for lots of details. See the link below to see light output from a Innova Crysta with the 3" bixenon projector fog light.

I believe they have installation support in Hyderabad as well.

https://www.facebook.com/28626864176...1357293585288/

Or, if you know good electricians; you can get similar products from Blaze India for 8k and get it done in Hyderabad itself. Check out their link below as well.

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?sto...00001419602426

Pic Credit - Automotive Lighting Experts FB Page

Frankly speaking, for me your current set up looks very decent. The ideal set up for me is the most simplest of the lot I can think off-
1- Main Headlight- 55W halogens with a good relay- Why 55, since 100 W bulbs will be too much for city.
2- A good HID kit with Projector (Not LED) with Hi and LO beams for the fog lights
3- Retain the Comet with a good set of 100W bulbs or you can retrofit HIDs inside the Comet, I did see a video on someone retrofiting HIDs on the comet and the Rallye 3003.

Get the headlamps aligned properly and you should be good to go

Or
1- Main headlight with 100/90 bulb with a good relay kit
2- As suggested above
3- Comets with 55W bulbs aimed a bit low as per your convenience

The 3003 Rallye is one of the best lights you can get. As the name suggests the 3003 is pure Pencil beams and very good for identifying obstacles. The only issue being they are super bulky, very heavy and super expensive (12k for a pair).

Yes, the 3003s are crazy big and intense. I had them fitted on my Ecosport 3 years ago. See how big they look.

This would literally engulf the front end of the Freestyle. 😂

And I had them on my Swift too. The beauty of the 3003 is it can take even a 100W bulb without any issues.

I've taken them in Vijayawada Stunnerz accessories store for 3600 and fixing was done at 3000. In Hyderabad you can contact DeLight69 (FB page) or Mr. Trinadh +918608402987 (Hella expert) who also fixed my projector headlights.

You can also take them at www.shop4hella.com.

Yes, I always prefer a mix of white and yellow lights for better visibility in dry season as well as rainy and winter.

I faced a tough time last year in the winter season immediately after crossing AP border and entering TS that too in the morning 7.00 AM.

Thanks for the response. Seeing the reviews by you and rakesh_r, I've decided I'll retain my HL projectors, Hella Comet 500 and adjust the alignment.
Later I'll take fog projectors Blaze India.

Are 3003 and compacts spot beams? And can you please send me the light output photo from your 3003 set-up?

Thanks.

Thanks buddy.

Will retain my projector headlights and will do the alignment.

Will also keep my Comets with 100W as it is. And will take projector fogs later.

Hi, I did not take any photos of the 3003 light output as I had it fitted in my car for around 10 days only. I then removed it and gave it back to the car accessories guy as Ford dealer said they will deny electrical warranty as the relay was taking direct electrical load from battery and it could cause issues with BCM. Since my car was brand new back then; I did not want to take any chances.

3003 Hella Rallye videos below:

https://youtu.be/tOfRIHGGZjY

https://youtu.be/8DYQgfnDdyg

As for your headlamp alignment; you can get the alignment adjusted at a good FNG where they know what they are doing.

First cut work - stick a colour masking tape along the length of the wall (for around 3mts) at a height of 1m from the ground.

For low beam - Park straight ahead at a distance of 25m away from a wall and check your low beam cut-off line's height from the ground. It should be around 1m. With this height setting; you should be able to see the road for almost 100-125?m in low beam. And high beams will be brilliant as well.

For high beam - Park the car as close as possible to the wall keeping it straight (in the centre of that portion where tape is pasted. Now, mark the center point of each headlamp on the wall and make it intersect with the already pasted tape. Now keep the car dead straight 10m away from the wall and turn on high beam. Cover 1 headlamp with a piece of opaque cloth. Now, adjust the headlamp beam to move it sideways and bring the center of your high beam hot spot (it will be concentrated since it is a high beam) to that point where tape is pasted. Do the same for the other side as well.

Now, your headlight will give fantastic throw in both low and high beam with proper spread and focus.

Even my setup is similar. It takes load directly from the battery and I'm using 100W in Comets.

Does that cause any problems? Since my car will finish it's warranty in 2 months (Nov), I'm not worried about the warranty. But does that cause any serious troubles to the wiring setup or any fire issues?

If you don't use high quality relay harness (Philips / Hella / Minda); there is always a fire risk. And be sure to use chassis ground nut for negative supply wire of the relay. DO NOT connect relay negative to battery negative. That will cause BCM issues.

Also, be sure to replace the relay and wiring once a year for avoiding future issues (since you use them extensively).

Since your warranty is coming to an end; not an issue really anyways.

Hope this helps.

Cheers & Safe Driving

Thanks for the info. I'm using Super relay and Finolex wire. Will change the relay to the brands you've suggested.
I don't know how he connected the wires. Will get it checked by experts after I reach Hyderabad.

There was an issue two days after fixing the lights. The wire connecting the lights to the battery was burned and the mech replaced for free.


Reason for the damage which he said was adjusting the alignment. Since I adjusted the lights alignment on my own, the wires got stuck in the clamps / screws and got damaged.

The alignment was done in the Sunday night and I've driven the car for 6-7kms after the work. No trace of burnt smell I could sense or maybe because of the AC and closed windows I couldn't sense it.

It was in the Monday morning I could smell it and see some white smoke when I thought I should check the alignment after a drive on the bad patches.

There was no other issue and all the electricals worked fine immediately after the burn and after replacement.

Below are the photos of new
Roots 100W bulbs

Set-up from outside


Switch used by the mech