Headlights!

[Hey you]

I have tried different brands of LED bulbs on my 2015 Tahoe LT. But the projector type housing is not allowing the LED to illuminate
the road, to my liking. Now i am back to halogens, and thinking of trying an after marked housing that will allow the LED to work.
I think something without the projectors would work much better.
Any body who has tried this, please let me know.

 

[wjburken]

I have tried different brands of LED bulbs on my 2015 Tahoe LT. But the projector type housing is not allowing the LED to illuminate
the road, to my liking. Now i am back to halogens, and thinking of trying an after marked housing that will allow the LED to work.
I think something without the projectors would work much better.
Any body who has tried this, please let me know.

What brand of LED bulb did you try?

 

[Hey you]

The first set were not marked, came with the car.
Then I tried a set from US Stock on ebay. Not sure if that is the brand, or just a distributor.
The bulbs do look bright, but they do not illuminate the road very well.
High Beam does not have the projector, and they work OK there.

 

[Joseph Garcia]

1. Did you purchase LEDs that were adjustable? By adjustable, did the LEDs have the capability to be rotated within the LED assembly itself?
2. If the LEDs were adjustable, did you correctly adjust them? Incorrectly adjusted LEDs are useless for a proper lighting pattern.

 

[Doubeleive]

I have tried different brands of LED bulbs on my 2015 Tahoe LT. But the projector type housing is not allowing the LED to illuminate
the road, to my liking. Now i am back to halogens, and thinking of trying an after marked housing that will allow the LED to work.
I think something without the projectors would work much better.
Any body who has tried this, please let me know.

HID's work better in projector housings. Sometimes if LED's are used the adjustable ones can work but you will still have a dead spot
I converted the wife's projectors to HID they work pretty decent.
if you go HID I would recommend using quality ballast's and a relay, they tend to require more power than the stock wiring harness provides.

 

[Hey you]

I did make sure the LEDs were installed as shown on the diagram.
I may have to consider the HIDs, but was hoping there was a headlight assy out there without the projectors.
Thanks for the input!

 

[ReaperHWK]

How hard is it to retrofit the LTZ headlights in there? They have HIDs.

If it isn’t that hard I’d look into grabbing a used set somewhere.

 

[Doubeleive]

How hard is it to retrofit the LTZ headlights in there? They have HIDs.

If it isn’t that hard I’d look into grabbing a used set somewhere.

the problem with the factory HID's is they are only 25w, which still sucks
it cost me about $100 to upgrade to 50w on the wifes 16, the silverado was a little more because the bulb model is a odd D5S, a pair of 35w aftermarket can be found for around $35 and they run at 50w no problem, mine have been in the truck over 5 years. the oem 25w model sold at (some) autoparts stores are $136 each lol
easy to do, you just need a set of ballast, set of bulbs, wiring harness, relay.
the problem people have with upgrading to HID's is using cheap garbage ballast, the bulbs are generally ok even if cheap.
back 20 years ago when aftermarket HID's started hitting the market the ballast's were generally made well, then as time went along and they starting becoming more popular they started making them cheaper and cheaper, popular brands were "copied" (knockoffs) and made with inferior parts and it just snowballed from there. but there are still some quality ballast's made.
I recommend these, for the price & quality. standard 9006 output, then you just convert 9006 to your desired bulb model with a harness, relay and connect directly to the battery
the original bulb harness is then just a trigger and there is no load put on the factory harness

2pcs Hylux 50W 2A50 Canbus Ballast HID Xenon Kit for Headlight Replacement Bulb | eBay

2 x Hylux 50W 2A50 ballast. Output Power: 50W. Car Xenon Headlight. Car LED Headlight. Automatic protection for output open circuit/short circuit in 0.5seconds. Anti-electromagnetic interference: S95/54/EC.

www.ebay.com

 

[Hey you]

So, I decided to order a set of replacement headlight assemblies that come with LEDs. I was ready to purchase the Morimotos, but then found the Anzos online for almost half the cost. So I got them yesterday, and installed today. I must admit I was a little concerned as to the quality and performance but so far... I am very impressed.
The lights were packaged extremely well, the quality was impressive, install was not too hard especially after watching youtube videos. After that a test drive
after dark was the ultimate test, and these lights passed with flying colors... that is very bright and white!
Still looking forward to highway driving, but so far... I like them.

 

[Bigburb3500]

Could you post of picture of them? That would be great!

 

[L8T BURB]

I used Sealight brand LEDs on my 2015 Suburban LT for lows, highs, and fog lights. I was more than happy with the performance of them. They can be found on Amazon for what I feel like is a very reasonable price. They're true plug and play. No wire splicing of any kind, and the dust covers fit right back onto the headlight housing as if it was stock. Never any issue with them overheating or cutting out at all. The light output of them compared to the stock halogen bulbs was really no comparison, and I never got any oncoming traffic flashing their highs at me.

 

[mountie]

I used Sealight brand LEDs on my 2015 Suburban LT for lows, highs, and fog lights. I was more than happy with the performance of them. They can be found on Amazon for what I feel like is a very reasonable price. They're true plug and play. No wire splicing of any kind, and the dust covers fit right back onto the headlight housing as if it was stock. Never any issue with them overheating or cutting out at all. The light output of them compared to the stock halogen bulbs was really no comparison, and I never got any oncoming traffic flashing their highs at me.

Seelight, in your stock housing??

 

[L8T BURB]

Seelight, in your stock housing??

Yes, the sealight bulbs are direct plug and play. They fit right into the stock housing. Very nice white light that doesn't look like tacky aftermarket.

 

[Hey you]

These are the new headlights. Much better illumination at night, and no upset drivers approaching so far!

 

[BigBoyZ71]

These are the new headlights. Much better illumination at night, and no upset drivers approaching so far!

Great looking headlights. My only concern with this style - there's no way to throw in a new bulb once they burn out (from my understanding)

 

[Loki223]

Great looking headlights. My only concern with this style - there's no way to throw in a new bulb once they burn out (from my understanding)

Generally speaking, no. But the entire point or getting higher quality LED housings is that the LEDs should outlast the life of the vehicle, assuming they have proper cooling and airflow. It's generally heat that can destroy an LED, they are low quality LED chip sets. The ANZO housing look interesting but i would be curious to see how they compare in the real world to the higher quality LED Projector set ups being that they are a reflector LED housing. Similar to how most mid to low trim level vehicles with "LED" headlights have LED reflectors, rather then LED projectors like the higher trims tend to have. Although the next step is laser headlights but i haven't seen any aftermarkets producing those just yet.

Personally, i'm going with the Morimoto headlights here at some point. Just waiting on a couple of other things to go through first and then i'll get the moris in the burb. I have them on my truck and LOVE them. Technically a true HID retrofit with a D2S set up would be better, but at the effort level, i can't complain.

Another side note, since it was discussed a little bit. There are halogen projectors, and HID projectors. and they are not made the same. All housing types are made with a specific light source in mind. They are designed to collect the light and refocus it as desired. While yes, you can put HIDs in a halogen projector, you won't get the same quality of beam as you would with a true HID projector. And when choosing LED swap bulbs there are so many that just throw an LED chipset on a piece of plastic, the overclock it, and call it a work of art and money. a quality drop in LED requires that the light source emit light similar to the original lighting element so that the reflectors in the housing/projector can properly control the light and output a quality beam pattern that doesn't blind oncoming traffic and others on the road. The vast majority of LED drop in bulbs do not properly align the light source, which means the reflectors do not properly control the light leading to what appears to be a bright light, but is widely uncontrolled and considered a bad beam pattern. Projectors can be very forgiving with this, but are still susceptible to bad beam patterns with inferior bulb designs. Ideally if you want o upgrade your lighting, you should keep to the bulb that the housing was designed for. The adjustable bulbs are just the manufacturers saying "we don't know what we're doing, so here is an adjustment for you to figure it out and think we thought it through" You can often get a significantly better quality beam and output by using the proper type of bulb. Higher output halogens achieve this by burning hotter, which in turn shortens their life. If you want to truly upgrade your light output, you need to either buy quality projectors and do a retrofit, or buy new housings that are properly designed with the light source you intend on using. Cheap Chinesium housings are often built with low quality halogen projectors and are not recommended for HID bulbs, as the HIDs can melt the cheaper parts used in them. At the end of the day, you get what you pay for.

 

[mountie]

Yup..... not all LED's are made for a standard-designed housing's reflector pattern.

 

[JMH1980]

Replacement OEM HID Bulbs for 2015-2020 Chevrolet Tahoe (pair)

Increase brightness with Replacement OEM HID Bulbs for 2015-2020 Chevrolet Tahoe (pair) by Diode Dynamics - High-brightness replacement OEM HID bulbs

www.diodedynamics.com

I know this thread is a year old, but I wanted to share this option for vehicles with factory HID projectors.