There's a bunch of off-brand junk on the market, that is true, and even among reputable brands you have to be picky. The Hella 5-3/4" H4 is a poor choice, not worthy even at a low-low price; it is extremely weak on low beam—inadequate seeing distance for normal driving speeds (always has been, now worse because the tooling is worn). This cannot be overcome by brute force (high-watt bulb).
The Koito H4 unit (made in Japan) in this 5-3/4" size is particularly good: well-focused and efficient:
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The legitimate ones take H1 bulbs. There are two good Koito options (pic), one decent Hella option, one or two obscure/difficult-to-get other options (not worth the effort), and, here again, a bunch of junk.
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There is also one set of extremely good LED headlamps in this size, a commercial-duty product made extremely well in Korea. They are not advertised, and they are very narrowly available; PM me for more details. Expensive and worth it if you can tolerate the departure from traditional-lamp appearance:
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The most important things to keep in mind on this:
• Do not fall for the common myth that ECE ("European", "E-code") lamps are necessarily superior to SAE ("DOT", "US-code") lamps. That's wrong; both standards have plenty of room for good headlamps and too much room for bad ones; just the nature of the badness differs. Also disregard the flowery bulk wrap you'll find, trashing the US lamp standard ("ZOMG LOLROFL THEY REQUIRE 25% OF THE LIGHT TO GO UPWARD LAME LOL" etc) and grossly exaggerating the difference between a sealed beam and (say) a particular H4 headlamp (WOW 300% MORE LIGHT WOW SUPER OSSOME etc). The only generalisation on the subject that's reality-based is that good headlamps are better than bad ones, and "good" and "bad" are objective, not subjective.
• While you're busy avoiding the headlite-shaped trinkets, also don't fall for "LED bulbs", blue-glass "whiter light" bulbs, "HID kits", and other such scams. Even then, you still have to be picky; bulb choice matters a
lot to how well you can (or can't) see at night. A legit expert I know put up some really good data
here; look at the performance difference, especially on low beam, between the standard-wattage, standard-luminance bulb "A" and the standard-wattage, high-luminance (or "high efficacy") bulb "C".
• Whatever lights you install need to be properly fed. If you put in halogen lights, this means
relays and sturdy wiring —
@crackedback to a paging telephone, please. If you put in (legitimate) LED lights, the stock wiring in good condition is plenty adequate.
• Whatever lights you use must be
correctly aimed.
