Good bulb brands

[BUDFORCE]

I've come to the conclusion cheap car bulbs are not worth it, particularly Lucas branded ones the blow more often then Riley Reed.

Im not fussed about super posh "nightbreakers" etc, but what are good brands to stick to?

 

[julianhj]

Osram or Philips in my experience.

 

[tamzzy]

yeah, back in the days when i had halogens or xenons...i stuck to osram
consumables like these i think are false economy to cheap out

 

[jpaul]

Have been faithful to H1 philips+130%'s for many years - started a new adventure just arrived today from EU.
(recently discovered that amazon.de has some better deals than uk one and had made several purchases there)

2 Bosch H1 Plus 150 Gigalight Lampe -...

Sold by: Amazon EU S.a.r.L.

EUR 12,46

 

[ahenners]

Osram or Philips in my experience.

This.

 

[robinbanks]

Philips Is my normal go to.

 

[dave28]

osram

 

[Resident]

My car came with cheap bulbs from the dealer. I replaced them with Philips WhiteVision Ultra and the difference is staggering.

 

[kona786]

Bulbs go in soil. Think you meant lamps.

This is what old sparkies used to say.

 

[lordrobs]

For the last 20 years or so I've tended to replace my bulbs with Philips when they blew, then never needed to do them again in the time I owned the car which is probably the best praise I can give.

Started off with vision plus and progressed on to extreme vision. Both seemed equally long-lived.

 

[Gilbert89]

I once used Osram’s and they didn’t last 5 minutes.

I’d go for Phillips over these if I ever have Halogens again.

 

[jellybeard999]

I've had some generic Bosch bulbs that were actually pretty good and very cheap at the time. They werent the fancy ones, just the "original equipment" ones on a cardboard backing.

 

[Rroff]

There aren't really good lamp brands, Bosch are often the OE brand (generally not terrible for lifespan but average for performance), Philips and Osram have good performance and the difference over cheap brands is definitely worth it in that respect but lifespan is hit and miss and even the best brands don't really care to do a good job on lifespan.

I generally buy Philips myself.

 

[jpaul]

we'll see - aforementioned acquisition ..
as some of reviews of bulbs say the blue tinting on the outside?(scrapeable ? trike ?) of the bulb reduces overall light output to make it look bluer

e: made in china - nothing is safe , but maybe my philips+130s say the same.
e2: Too bad they won't live long. But, then again, who does

 

[Armageus]

Philips, Osram, Bosch, and also Halfords Advanced are normally decent.


Lucas and Ring have always been terrible in my experience

 

[Nasher]

It's "Lucas, the prince of darkness" for a reason

Chinese parts with an old British name. Annoying found all over British cars.

 

[jpaul]

put in the new bosch bulbs headlight pair and moved the unblown headlight bulb into full beam slot - to finish off it's life, less used full beam bulbs seem to last many more years.

Had forgotten about the electric adjustment control on headlight level for loaded/unloaded car, had previously set it low/fully-loaded to avoid any MOT issues,
but never changed it back for , more usual, single occupancy.

 

[Lopéz]

Bulbs go in soil. Think you meant lamps.

This is what old sparkies used to say.

I used to work with a colleague who was always complaining about "wires" when she had to connect multiple laptops to a router.

Cables. Cables contain wires. If you just had wires sticking out everywhere then it would be a really dangerous situation.

Also, Osram, generally.

 

[Nasher]

put in the new bosch bulbs headlight pair and moved the unblown headlight bulb into full beam slot - to finish off it's life, less used full beam bulbs seem to last many more years.

Had forgotten about the electric adjustment control on headlight level for loaded/unloaded car, had previously set it low/fully-loaded to avoid any MOT issues,
but never changed it back for , more usual, single occupancy.

They normally just adjust it if they find it's off these days. It's not worth failing over something so trivial.

 

[Terminal_Boy]

The Philips 130% “Extreme Vision” H7s (dipped) seem to last roughly 2 and a half years for me and the H1 mains about 6 months longer in my Duster. Worth ever penny and the 5 minutes of swearing to fit as most of my night driving is on unlit rural roads with, lined by trees. October to April is brown season where it telling the muddy tarmac from muddy verges can be a challenge with decent headlight. The Osram OEMs were terrible.

As you’d have to be feeling generous to call my local minor roads “B” roads and I live off of what’s basically a tarmac over gravel farm track, folks living near better roads might get more life out of them.

I notice they’re 150% now as I just ordered a replacement pairs of H7s after noticing one had failed last night.