Just left the 2015 SEMA show- got some new LED headlights to try out

Hey guys, I thought I'd share this. I just left SEMA- in fact, I'm sitting in the airport now. While I'm waiting, I wanted to share this with you guys. I hooked up with a Chinese company that manufactures Cree LED automotive lighting (one of the 100's out there LOL). They had some new products and I was able to snag an H7 LED headlight kit to try out.

These LEDs seem pretty legit and the color looked pretty good in their booth although I'm not sure if they will be too blue as the package says 6K-6.5K. Who knows, but that's the only choice for white. These guys are an OEM so their packaging is pretty generic. They also make a yellow LED headlight kit.

For comparison, a typical 35W HID kit will do about 3400 lumens, or 1700 lumens per bulb.

They had a lumen test rig in their small booth and he let me test one of the bulbs from this kit. I zeroed it out and it came out to about 1750 lumens for one bulb which is very impressive to me, especially considering the price. I paid him $30 for a kit at the show, so I felt like if they were no good, it was only $30. Pretty sure that's their wholesale price.

Here's a pic of one of the bulbs that I shot in the airport on my carbon fiber laptop skin for coolness effect lol. Sorry for the blurriness.

I'll report back when I can get these installed in my LGT wagon. Maybe they'll suck, maybe they'll be awesome, who knows! I have the guy's card so if it's great, I might be able to set up a buy or something.

Looking forward, looks like it's constructed pretty well.

I know that a few 5th gen'ers were experimenting with LED bulbs, but don't know if it ever took off. Would be interested to see how these turn out.

Interested in the fitment. Heatsink looks huge. Dust covers likely not gonna fit back on and is there enough room on the battery side?

So 15 days later whats the news?

Sub'd for update as well

Haha, sorry everyone! I've been driving with these for a couple weeks. Ok so here's the quick rundown. The light output and color is actually pretty good. The no warmup time is really nice too. I'd say it's equivalent to a 5000K HID kit. The color from the outside looks nice like factory HIDs. Not too blue like the cheap HID kits everyone has on their pickup trucks. They're not as bright as my factory HIDs on my GTI but I haven't had any major complaints about the light output. I think the throw isn't quite as far as some HIDs but the more I drive it, the more I don't notice so it's minor. The beam cutoff is good too. The major problem I'm having is the dust caps. Those heatsinks are really huge. They physically fit in the housing and the heatsinks don't hit anything but fitting the dustcaps back on is a definite no-go. I even tried cutting large holes in the dustcaps but I still couldn't make those work. So I'm running sans-caps right now. The problem with this is, I've run it through the rain and through a carwash and the lights fog up like crazy temporarily when there's moisture around. When it's dry out, they are perfectly fine. I've been trying to think of a solution but I don't have one because of the way the heatsinks are designed. It's not bad enough that I've switched back to halogens yet though. It's not my daily driver. I've been intending on getting some pics so I'll see if I can get some for you guys. I'd say the technology is there to make them functional as headlights, it's just those darn heatsinks.

Subscribe. I'm looking at some http://www.vleds.com/headlights/lmz-ultra.html for the high beams, and I'm very interested in what other forum members have to say about the pros and cons with a LED conversion. Any experience shared would be most helpful. The moisture issue sounds like a downer. But, seriously Blugin, thanks for the post. Any chance the dust cover could still work if the LED was in the highbeam spot versus the low?

Originally Posted by Blugin

Haha, sorry everyone! I've been driving with these for a couple weeks. Ok so here's the quick rundown. The light output and color is actually pretty good. The no warmup time is really nice too. I'd say it's equivalent to a 5000K HID kit. The color from the outside looks nice like factory HIDs. Not too blue like the cheap HID kits everyone has on their pickup trucks. They're not as bright as my factory HIDs on my GTI but I haven't had any major complaints about the light output. I think the throw isn't quite as far as some HIDs but the more I drive it, the more I don't notice so it's minor. The beam cutoff is good too. The major problem I'm having is the dust caps. Those heatsinks are really huge. They physically fit in the housing and the heatsinks don't hit anything but fitting the dustcaps back on is a definite no-go. I even tried cutting large holes in the dustcaps but I still couldn't make those work. So I'm running sans-caps right now. The problem with this is, I've run it through the rain and through a carwash and the lights fog up like crazy temporarily when there's moisture around. When it's dry out, they are perfectly fine. I've been trying to think of a solution but I don't have one because of the way the heatsinks are designed. It's not bad enough that I've switched back to halogens yet though. It's not my daily driver. I've been intending on getting some pics so I'll see if I can get some for you guys. I'd say the technology is there to make them functional as headlights, it's just those darn heatsinks.

not sure if this helps or not as I have no experience with the LED headlights and how hot the heatsinks get but I did see on the TRS website that they have bigger universal rubber caps that maybe you could use to cover up the back of the heatsink with.

here is the link:http://www.theretrofitsource.com/acc...l#.VKjicGEo7IU

Thanks Bikerx. Good information.

Any updates on these or other led bulbs for low beams? Interested in trying them out. The 15' wrx limited comes with led lows and are very nice