What is your choice for the best snap-in replacement headlight bulb for my 2000 Dakota R/T? I know you're not fond of Silverstars, but why if I may ask?

Thanks and Merry Christmas to ya.

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Official Cookie and Mater Tormentor.

I know Dan is the expert, but I can give you some user feedback. I have an '01 Dakota R/T and I changed my stock bulbs out for some Silverstars a couple years ago. They aren't so much brighter as they are whiter. The whiter light seems to give better contrast at night. My biggest problem hasn't been the bulbs, but the lenses. They turn yellow so fast and really block tons of light. I can polish them out with one of those headlight polishing kits, but they turn back yellow after a few months. I would like to find some decent fog light bulbs as well. I'm interested to see what Dan has to say.

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1966 Valiant 225 2bbl Super Six
1974 Challenger 360 4bbl
2001 Dakota 5.9 R/T

I'd just use a couple of these.
http://tinyurl.com/ynq4nw

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67Cuda,FAST EZEFI,340cu,CR=10.25,RollerCam&Rocker (XR268HR,#20-810-9)(#1622-16)(EddyRPM#60779,#7576), (MSD6AL,#6425) A904, GearVendorsOD, 8 1/4,3.55:1, ClassicAir

Haha! That might work in my Valiant, but I'm pretty sure the truck could blow them out though.

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1966 Valiant 225 2bbl Super Six
1974 Challenger 360 4bbl
2001 Dakota 5.9 R/T

Your Dakota's headlamps seem weak because they're not well engineered and the headlamp wiring is too thin, starving whatever bulbs you install. If you were to do nothing but upgrade the headlamp circuit so all the power doesn't go through ridiculously small-gauge wires from the battery clear back to the firewall, through the firewall to the headlamp switch, through tiny contacts in the headlamp switch, across to the steering column, up the steering column, through tiny contacts in the beam selector switch, down the steering column, back through the firewall, and all the way forward to the headlamps, even plain old ordinary bulbs would give noticeably better performance. The best (or we might say "least bad") 9007 bulbs on the market are the GE Night Hawk 9007NH and the Philips VisionPlus 9007VP. A quick web search ought to turn up a vendor for you — I think you can get the 9007NH from amazon.com , of all places. Also make sure the headlamps are aimed correctly. The factory foggy lites are useless toys. They don't produce any useful light, and cannot be made to do so — only glare. Either leave them off or put real, working fog lamps in their place. My fave for these Dodge trucks is the Bosch Compact 100, which is as close to a direct swap as you can get.

The Sylvania Silver Star bulbs are a very poor choice; they are a scam.
Despite the "brightest and whitest" hype and pseudoscience, there is never an actual improvement with Sylvania Silver Star/Ultra or any of the other blue-glass "whiter light" bulbs. They put out less light, because the blue tinted glass blocks a fairly significant portion of the light that would otherwise reach the road and help you see. Despite the advertising (and they're spending a great deal of money on lots of advertising for these bulbs!), the tinted ("whiter") light from these bulbs does not help you see. In addition, a lower proportion of the light that does make it past the blue glass is actually usable, because of the way our visual system works with light of different wavelengths. The way these "whiter" bulbs work is by filtering out (blocking) a portion of the yellow light coming from the filament. It is commonly but incorrectly believed that yellow, obtained by filtering out/blocking most of the blue light, is the best color for fog lights because "yellow light penetrates fog better". That's not the correct explanation; in fact, our eyes and visual system have a significantly easier time processing what we see in reduced-contrast conditions (rain, fog, snow...) when the blue wavelengths are suppressed/reduced. The opposite is also true: By suppressing the yellow light and weighting the output of the bulb more towards blue (the so called "whiter" light), you're making it much tougher on your eyes and visual system whenever the weather's less than perfect. And there's no counterbalancing benefit when the weather is perfect, either...so overall, this kind of bulb is never a benefit, and is a significant drawback in bad weather.

Contrary to marketing hype, Sylvania Silver Stars (and all other bulbs with blue-coloured glass) do not improve headlamp output or seeing ability in any way, under any circumstances. They tint the light. That's all they do. The legal ones (like Silver Star, TruView, CrystalVision, etc.) don't tint it deeply enough to violate the allowable range of "white" light — even though the light is tinted blue, it's lightly enough tinted that it's still legally considered "white" — but the fact is, whenever you add a filter to the optical system that alters the visible SPD, you are blocking light that would otherwise reach the road and help you see.

For reference, here's manufacturer data, from internal engineering databases, for output and lifespan at 13.2v for standard-wattage H1 bulbs. The numbers here are a composite of values applicable to the products of the big three makers (Osram-Sylvania, Philips-Narva, Tungsram-GE). Each manufacturer's product in each category is slightly different but not significantly so. I picked H1-type bulbs for this comparison, and while the absolute numbers differ with different bulb types, the relative comparison patterns hold good for whatever bulb type you consider. Lifespan is given as Tc, the hour figure at which 63.2 percent of the bulbs have failed.

H1 (regular normal):
1550 lumens, 650 hours

Long Life (or "HalogenPlus+")
1460 lumens, 1200 hours

Plus-30 High Efficacy (Osram Super, Sylvania Xtravision, Narva Rangepower, Candlepower Bright Light, Tungsram High Output, Philips Premium):
1700 lumens, 350 hours

Plus-50 Ultra High Efficacy (Philips VisionPlus, Osram Silverstar, Narva Rangepower+50, Tungsram Megalicht, but not Sylvania Silverstar):
1750 lumens, 350 hours

Plus-80/90 Mega High Efficacy (Philips Xtreme Power, Osram Night Breaker):
1780 lumens, 340 hours

Blue coated 'extra white' (Osram CoolBlue, Narva Rangepower Blue, Philips BlueVision or CrystalVision, Tungsram Super Blue or EuroBlue, Sylvania Silverstar or Silverstar Ultra, which is just a rebrand of the Silverstar product, also PIAA, Hoen, Nokya, Polarg, etc):
1380 lumens, 250 hours

Now, looking over these results, which one would you rather:

(a) Buy and drive with?
(b) Sell?

The answer to (a) depends on how well you want to see versus how often to change the bulb. If you want the best possible seeing, you pick the Plus-50 or Plus-80/90. If you don't care as long as it works and you don't want to hassle with it, you pick the long life.

The answer to (b) is determined by how rich your company's shareholders want you to be, and is obvious: You want to sell the bulb with the shortest lifespan, highest promotability and highest price. That'd be the blue unit, e.g. Sylvania Silverstar.

And remember, "HID kits" in halogen-bulb headlamps do not work safely or effectively, which is why they are illegal. See here.

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一期一会
Too many people who were born on third base actually believe they've hit a triple.

This is actually an optical illusion, and a pretty dangerous one, because it makes you feel safer than you actually are. So-called "whiter" (lightly blue-tinted) light does not help you see better. Silver Stars and the bulbs like them from other makers rely on the fact that the human visual system is a very poor judge of its own performance. It's very easy to create situations in which we feel our ability to see is much better or much poorer than it actually is. Within a certain range of intensity, artificially "whitening" the light with a blue filter is a simple and cheap way of making it appear "brighter" than it actually is. However, "bright" is like "loud": both are subjective judgements with little correlation to the underlying quantities, which are intensity and sound pressure, respectively. ZZ Top or Metallica is always going to sound "louder" than Bach or Schubert at any given sound pressure level. The difficulty is, our seeing performance depends on intensity (the amount of light actually present), not on brightness (the amount of light it subjectively seems like there is).
Yeah...plastic headlamp lenses were Ford's "better idea" for 1983. They wouldn't be so bad if the UV resistance regulations were appropriately strict, but they're quite lax, and so we wind up with exactly this problem you describe. What's actually clouding up, at least at first, is the anti-UV/anti-scratch hardcoat on the front surface of the lens. Each time you polish it, you're scrubbing off part of that coating, and eventually it's all gone, so the base polycarbonate plastic itself begins to break down. Eventually the only fix is a new pair of headlamp lens/reflector assemblies. If you go this route, be sure and get genuine factory units, not the aftermarket ones that are all over the place. As sloppily engineered as the factory units are, they're still a good deal superior to the Taiwanese-made copycats, even those that claim to be "OEM quality certified", etc.
No such thing, I'm afraid; see above. If you want the fog lamps to work well, you need to install real working fog lamps in place of the cosmetic toys DaimlerChrysler gave you.

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一期一会
Too many people who were born on third base actually believe they've hit a triple.

Thanks Dan, (and everyone else) I may add the relays. I know there seems to be lots of unnecessary wires and connections in the light circuit.

I don't use the driving lights. Even when they were still clear they did not do much.

I like your explanation about the Silver Stars. I actually had them in the truck before it got wrecked a couple years ago and did not notice any difference myself.

My headlight lenses seem to be staying clear. I know that is a problem with some cars. My buddys Intrepid has that issue.

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Official Cookie and Mater Tormentor.

I have a slightly different problem with my 98 Dakota. When I was in an accident a few years ago the headlights were replaced with what the insurance company euphemistically calls "quality replacement" parts. The light seems to lack focus and is really poorly distributed it seems to me. In a fog I can see stray beams shooting off in odd directions. I would like to replace the headlight assemblies with something that will properly focus the beams out in front where it belongs. Any suggestions other than OEM?

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David Kight
'62 Valiant Signet, White
'98 Dodge Dakota
'06 Jeep Liberty

Growing older is unavoidable but growing up is strictly optional.

That, as you can see, is an insurance company euphemism for Taiwanese copycat crapola. The way our regulatory system works, it's really easy to cheat. Despite the "DOT" marking on the lens, most of these Taiwanese lamps are significantly poorer than the original-equipment lights in terms of beam focus and light distribution...and many of the original-equipment lights themselves are not very well engineered, so we're looking at bad copies of bad lamps.
Well, that depends on how much special/custom work you're willing to do. If you want to see well, even the OE headlamps won't satisfy you because in terms of optical design, they're junk. You would be much further ahead to install two pairs (2x low beam + 2x high beam) of the Hella 90mm modular optics, which are available in numerous varieties (four different kinds of halogen, two different kinds of Xenon HID, only some of which are shown here):



This would give you a quad-round appearance with much better lighting than you could ever get from the original lamps, the modules have hardened glass lenses so they'd never yellow again, and all you'd have to do (if it's important to you) is create a bezel for the four "eyes". You could possibly make use of an original headlamp lens to do so.

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一期一会
Too many people who were born on third base actually believe they've hit a triple.

That looks and sounds expensive, but I'll look into it. Thanks. I'm considering making a trade anyway but if I don't, I have to do something about the lights.

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David Kight
'62 Valiant Signet, White
'98 Dodge Dakota
'06 Jeep Liberty

Growing older is unavoidable but growing up is strictly optional.

Dan, is there a difference between Osram Silverstars and Sylvania Silverstars? On another forum, I recall reading that there was a difference (maybe not the best way to get advice), and so when I bought lamps this last time I made sure to get Osram's. This was to replace some Hella H4's of unknown type; I didn't think it was a huge difference over the Hella's in the end.

Yes, definitely. Osram = good, Sylvania = bad. See the data in my post above.
Well, Hella don't make bulbs, they buy and box 'em. They used to get all their bulbs from Philips and Osram, but more recently they've been looking for "more competitive pricing" (i.e., buying from Taiwan/China/Korea). The Osram Silver Star is one of several +50 ultra high efficacy bulbs, but there are lots of reasons you might not have detected much of a difference. Which specific headlamp units are these, in what kind of vehicle, fed with what kind of circuitry?

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一期一会
Too many people who were born on third base actually believe they've hit a triple.

'04 VW Jetta Wagon with Hella OEM style European headlight assemblies or as they're commonly called, "E-codes", with an H4 bulb type. Stock OEM wiring--the word is these plastic assemblies don't take well to the higher powered bulbs anyhow, so I didn't figure I really needed to bother with relays and wiring upgrades.

I tossed the Hella bulb boxes sometime ago, so I'm not sure what they were, but most likely 55W low / 60W high. One bulb went about 3 years before low beam got intermittant (whack the headlight to get low!), while the other is a longer story (kit came with two different bulbs, the other was a cheapie that didn't make it a year, but the company was nice enough to send me the proper one).

Ah, I hadn't read your post fully--I see now that the two types of Silverstars are clearly listed--sorry 'bout that. I glanced too quickly.

There's a lot of misunderstanding (and resultant "internet expert" misinformation) about "plastic" headlamp components. There is thermoplastic, which is used in a lot of cheap American-brand headlamps and will distort (melt) if you sneeze at it, and then there's thermoset, which is used in pretty much all European and Japanese headlamps and the higher-end American ones, which has good thermal resistance. Would I run a 130/100w or 100/90w bulb in those Hella lamps? No, but I'd run the Osram 70/65w H4s without hesitation.

Glad to see you've got actual Hella lamps, BTW. The Chinese are sending over some hideously bad copycats, some of which are being sold under the name "Helix" with a logo that is a direct ripoff of Hella's.

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一期一会
Too many people who were born on third base actually believe they've hit a triple.

Thanks Dan. I'll keep that info in mind for next year, or whenever I get around to buying more bulbs.