Protect your plastic lens – alternatives to high wattage lamps

When changing your car bulbs you should always take care to make sure that you are using a product that will not damage your vehicle. High wattage headlight bulbs can cause many problems. Historically, the only way to increase the light output of a bulb was to increase the wattage.

This creates more light but generates more heat which risks melting/dis-colouring the vehicle's headlight lens and also potentially melting the wiring. In addition, high wattage lamps have much a shorter longevity than standard wattage lamps. Finally, high wattage lamps are not legal for road use.

As you can see, there are lots of reasons not to use high wattage bulbs anymore and this has been confirmed even more with the latest generation of upgrade bulbs such as Philips X-Treme Vision and OSRAM Night Breaker Plus. These deliver up to 100% more light than standard and are not higher wattage. The increase in light output is achieved through using a xenon/halogen gas mix and a refined design of the filament. This delivers the light increase benefits of high wattage bulbs without all the problems.

Image courtesy of spacebarpark (Flickr)