For decades, headlights on cars and trucks have been like these: incandescent lights. Well as time has gone on, they have moved from incandescent to HID and now we are seeing most cars with LEDs.

Alright, now, what is the difference here? Well the difference primarily is gonna be that the color of these new lights is brighter and that the durability may be better. One of the things that you have to keep in mind is that well you can make conversions to these things. Like here we have an HID conversion. Take this cover off of here and we can see that we have HID bulbs in there. It comes with the various transformers and everything like that, but you have to make sure that if you are gonna do one of these conversions, that you get quality parts, because some of these parts are expensive if they are gonna last and be reliable.

Over here we have an LED conversion and we look in the bottom of this one and believe it or not, we have a teeny little fan in there that keeps the bulb cool. So some of them with have heat sinks, some will have fans and so on. You have to research these things, make sure they have the proper cooling and that they have the proper attachments for your car.

Alright, now, here is the rub with all of this, you see changing to one of these systems, well it may make the light whiter or more blue, but it may not give you more light on the road, because that is controlled by a number of different factors. Number one is the design of the reflector, which matches the way the light comes out of the bulb. The other thing is, especially if you have a pickup truck or an SUV or something that sits taller, in order to keep the light from blinding oncoming passengers, they’re designed so that they are tilted down a little bit and that means the light doesn’t go out as far. So just changing the bulbs, you’re still gonna have the same adjustment, the same characteristics, you’re just going to have a more whitish or bluish colored light. So do your research before you spend money on an upgrade kit because you may not be happy with the results. And if you have a question or a comment, drop me a line right here at MotorWeek.