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-   -   Are you happy with your OEM headlights? (https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/technical-stuff/202542-you-happy-your-oem-headlights.html)

It is extremely rare that you will find an owner satisfied with the OEM headlights in their cars. Almost everyone complains about inadequate headlights. Even if someone reports they are very happy with their OEM lights, there will be several others who find the same car having inadequate lights.

I have owned an Indica, Scorpio, Punto, Cruze and a Nano earlier and now drive the new Endeavour and a Brio. I have driven several other cars too. Trust me, among all the cars, the Nano's headlights were the most satisfying. Probably because it served the purpose in its intended area of use. I swapped the OEM to Osram night breakers and the lights were extremely efficient. The car has never left city limits though.

I have tried various bulbs in all of them including 90/100s in the Cruze. None of them were adequate. Neither in the city and absolutely not on the highway. The Endeavour's low beams were swapped with HIDs and high beams to Night breakers. I still find it simply inadequate for highway use.

I also feel halogens on large well designed reflectors are the best lighting set up for road use. They suffer minimum scatter and have a very good throw. Ever seen a Tata Ace's headlight on high beam?

LEDs and HIDs are only fit to light up a dark alleyway or road. The moment you have oncoming traffic you feel your lights are nonexistent. As you move away from warm temperatures, above 4300K, they become worse. They scatter and do not help on the highway. They are absolutely horrible in rain and only help you to figure out how heavy the rain is.

I also feel it has to do with the way we Indians drive. We are always fighting with high beams coming from the other side. Our pupils therefore contracts to reduce the amount of light going in and consequently reduces our ability to see ahead. In turn, we end up blaming our headlights. This is a constant problem both on the highway and on city roads. May be if we all start becoming more considerate to our fellow motorists and use high beams judiciously, we will all soon realize that our OEM lights are not that bad after all.

This constant fight to make our headlights brighter makes it a vicious circle. As the offending high beams become brighter, we make our own headlights brighter without it serving any real purpose. Ever seen those nasty LEDs they now use on these bullets and other 2 wheelers as after market fitments or those new AHO LEDs? You can notice them from miles away, annoy you from a kilometer away and absolutely blind you as they come closer, while being of no use to the rider in any way. It hardly lights up anything ahead of him. But is an utter nuisance to everyone else. Somehow I feel LEDs don't work on automobiles. I have not driven a high end luxury car with an LED set up, so my views could be because of my limited experience.

Thanks for sharing, Scorpion! As requested, post moved to a new thread + poll added too. Will make for a good discussion.

Good thread.

I am definitely NOT satisfied with the stock lighting on my S-Cross. My swift was equally bad.

Currently contemplating some upgrade, let's see.

I think its more about which OEM is referred to - atleast in my case.
I am ok with the OEM lights in our Swift, AStar etc. But the lights in my Baleno seem pathetic - even compared to the lights on our Yamaha Ray or Scooty. :)

I'm happy with the OEM HID + halogen setup on my Toyota but not most other cars I have owned. I have contemplated using HIDs for the high beam HB3 bulbs but the clearances behind the reflector assembly are a big question mark and I would prefer 3-4K colour temperature.

My brother's Safari for all its faults had excellent lighting with the twin bulb hi-lo setup in each reflector. The Palio is decent, not bad.

The worst was my 2002 Honda City 1.5 with the standard H4 setup. It was bad! When I took delivery and drove down from Mumbai on the EW the lack of proper lighting kept me from exceeding 60-70 kmph, a crawl. So began the search for better lighting without changing or damaging the reflectors. That meant ruling out 100/90 H4s. The Philips Vision Plus (hope I got the name right) and similar sundry high output but near stock wattage bulbs were purchased in the UK and deployed when I returned.

Thanks for starting this thread.

I own a Dec 2016 model VW Polo Comfortline Petrol and am unhappy with the OEM headlights because a black spot ( significantly big ) appears exactly in the centre of the area lit up by the headlamps. I do plenty of overnight drives, both on divided 4 lane and undivided 2 lane, but have never faced any major issue as such, touchwood. I spotted this problem right from day one I bought the car and have learnt to deal with it ( being extra extra cautious ) because it seems the issue exists in all the Polos. High beams is surely a major annoyance on our roads. I try level best to maintain my gaze straight upfront and towards the left edge of the road when an oncoming vehicle is throwing high beam on my face. Humans as a reflex tend to look directly onto the headlamps of oncoming vehicles when they switch to high beams.

Good topic for discussion. For me, the answer is Yes and No.

The OEM headlights on the Jetta and BMW are fantastic - in fact, I will rate the BiXenons with AFS in the Jetta better than the adaptive LEDs in the BMW. The OEM headlights in the Polo GT, on the otherhand were pathetic. I once almost hit a dog (even at a speed of 40kph) due to lack of visibility and had to upgrade the lights to BiXenons.

With more manufacturers going for projectors and LED headlights, I think the OEM headlights are definitely improving of late.

My S-Cross's "supposed" projectors are like candle lights. No use whatsoever. But since I do not drive on highways at night, I have not yet changed them. And they cost a bomb for the pathetic output they provide :(

To me it's a mixed opinion.

On all our cars with twin barrel head lamps (Civic, Linea, Corolla), I'm satisfied with the OE headlamp. While shifting from City to Linea I felt the headlamps were inadequate, but later got used to it. One reason being the faded reflectors in Linea.

OTOH all our other cars with H4 bulbs, we went for 100/90W upgrade right from M800 till Nissan Sunny.

Voted Yes.

The stock headlamp and fogs on my WagonR were very good. As the bulbs got old, they developed some fogginess. My mistake, instead of replacing bulbs with the same power rating, I upgraded to 100/90 Rally bulbs and the lights have become even better. They are enough for my city and high drives.

I get to drive a new Baleno and a 1st gen Octavia frequently. Octavia is 13 years old and still the six stock lights do a pretty good job. The Baleno lights look very cool on an unlit road. However they are very inadequate during rains or with incoming lights. They fade very easily.

As OP has mentioned, the LEDs on two-wheelers and budget cars seem pretty useless. Even they don't seem very promising on the high-end cars (speaking as a bystander while such cars are going around on the road). I could be very wrong here as I don't have any first hand experience.

Talking about my experience with 2 wheelers, the headlight of the Activa at home is completely useless. The one on my Pulsar 180 was decent until I upgraded the bulb to 60/55W and it became very good. The one on my Pulsar 150 with round headlamp was very good in the stock form and so were the stock headlamps of the Caliber 115.

Difficult to vote since there are multiple cars at home.
Hence, the post:
Toyota Fortuner (3.0 D4D) - Good
Honda Brio - Decent
Maruti Gypsy - Bad
Cheers,
Deepak

All my Current cars have fantastic lights.
Crysta x2: Fantastic Quad beam setup. High beams in particular is superb, don't see any need for replacement. The Fog lamps are average but the Quad setup makes up for this.
Endeavour: HID low beam plus halogen High beam, believe this is the best recipe for perfect lighting. Add to that Endeavour comes with powerful Fog lamps as well.
Kwid: Simple setup of Halogen headlamp and Fog lamps. For a car which is primarily used only in city, Kwid comes with very good lights. Fog lamps is surprisingly powerful.

Santro has the best headlights in an entry-level car - all Santro owners would vouch for that. ;)

Not happy at all with the headlights on my Vento. The high beam is somewhat ok, low beam is very poor. Big problem for me as I generally prefer driving with low beam to avoid blinding the opposing traffic-Especially 2 wheeler's and pedestrians.

Quite happy with the headlights of my Fiesta but have a LED light bar to simply teach lesson to high beam morons. Old figo headlights we're poor though.