White LED Bulbs or Halogen Bulbs for High Beam on 2014 C300

05-17-2017, 01:54 PM

#3

Shimee

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Join Date: Apr 2014

Location: Massachusetts

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2010 C350 Sport

Quote:

Originally Posted by tapankd

Hello all

So after few months of ownership of my sedan I have decided to change the lighting. After researching through the forum and talking with other members I have decided for getting HID kit conversion for low beam ( either 5500 or 6000k still debating on that) and will also be getting the LED front parking lights.

For High beam since I don't use it a lot I am thinking about just putting white LED bulbs ? Has anyone tried white Halogen bulbs ?

What are my options ? Any recommendations or links from amazon or eBay.

Thanks in advance.

The problem with the W204 headlight housing is there is not enough room where the highbeam bulb mounts for most of the LED bulbs to fit. See the list I put together below for the styles that will not work.

If you get LED bulbs make sure they have braided steel straps for heatsinks rather than aluminum blocks. For example, like this kind: http://www.ebay.com/itm/182571826236

The other thing to consider is most LED bulbs are 6500K, even the ones that market themselves as 6000K. Meaning they will have a blue tinge and will not match your HIDs. It might take some trial and error, returning bulbs to find a color that suits you. I bought and returned 5 or 6 pairs before I found ones that matched my low beam bulbs.

I found that these bulbs match my Osram CBI bulbs very closely: http://www.ebay.com/itm/201711787552. I managed to get them to just barely fit if I rotated the heatsink just right. The problem with these is the heatsink thread was very loose. I had to buy some thermally conductive silicone to glue the heatsink in place and ensure heat was actually transferred from the bulb to the heatsink.

Quote:

Originally Posted by NewtwoMB

I have White Phillips Crystal Vision halogens in my high beams. They are a good match to the factory xenon (HID) lights, and offer. Have heard that aftermarket LEDs are not very powerful, but have no personal experience myself.

Depends on what you get. The marketplace is flooded with different options and it takes a bit of knowledge to buy something capable.

For example, these style:

These are no good unless you're using them as DRLs. They will appear bright in the housing but they will not put out any usable light. Using them to replace halogen bulbs would be dangerous, especially low beam.

Now these style:

These are very good. They use high-power LEDs with a dedicated driver, whereas the previous set had no extra driver and used low-power LEDs. There is a problem though, the heatsink is too big and these will not fit the W204 headlights.

Also very important is getting LED bulbs where the LEDs are oriented correctly. On the W204 highbeam the bulb is mounted with the tab facing up. So the LED bulb has to have the LEDs firing laterally sideways against the tab. If the LEDs are oriented firing upwards and downwards, the highbeam will effectively be useless.

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