Does anyone have the sylvania silverstar lights on their tC how bright are they? Do they work well? Is there a big difference from the stock lamps? Also which silverstar model type would I need to install in my tC. Thanks

 

someone didn't do a search.

 

I put them in mine. I also have the so called oem foglights(actually driving lights) I put them in. Its a little brighter. When it rains you can actually notice a diffrence b/c you can see them better. Silverstars have a slight blue tint. Go to advance there on sale buy one get the 2nd 1/2 off. The bulb number for low beam is 9006 and if you have the factory foglights its the same bulb. The high beams are 9005.

 

does anyone have a pic of their silverstars on at night?..it would be greatly appreciated to see them as they truly are...the sylvania site doesn't do any justice.

 

Silverstars can't perform any better than a stock bulb due to the filter on the bulb itself. People will tell you otherwise, but unless they have actual numbers from a light meter don't trust what they say. People will often fall to the placebo effect after spending a good deal of money for headlight bulbs. Numbers don't lie. Here is a test done by overboost using a light meter on a few different bulbs. Those PIAA bulbs are very similar to the Sylvania Silverstars. http://www.overboost.com/story.asp?id=102

Since Silverstars have a bluish filter on the bulb, the filament inside the bulb has to be worked harder to get the legal light levels required for all bulbs. As a result, the bulb life is significantly decreased. All this at like double the cost of a good headlight bulb.

Further anything in the blue spectrum of light is just a bad idea for a headlight. Blue light tends to scatter when it hits water vapor. That is why the sky is blue. In the rain, when the blue light hits the water vapor it scatters and causes glare. In heavy rain, snow, or fog it can be very unsafe.

If you want a good replacement bulb, get the Sylvania Xtravision that comes in a purple/pink package. They are clear bulbs that use a slightly overdriven filament. You get actual extra light output over a stock bulb at the cost of a slightly reduced light.

If you want to go even further, look into retrofitting HIR bulbs. However, that requires modification to the HIR bulb and careful aiming of the headlights so that you won't blind people.

 

I put a silverstar in one light and left the oem light in the other the silver star is brighter. If you did a little more research you would have realized the oem light is 51w and the silver starlight is 55w.

 

^^^^ more watts = brighter light. Not.

 

I bought the Sylvania Silverstars before and they are just a little whiter, but still yellow! So I returned it and bought the real XENON Conversion kit from http://www.plasmagarage.com/ and everything else is history! I got the 9006 kit with 6000K for $389.00! The best upgrage you can put in your car - plus it's beam pattern and no adjustments are required. Took me 30 minutes to install. It's also a very good quality kit! It's worth every penny!

 

To your eye maybe. Do you have readings from a light meter measuring luminous flux to back up that statement?

There are several standards for rating automotive light bulbs. Some require the power to be measured at 12.8 volts, others at 12.0 volts (and I believe 13.2 volts is used as well). HB4 / 9006 type bulbs are rated 55 Watts at 12.8 volts, and 51 Watts at 12.0 volts. It is the same bulb just measured at two different voltages.

 

No, that type of HID retrofit kit will perform worse than a stock unit. Halogen bulbs have their fillament mounted in a particular way down to the fraction of a millimeter in placement. A HID bulb uses an arc, not a filament, that is a completely different orientation than a halogen bulb. If you place a HID bulb in a reflector housing designed around a halogen bulb the beam pattern will be totally off due to the point of light being moved in the housing.

Furthermore, to get that high color temperature, an additional filter has to be used on the bulb. The natural color temperature of a xenon based HID bulb does not change. It is dependent on the gas mixture in the bulb. A xenon bulb has a color temperature around 4100*K. Anything else that claims a higher color temperature is using a filter like what is done to make halogen bulbs blue. So with that filter you get significantly lower light output over a regular HID bulb.

So not only do you glare other people in the opposite lane with an obnoxious blue light whose pattern is all over the road, but you see worse as well. I am sure that the police won't hesitate to ticket you for that either as HID retrofits are illegal no matter how you cut it. That sure is money well spent.

 

well me personally... if i bought a headlight uprade.. it would be for looks, not actual performance...

i might get the silverstars for thier white/blue look.

i live and drive aroudn brightly lit suburbs/streets i rarely go on roads without street lights...

so brightness isnt a terrible convern for me usually...

my biggest problem is salt! salt on the headlights REALLLLY seems to diminsih the brightness of my headlights... gotta keep em clean

 

Actually, the retrofit you are talking about is probably from the good ol' days when they modified a ring to fit the regular D2S bulbs and have to modify your headlight housing, etc. This is a plug and play kit. The bulb is specifically rebased to halogen headlight base and the bulbs are not coated! Do your research! They added a mixture of hallide salts that causes the arc to reflect a higher Kelvin temp. and it's not due to bulb tint! And it's not obnoxiously blue either and don't blind people on the opposite direction.

 

European cars are now mandated to have cleaning nozzles like you have for windshields. Remember the wiper blades beneath the headlights on old Mercedes? They all use pressure nozzles now that are pretty well hidden. A quick squirt and all that salt and dirt is washed away.

European headlights also have a self leveling feature which is useful to properly aim your headlights. Its pretty cool to be able to aim your own headlights without having to worry about screws and driving up near a wall on a flat surface. They even go one step further and require cars with HID lamps to use auto leveling headlight assemblies to prevent glaring other drivers, another feature that should be mandated in the US.

 

the new STS has that auto leveling headlights...

i think it senses when your going over a hill to, and will aim the headlights down accordingly.

 

Okay, look at this: http://plasmagarage.com/HIDkits.html

It is a bulb that you place in your regular halogen headlight housing. It will move the source of light because it is not a filament but an arc discharge. If you move the point of light in any piece of optics, the beam pattern will be affected.

If you don't believe me, there are tons of other people out there who say it's unsafe.

http://www.danielsternlighting.com/t...nversions.html

 

So how do you explain the unaffected beam pattern I have on my car with no such adjustment made to the reflector/housing and the beam is pointed where it needs to go? I see this being a problem with dual filament bulbs i.e H4 bulbs or 9007 bulbs, but not on single filament bulbs like H1, H3 or 9005/9006. That's why they sell the H4 kit that has a shield built into the bulb so it doesn't reflect the light all over the place. All I'm saying is this kit worked for me and I'm sure anyone else that bought a kit that's retrofitted properly can back me up ( As if the Escalades and other cars that came with OE installed HID don't blind people either! )

 

Maybe if you had some top down aerial photography of your car in a pitch black section of road before and after the HID retrofit we can make a comparison.

Here, take it from a photometric engineer, not me:

"The only available arc capsules have a longitudinal arc (arc path runs front to back) on the axis of the bulb, but many popular halogen headlamp bulbs, such as 9004, 9007, H3 and H12, use a filament that is transverse (side-to-side) and/or offset (not on the axis of the bulb) central axis of the headlamp reflector). In this case, it is impossible even to roughly approximate the position and orientation of the filament with a "retrofit" HID capsule. Just because your headlamp might use an axial-filament bulb, though, doesn't mean you've jumped the hurdles—the laws of optical physics don't bend even for the cleverest marketing department, nor for the catchiest HID "retrofit" kit box."

A headlight bulb does not just emit light in a simple straight beam, but in a sphere from all directions. Headlight optics are designed to gather this beam pattern with a specific focal point in mind (coming from the specifications of the bulb being used) and reflect it into a specific beam to light the road ahead. Having a shield into the bulb is not an adequate method to prevent glare The light will still bounce around the headlight reflector and come out. Where? We don't know as the headlight is no longer in spec.

Yes, because those cars use headlights that are specifically built to be used with HID lamps. If you put in a halogen bulb in one of them, the beam pattern will also be projected in an unsafe manner.

If you had replaced the entire headlight assembly with something that used HID optics and mounted them in the place where the halogen assembly went, I would have no problem with that. Such a system will be safe as all the components used are designed specifically for HID use. Throwing in an HID system in a halogen reflector is simply not safe no matter how you argue it.

 

I don't need to argue about this - worked for me!

 

no matter what MR ASSCLOWN up there says.....i have silver stars in my highs and lows......there is a world of different in the clarity of the light beam, things on the road at night can be seen from a further distance and yes they are much brighter...oh and my silver stars arent BLUE at all...they are bright white....btw i didnt pay for them i get them free....so free bulbs is cool with me.

 

Whatever works, right Indigo?