Sylvania silverstar ZXE ???

[unclemuskie]

Anyone out here try this bulb out on their Santa Fe ?

[prmax]

Check out the Philips H11 CrystalVision Ultra. They cost less and have great reviews. Matter of fact, I am using them.

[BSoares]

Originally Posted by prmax

Check out the Philips H11 CrystalVision Ultra. They cost less and have great reviews. Matter of fact, I am using them.

Is the color similar to the LED eyebrow on the SFS? I'm trying to find normal bulbs (not HID) that match or come really close the the LED so it looks better. But I don't want to lose usable light and have good looks but crappy vision at night.

[jkozlow3]

The 2013 Santa Fe uses H11 bulbs for the low beams. The #1 best upgrade from hours of reading that I've done is to simply buy an H9 bulb and modify it to fit in the H11 socket. The modification is simple and entails trimming a piece of plastic off of the bulb. A standard Philips H9 bulb is only $7ish on Amazon (probably a few bucks more at your local auto parts store) and will be approximately 50% brighter than the H11 bulb (1350 lumens vs. 2100) and will use 10 more watts (65W vs. 55W) which most people claim is safe. The H9 bulb also yields a slightly whiter light than the H11 from what I've read.

Google H11 to H9 modification and you'll see tons of posts from owners of Subaru, Honda, Mazda, etc who have been using the H9 bulbs for years with no issues. About the only drawback I've seen with the H9 is that they burn brighter and therefore have shorter lifespans just like most of the other aftermarket bulbs on the market. But they're cheap and I don't mind replacing them every 8-12 months for 50% more light.

Hope this helps!

[BSoares]

Originally Posted by jkozlow3

The 2013 Santa Fe uses H11 bulbs for the low beams. The #1 best upgrade from hours of reading that I've done is to simply buy an H9 bulb and modify it to fit in the H11 socket. The modification is simple and entails trimming a piece of plastic off of the bulb. A standard Philips H9 bulb is only $7ish on Amazon (probably a few bucks more at your local auto parts store) and will be approximately 50% brighter than the H11 bulb (1350 lumens vs. 2100) and will use 10 more watts (65W vs. 55W) which most people claim is safe. The H9 bulb also yields a slightly whiter light than the H11 from what I've read.

Google H11 to H9 modification and you'll see tons of posts from owners of Subaru, Honda, Mazda, etc who have been using the H9 bulbs for years with no issues. About the only drawback I've seen with the H9 is that they burn brighter and therefore have shorter lifespans just like most of the other aftermarket bulbs on the market. But they're cheap and I don't mind replacing them every 8-12 months for 50% more light.

Hope this helps!

No reports of the plastic on headlights melting? Often higher temperatures can cause that and I'm sure this H9 burns hotter too.

[jkozlow3]

Originally Posted by BSoares

No reports of the plastic on headlights melting? Often higher temperatures can cause that and I'm sure this H9 burns hotter too.

For the most part, no. The high beams are typically around 65W in most vehicles (sharing the same wiring and housing) which is why swapping the stock 55W H11 bulbs out for a 65W H9 bulb seems to be fairly safe without too many reported issues after several years.

Google H11 to H9 upgrade and you'll see a lot of threads from drivers of various makes/models of cars who've done this upgrade over the years and very few have reported any issues. Here's a link to one such thread, including temperature readings: H11 to H9 conversion. DIY with temps - NASIOC

Note: I have not done this upgrade myself but plan to after purchasing a 2013 Santa Fe and/or Accord for me and my wife in the Spring.

[randomcompanies]

you want to find a bulb that burns at 5000k to perfectly match the eyebrow....if you are talking about halogen bulbs, which is what the santa fe has....HID lights are a different story....but make sure you get one that is in the 55w range to be safe, as that is what the wire harness that comes stock is graded for.....

formula j87.com is a place that I bought mine from and they are great...no problems in the last 5 months....they are blueish for the first 30 sec until they heat up...and they are like 15 for 2 bulbs with shipping bc they are aftermarket bulbs and dont have a sylvania or phillips or ge label on them...


this picture shows the difference between stock and the new bulbs...this is taken right when they were turned on that is why you see a little blue tint but like I said they are completely white once they heat up...I hate the whole blue tinted headlights thing people do, so trust me...

[BSoares]

Originally Posted by randomcompanies

this picture shows the difference between stock and the new bulbs...this is taken right when they were turned on that is why you see a little blue tint but like I said they are completely white once they heat up...I hate the whole blue tinted headlights thing people do, so trust me...

Forgot the picture?

[7milesup]

Originally Posted by BSoares

Forgot the picture?

No he didn't . The light just matches the background of your white screen.

[jkozlow3]

I think it's extremely important to note that any time you change to a bulb that is whiter/bluer in the color spectrum such as the Silverstar or other 4000k-5000k aftermarket bulbs, you LOSE brightness and you will be driving around with less light on the road as a result. All of these aftermarket bulbs which "appear" whiter (and which often deceivingly appear brighter) have a tint applied over the bulb to change the output color. Tinting a bulb will always give you LESS lumens than a stock bulb. Driving around with 15-20% less light on the road to gain a whiter light isn't smart.

I still think the H11>H9 upgrade is the best bet for the Santa Fe and any other vehicle which uses H11 bulbs. 50% more lumens (output), slightly whiter light, reduced lifespan, but inexpensive bulbs. Runs at 65W instead of 55W for the stock bulbs but this should be safe for the wiring and housing because I believe the high beams run at the same wattage. As I stated in my earlier post, this upgrade has been safely done for several years by owners of various makes/models without any issues and a quick Google search will show you that.

If you want to stay at the stock 55W AND you want more light, the only viable option in the H11 size is the Osram Night Breaker Plus which is classified as a +90 bulb and will give you slightly more output than the stock bulbs but will have a reduced lifespan. They will not have as much output as an H9 bulb however and are quite a bit more expensive.

Here's some very good reading from the Candlepower website/forums about bulb upgrades:

As for the various "plus" claims (+30, +50, +80, +90, etc.) keep in mind how they're devised: The plus-numbers cannot be attained simply through greater intensity from the bulb, because of intensity and wattage restrictions contained in bulb regulations prevailing worldwide. The "Plus" bulbs do produce near the maximum allowable flux but that's obviously not the whole story. These bulbs have higher filament luminance and give better beam focus because the filament coil itself is smaller. Headlamp optics are calculated based on a point source. The smaller the filament, the more closely it approximates a point source, and therefore the better the focus of the resultant beam pattern. The better the focus of the beam pattern, the higher the beam peak intensity (that is, the brighter the "hot spot"). Depending on the particular bulb and the specific headlamp optic in use, the gain in hot spot intensity can indeed be up to 50% (80%, 90%, whatever) at some specific but not uniform or predictable point in the beam. In practice, that means once Osram or Philips or whoever have designed their newest bulb, they throw the nearest convenient intern in a room with a bunch of headlamps and have him photometer them until the one that gives the single greatest increase (at any point in the beam!) is found, then they give the intern a food pellet as a reward. Tungsram called their 2nd-generation upgrade H4 "+60" either because they were lying or because they found a headlamp for a 1983 Tatra or something that had 60% more light in one particular spot. That doesn't mean the Tungsram "+60" H4 was better than the "+50" bulbs from Philips, Osram, and Narva -- it wasn't! So, those "+30" and "+50" and "+80" type numbers are not necessarily a trick or a scam, it just doesn't mean what most people assume it means.

For reference, here's manufacturer data, from internal engineering databases, for output and lifespan at 13.2v for standard-wattage H1 bulbs. The numbers here are a composite of values applicable to the products of the big three makers (Osram-Sylvania, Philips-Narva, Tungsram-GE). Each manufacturer's product in each category is slightly different but not significantly so. I picked H1-type bulbs for this comparison, and while the absolute numbers differ with different bulb types, the relative comparison patterns hold good for whatever bulb type you consider. Lifespan is given as Tc, the hour figure at which 63.2 percent of the bulbs have failed.

H1 (regular normal):
1550 lumens, 650 hours

Long Life (or "HalogenPlus+")
1460 lumens, 1200 hours

Plus-30 High Efficacy (Osram Super, Sylvania Xtravision, Narva Rangepower, Candlepower Bright Light, Tungsram High Output, Philips Premium):
1700 lumens, 350 hours

Plus-50 Ultra High Efficacy (Philips VisionPlus, Osram Silverstar, Narva Rangepower+50, Tungsram Megalicht, but not Sylvania Silverstar):
1750 lumens, 350 hours

Plus-80/90 Mega High Efficacy (Philips Xtreme Power, Osram Night Breaker):
1780 lumens, 340 hours

Blue coated 'extra white' (Osram CoolBlue, Narva Rangepower Blue, Philips BlueVision or CrystalVision, Tungsram Super Blue or EuroBlue, Sylvania Silverstar or Silverstar Ultra, which is just a rebrand of the Silverstar product, also PIAA, Hoen, Nokya, Polarg, etc):
1380 lumens, 250 hours

Now, looking over these results, which one would you rather buy and drive with? The answer depends on how well you want to see versus how often to change the bulb. If you want the best possible seeing, you pick the Plus-50 or Plus-90. If you don't care as long as it works and you don't want to hassle with it, you pick the long life.

So that's the pattern for how lifespan and flux are generally related. BUT, the lumen differences are not the extent of the performance differences. The filament changes required to make a long-life filament (larger mandrel, wider pitch) tend to reduce luminance and beam focus, which shortens seeing distance and makes the light color brownish. But lifespan is lengthened! The opposite filament changes are made to create the "Plus" (+30, +50, +80, +90) or Osram "Hyper" type bulbs: Lifespan is reduced, but the beam focus is better (smaller, tighter-pitch filament) so seeing distance is longer. Luminance is higher, so light color is whiter (literally less brown, not blue-tinted phony-white). These same changes can be rejiggered to hold flux constant with the standard-bulb baseline, but reduce power consumption (Osram and Philips are marketing such bulbs as an eco-friendly option). The takeaway message here is that even if all the filaments put out exactly the same flux, the beam photometry with the long-life bulb would still be inferior compared to the same headlamp equipped with a standard, +30, or +50, or +80/+90 bulb.