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What is your favorite non-OEM headlight bulb?
I'm not partial to brand. However, I do like getting the brightest bulb (not the one that has an optical illusion to appear brighter, but the true brightest bulb) I can easily find, that stays with the stock wattage (power). I don't like going higher wattage (more power) than stock, both because that can put stress on the wiring and lens (both of which get hotter than they were designed for), and because any extra power puts more load on the alternator (i.e. slightly more gas used, to produce the extra electricity).
However, what some people don't realize (and the car parts makers seem to do a good job of "hiding" the specs for), is that not all 55 watt car bulbs produce the same light output! While the difference between bulb quality/efficiency isn't huge, it is a real difference. And some headlight models are "slightly" (in some cases, as much as 20%) more energy efficient than other (more common) brands/models of bulbs. And while an extra 10%-20% light output (for the same wattage/power) isn't a lot of extra light, it is IMHO still useful. Which is why I look for halogen bulbs (in the "stock" wattage rating) that have higher quality construction/gasses (and therefore slightly more lumens per watt), as long as the extra cost of the bulb isn't outrageous.
Which is why I ended up going with NAPA "Xenon BrightLite" bulbs the last time I put headlights in my car (because the Xenon gas in them, gives slightly more light for the same wattage/power than the cheaper gasses used in many halogen headlight brands). As a result, for an extra $5 or so a bulb (cost of the BrightLite bulbs, over what I would have spent on regular halogen bulbs), I got headlights that were noticeably brighter. The difference in brightness wasn't huge (nor would I expect a 10%-20% brighter bulb to make a huge difference), but it was more than enough to be quite noticeable with the naked eye (when I was looking at what was lit up by the headlights)! And considering that headlights often last a few years, an extra $10 for brighter bulbs seems real cheap for what I'm getting (which is slightly more light on the road to see by)...
NOTE: NAPA isn't the only place that sells higher than average efficiency headlights, they were just the easiest place to get them from near me. Of course, you really have to dig into bulb specs to get the lumens/watt info, as most car bulbs don't list their lumens output (or in many cases, even their wattage) on the package itself.
NOTE: You want totally CLEAR glass on any headlight bulbs you buy! This is because any color/tint on the bulb, comes at the expense of lower light output. Clear glass (or is that really a quartz, in the case of a halogen bulb?) is the only "color" glass that will allow virtually all the bulbs light to go out as useful headlight light. Any "tint" (including the marketing gimmick of "blue" bulbs) comes at the expense of lower light output (and therefore less you can see on the road)...
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Back in the day, I tried as many "blue" headlights as I could find. I figured out that most didn't last very long at all.
Blue headlight bulbs (except for "HID" bulbs, which are naturally a little bluish) aren't useful IMHO. And the reason is simple: Incandescent bulbs (including "halogen", which is just a more energy efficient incandescent bulb technology) naturally put out (slightly yellow) "white light". So if you want to convert that "white light" into any other color (including a bluish tint), you do so by throwing away part of your potential light output of the bulb (leaving only the colors of light you are interested in)! This means that "blue bulbs"
have to be less "bright" than a clear glass "white" bulb of the same power (wattage) level! Which in turn means, that you are giving up light that you could otherwise use to see the road, by going with the "blue" bulbs.
i.e. IMHO "blue" bulbs are just a "marketing gimmick", that actually works against what you want (which is as much light to see by as you can get). Which is why I seek out bulbs where the "glass" is totally clear.