Has anyone switched out the regular headlight bulbs for ones that are more powerful? I don't want to get into changing ballasts or into heavier wiring, just a plug and play white light brighter bulb. Thanks!
You say ballasts so I am guessing you have HIDs. How many hours do you have on your bulbs? A couple hours, a few hundred hours? Do you want brighter, or do you want simulated brightness? Human eyes pick up blue-white tones better than yellow-white tones. After the bulbs get a few hundred hours of use they will colour shift to a higher kelvin colour and "look" brighter even though fewer lumens will be output. The only way to get more lumens out is to overcurrent the bulbs. But you can make it look brighter with having less light by upping the kelvin temperature to about 5100K. This is true spectrum.
If you go with something like the the sylvania ultra silverstar you will be fine since they are the same wattage. I wouldn't go with the aftermarket kid bulbs that run higher wattage for the low beams though.
He has halogens, what he meant was he doesn't want to get into adding ballasts to get hid's. The 3rd Gen does not have hid's anymore, only halogen and led (in the top of the line prius 5).
Then the only solution is to overdrive the voltage to the bulbs or again change the light colour. The "ultra-white" does exactly that. But they do it by derating the bulb life significantly.
Yeah, I remember many people saying their life sucked even though they were brighter. I wouldn't say they are expensive, but enough that if they are going to blow so much sooner than stock and I had to have brighter headlights, I'd just bite the bullet and have hid's installed.
There is a catch though that can work in your favour. The $50/pair bulbs are warranted for 1yr. For an extra $1USD, and if you buy from Walmart, you get an additional year. The bulbs' life is just around 1 year with "normal" usage which in the US is at night driving only. So for someone like me who drives with the lights on anytime the car is on, day or night, I can run the bulbs out in a few months. Take the receipt and the dead bulbs to get a warranty replacement and you get free bulbs. Remember to install HIDs you cannot just put D2R/D4R's with a ballast and adapter into your reflector housings. So you need new headlight housings with a proper reflector spread or replacements with projectors and the bulbs and the ballasts and a few misc things like wires and relays to keep safe and take the load off of the stock wiring.
Interesting I did not now about the walmart return thing, that's good to know should I ever get halogens again. I hear you about the reflectors in the housings not working when you start changing from halogens to hid's but I have seen people do it in their Gen IIIs with the projector beams and the beam pattern still looked good. Of course not proper but not bad by any means.
HIDs in halogen projectors are miles above HIDs in halogen reflectors. The road level beam output won't be too terrible. It will be blotchy and uneven, but mostly on the road. However, the "squirrel finders" allow more of a percentage of light through for halogens than HIDs. So the main problem of sending lots of light up is still there. The good news is that it is a more focused problem instead of just spread everywhere.
Yeah. I used Phillips X-Treme Power from Car Bulbs, Headlight Bulbs, Xenon Bulbs from Philips and Osram, Philips Xtreme Power, Osram NightBreaker globes - Powerbulbs.. They're only slightly whiter (but sitll yellow compared to the Silverstars) but much brighter than the Silverstars. Of course, it has a short life (with DRLs, they only lasted a year on my 2005) and they ran hot but no issues in that one year.
I upgraded all the exterior bulbs on my car (except the headlight low beams, which are LED on the Prius V), and for the fogs (which are the same bulb type as your low beams) I used PIAA Extreme White bulbs, which are 4000K, and are noticeably brighter than stock, providing 110 watts of light using 55 watts according to PIAA. I've used these bulbs on a few previous cars with no issues, and no failures. More info here: http://priuschat.com/forums/gen-iii...-parking-lights-rear-license-plate-bulbs.html
All halogens are 55W. What you are seeing is the false brightness. Since it is a more white light than yellow light, it appears brighter. Same reason why office buildings look brighter than homes. The light output is the same, but your eye is more sensitive to it.
Define "more powerful": - higher wattage rating? - higher light output? by federal law it is illegal to use higher wattage bulbs (80w or 100w) that's why they being sold for "off-road only" usage. In practical chances of you being ticketed are not big, unless you change to blue as LEOs hate them for some reason. If you use higher light output bulbs like Silverstar, etc. they make a huge difference, have them on other car/motorcycle. Not sure if they really needed on Prius, maybe for low beam. Either way they are great, but they don't last as much as OEM, if you get them, carry spare good luck.
OK, some misconceptions here. First, the output of the bulb is proportional to the DC power you put into it. You CAN buy halogens in different power consumptions. You can get from 45W up to over 100W (low beam - higher for high beam). Any bulb that consumes more than 55W is illegal on public roads. Not sure how the officer would be able to tell without a lot of work. Unless he is getting a sun tan. A halogen bulb works by running the tungsten filament hotter than the previous standard bulb. To do this they fill the envelope with a halogen gas (chlorine, bromine, iodine). Because the filament is running "too hot" it evaporates some tungsten. This combines with the halogen. The idea is where the filament looses material it actually runs hotter. This attracts the tungsten halide which then breaks down back to tungsten and the halogen gas, "fixing" the thinning filament. To make this work they had to reduce the volume in the envelope, and to do that without it melting they had to use quartz, hence quartz halogen bulb. Now, some think they need even more light. Soooo, -some- manufacturers make bulbs that run even hotter. Hotter means the colour temp will rise, and also means -more- of the light energy will be in the visible light range (in other words you get what was wasted in infrared light in the "standard temp" halogen bulb). Bonus for the manufacturer, people liked the higher or bluer tint. So they also added tinting to the quartz envelope (which actually dims the bulb). But some people are easy to fool and they think they are brighter. In "real life" you want a yellower bulb, not a bluer bulb. It penetrates fog and smoke better. But who am I to tell you how to see. For those wanting a brighter bulb, things you have to worry about are the wiring size (will it overheat and melt the insulation with the higher current)? Will the housing melt from the higher heat generated? Will the police notice and ticket you? The higher temp bulbs (such as the Sylvania silverstars) generate the same amount of heat as the standard bulb and consume the same amount of power, hence they are legal in most jurisdictions. Some have banned "blue bulbs". Not sure how that would stand up in court.
I have tried the Sylvania Silverstar ultras... they are no better than the stock bulbs other than a cooler shade of white... I was using Osram Nightbreakers from Powerbulbs.com... They are a bit brighter than stock and also a bit whiter... Unfortunately, the bulbs seem to blow after six months of use (under 100 hours on the bulbs)... I have gone thru three sets and after six months... poof. I have now upgraded to the nightbreaker plus which is supposed to be 90% brighter but I'd say they are about 40% brighter... The plus version also supposed to last longer than the regular but I have not passed six months yet... in either case, i always have a spare set of bulbs so i don't have to worry about going without lights as the right headlight is a pain to change bulbs...
