H8 bulb upgrades, if any...

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The fogs on the Cruze come with 35 watt H8 bulbs, and being factory long-life bulbs, they are adequate at best. I'm looking for some kind of upgrade. All I've run across so far are standard-life Philips bulbs and the usual Ebay "hyper-color" bulbs.

I don't use the fogs except in inclement weather, so they get rarely used. They are needed when turned on, though!

The fogs themselves are 4" diameter reflectors, so nothing special.
 
Here's is what I would do. First either replace the 35w H8's with eith Hella or philips that aren't blue. I think the OEM spec on H8 Bulbs is 35 watts. Or if you have a little extra money susquehanna motorsports or rallylights has really reasonable prices on replacement projector fog lamps. These are high quality oem made replacements. I have ordered off their site before and have had good results.
 
Switch them to 55w H11 bulbs, they have the same connector and almost always fit the h8 socket, if anything they look identical, id get the xtravisons too

H8 are too weak to use for anything and they are pain to find replacment at any auto parts store
 
My 2011 had H8 halogens in it for fogs. As w/ you op, I found them fairly useless. I went w/ Xenon Supply hid. World of difference. Use a relay to battery, no worries. If XS is too pricey, try DDM tuning. I used 4300K, pure white.
 
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Any issues with heat buildup with the H11's in a smallish housing?

I'm almost considering a cheap-o HID kit since the price for one of those isn't much more than replacement bulbs, it's not something I use nightly, and it would sidestep heat issues. If anything, the scatter would be of benefit...
 
If there are any usable optics in the Cruze factory fogs they will surely be overwhelmed by an HID downgrade as will modifying a similarly keyed over-wattage bulb to fit in the location will lead to increased heat (whether the housing/wiring can handle the heat is another issue)

Most factory fog lamps are sad to say more decoration than anything else due to poor design optics and small size. Please do further research here: http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb/forumdisplay.php?87-Automotive before trying to make them better. Often when trying to make lighting "more" it ends up causing more glare and light pollution to oncoming cars potentially affecting safety.
 
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Looks like I either need to be content with upgrading the H8 bulbs to standard-life varieties, or upgrade the fogs themselves.

This car has some pretty rocking headlights now, so that's not an issue.
 
You CAN get decent light out of a 35W housing, but it's got to be a really good housing. My '97 Dakota had decent fog lamp housings, and they took 893s, which are 37.5W bulbs. The fog lamps' beam pattern really supplemented the head lamps well.

That said, the H8 is not a very efficient bulb, with only 700 +/- lumens of light. I'd just live with them myself. I would NOT downgrade to an HID kit in those. The light scatter will be counter productive to what you're trying to get out of a fog lamp.
 
I just have to offer an opinion here. The fogs were rated for 35 watts of incandescent tungsten with no extra blocking of light from bulb (ie black section on tip). These folks offering opinions of "down grading" hids are probably the people who will high beam EVERYBODY with HID's because they prefer rolling around with halogens. I'm 47. I'm not a ricer. The bulbs are 35 watt, just like the stockers. I prefer white light, hence 4300K. They work great. With NO glare, NO "beam scatter" (lol fogs). Yes, I get numbnuts who bright light my projector low/fog HID combo about once a week. The fogs put NO light above the projector cutoff on the lows. So I just blast them back w/ 100 watt x 2 Halogen high beams. They don't EVER not turn off theirs. The fogs will do fine as HID.
 
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Originally Posted By: LineArrayNut
The fogs put NO light above the projector cutoff on the lows.


I would love to see a picture of the beam pattern of your fog lamps against a flat surface, like this:

amfogleft_oefogright.jpg


I will be duly impressed if you have no stray light above the cut-off.
 
Originally Posted By: Hokiefyd


I would love to see a picture of the beam pattern of your fog lamps against a flat surface



I will be duly impressed if you have no stray light above the cut-off.



I'd like to do that, but Hyundai puts the lights (and everything else) on a matrixed circuit that requires the projector lows to be on, then the fogs to be added in sequence. I can do a low only and a fog additional, if you like. The high beam (is a halogen still because they PWM the 12vdc for DRL) turns off the fogs, lol! And just in case you don't have that all mixed up, when running no lights, ie. only DRL in the daytime, to flash the "high beams" turns the lows on - same stalk action lol!
 
You could drape towels across the low beam lamps to take a quick photo of the fog lamps.

Even then, if it does work okay in a Hyundai Sonata fog lamp, it may not work okay in a Chevy Cruze fog lamp. The fog lamp would have to have very tight control over light optics for it to work okay. Most domestic fog lamps with which I have experience do not have very tight control. They're designed as "toy" fogs only. Hence the 37W halogen bulb in them. They're designed for the 700 lumens that an H8 puts out, not the 3,200 lumens that an HID source puts out.
 
These fogs do have a decent cutoff, but not razor-sharp. The low beams have a far better cutoff, good enough that it's counter-productive at times.
 
Either way, the cut-off (as good as it is or isn't) will likely not be maintained with HIDs. The cut-off is designed to control the light from a halogen source. An HID source is a different animal. The filament is not in the same shape and is likely not in the same location with most re-based HID bulbs (to fit into an H8 housing).

Here's a great example, from a Hyundai Genesis forum thread specifically discussing the hazards of installing HIDs in fog lamps:

Gencoupe.com thread

Towards the bottom, someone shows a picture of an HID fog lamp conversion in a Corvette. Note the well-controlled optics on the left from the proper halogen bulb. Note the vast amount of scattered light from the HID bulb in the right side unit. No offense to Cruze owners, but I wouldn't expect a Cruze fog lamp housing to have any better control over an HID retrofit than a Corvette fog lamp housing.

Maybe you can put an HID kit into a Hyundai and it works, I don't know. The only way I would recommend doing what you're doing is if you swapped some projector fog lamps in, like say from a Ford Fusion. Projector housings, by their very nature, tend to give better results with HID retrofit kits than do multi-reflector housings. But even with projectors, you still have to be careful. Here's an example of someone with an MDX just like mine, who put HIDs into the halogen projector housings. Look at all the waste glare, and the intense light above the cut-off from the squirrel spotters:

MDXers.org thread

HIDs really need housings designed for HIDs. It hardly ever works right in halogen multi-reflector housings, and even halogen projector housings are a roll of the dice. Sometimes it works pretty good and sometimes it doesn't. Even when everyone's using the same housing (as in the MDXers.org thread), some apparently have better results than others depending on the exact kit they're using, which is more evidence that filament placement on this re-based HID bulbs is not all that precise (meaning you're likely to have poor results in a halogen multi-reflector housing).

Edit: if these really are the OEM Cruze fog lamp assemblies as the auction claims, I would absolutely NOT recommend an HID conversion. The housings do not have a physical shield covering the front of the bulb, requiring the bulb to have its own shielding. I have seen a few HID kits which supposedly come with self-shielding bulbs, but I have not heard good things about them.

eBay link

Your comment about the main head lamps having a better cut-off than the fog lamps seems to correlate with what appear to be the OEM fog lamps in that eBay link. There's only so much you can do with the optics of the lamp housing without a bulb shield. My Dakota had very similar fog lamps: it took an 893 bulb in a 3" or 4" round housing. The bulb had a painted tip, which was the only shielding in that design. My '01 Cadillac STS was similar; it took a painted-tipped 880 in a rectangular housing. By comparison, Japanese and European fog lamps tend to have better optics. My Corolla (see earlier photo, with the OEM assembly on the right and an aftermarket assembly on the left) and MDX both had/have fog lamps, and both housings use physical bulb shields to better control the optics from the 9006/HB4 bulbs in the housings. They give good output from the 55W/1,000 lumen bulbs and a good light distribution with an excellent cut-off.
 
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Relax, folks. I'm not putting a cheap HID kit into my fog lights. I'm likely going to leave them as-is, and upgrade to better fogs when the option presents itself.
 
Originally Posted By: sciphi
I'm almost considering a cheap-o HID kit since the price for one of those isn't much more than replacement bulbs, it's not something I use nightly, and it would sidestep heat issues. If anything, the scatter would be of benefit...


By this comment, it seemed that you were considering it. Okay, *almost* considering it! Cheers!
 
http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f186/b_real45/HIDfogcompare.jpg

not my car but exact same car (even color, lol!)

http://www.hyundai-forums.com/222-yf-2011-sonata-i45/128229-hid-compare-55w-5000k-vs-35w-4300k.html

http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f186/b_real45/HIDnightcompare.jpg

I gotta say my XenonSupply 35W in the fogs add quite a bit more side light to see deer and other critters. These pics are the stock H8. In rain, the road is almost, just about, but not quite too bright.I don't have a camera anywhere near as nice as this guy. I might have time next week to do pics as you ask.
 
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^^^ if you are getting flashed by some "numbnut" "once a week" as you say, then I doubt you can make this claim: "NO glare, NO "beam scatter""

I can't get to the pics from here.... can't really assess.

maybe this is part of it? "The fogs put NO light above the projector cutoff on the lows." --- at what distance? fogs could be aimed high but at 10' still be below the low beam cutoff.... but at 60 be above it. may want to check that.
 
back to the OP--- I've seen some OEM fogs do a proper fog beam--- wide, low, short range, but most of the time I prefer more of a driving beam, which those housings just don't do.

and others are just for looks - my ex had a late model escape with cute little tungsten bulbs in it, like carrying two flashlights. the car I'm in now has a decent fog beam, and the optics are strikingly good..... but they shield 3/4 of the bulb resulting in a very restricted output. Only improvement I can see to them would be aftermarket or serious modding.... not worth it to me for something mounted low in a plastic bumper where off-road debris, or piles of snow, can take it out. I keep them clean, rarely use them, and they'll likely remain oem.
 
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