Talking about Ford's 9008 aka H13

Buck91

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So I've been running these Philips X-treme Vision 9008/H13 bulbs in my F150 for something like 5 years now and have no compliants. They work(worked) great and haven't burnt out yet. In fact I have the same ones in my Mustang as well (in the correct size). But the truck sees a decent amount of use and, especially in winter, a lot of headlight time. Can't be sure its the bulbs fault but I feel like the headlights are starting to get dimmer on me. Figured with the hours on these it wouldn't hurt to replace and I can just keep these as spares. Question is, are there any superior options in 9008/H13 these days? I've toyed with the idea of HID retro fit but I am unwilling to put the time and money in for a proper job since the factory lights really have been fine for me.
 

-Virgil-

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No, these are still the best H13 available. If you've gotten five years (and counting) out of a set of them, either you don't use your headlamps much or you've probably got low voltage to the bulbs.

Good thing you're not doing an "HID retrofit", because there is no such thing as doing a "proper job" of it, if you mean either putting an HID bulb where a halogen bulb belongs (covered here) or hacking the headlamp open, swapping in different components, etc (covered here). The only legitimate way to do an HID retrofit is if there are original-equipment HID headlamps for your particular make and model of vehicle (or OE-quality aftermarket units made by a legitimate maker, but that's very rare). That goes for "LED retrofits", too.

Depending on what year your F150 is, there might be OE HID headlamps you could swap in...or there might not.
 

Alaric Darconville

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So I've been running these Philips X-treme Vision 9008/H13 bulbs in my F150 for something like 5 years now and have no compliants. They work(worked) great and haven't burnt out yet. But the truck sees a decent amount of use and, especially in winter, a lot of headlight time. Can't be sure its the bulbs fault but I feel like the headlights are starting to get dimmer on me.
I'm with -Virgil- on you having low voltage to the bulbs. Properly fed, the X-Treme Vision bulbs will burn out before their filaments degrade to the point that output is noticeably diminished, and the envelopes themselves won't blacken very much. Take a close look at a bulb-- if the envelope is blackening, that's definitely a low-voltage issue (which will further bear itself out by doing a voltage test, described here). Take care to do the voltage test as described at that link-- just running the voltmeter across the terminals of the bulb socket won't tell you much at all.

And, it goes without saying that I'm with -Virgil- on the "HID kit" thing. Depending on the year of your F150, there might be a factory HID lamp setup.

04-25-2011, 09:53 PM
One of the cars I'm looking at picking up is coming with H13 (or 9008) headlamp bulbs andd was wondering if there is any talk of these around here? A quick search didn't reveal anything terribly useful or interesting... Although it seems the Philips Xtreme Power is available in this spec, and I have been VERY impressed with them in 9007 sizing.
Assuming you meant the F150 back when you posted that, if it was a 12th-gen F150 (2009-2014) then the 2013 and 2014 had an HID option. It MIGHT be possible that the '13/'14 headlamps will swap in to the earlier model years of that generation.
 

Buck91

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Low bulb voltage is a definite possiblity, truck is in great shape with minimal rust but it is a 2011 so some connections could be getting old and the factory wiring is never known to be ideal. I haven't had a chance to check voltage drop yet but I STRONGLY remember looking to wire up a relay harness before and decided to hold off because it looked like the truck had headlight relays from the factory... Well, going off these Chilton schematics it appears I was wrong.

2hrgzlt.jpg


9frtdc.jpg
 

Alaric Darconville

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[I] decided to hold off because it looked like the truck had headlight relays from the factory... Well, going off these Chilton schematics it appears I was wrong.
The diagrams may be an oversimplification and not explicitly state that there are relays. Many (most? Pretty much ALL?) modern*​ cars have a relayed headlamp circuit, but those relays are somewhat distant from the headlamps and still have fairly small gauge wire from them to the headlamps. You should hear them when you turn the headlamps on and the engine is off and it's quiet around you. It introduces a slight delay from switch on to lamp on to 'stack' relays (let the original relay serve to trigger your add-on relay) but still solves the voltage problem. You could go wild and try to overhaul that lighting system such that the combination switch controls your new relay, but the way things interlock with each other just "stacking" relays may be better.

*Pretty sure my '65 Dart didn't have relays, but my '76 Corolla did. For cars, "modern" is a mutable word indeed.​
 
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Buck91

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Well I should have checked for voltage loss today, but after visualizing the bulbs I don't think its necessary. The Philips X-Treme Vision that I installed in July 2018 look almost new still. Glass is definitely crystal clear and just a hint of not-brand-newness on the filaments. Thats four years and 50k miles of use. I can't give an exact but my best guess is somewhere around 50% of those miles were with the lights on. And get this... the parking lights are on relays but the headlamps are not! Any idea why it was done that way?

In any case, just received some 9008 ceramic socket extensions which I plan to use with existing 16ga wire spools to build up a left/right redundant relay harness. When I did my Mustang I took the time to solder up each connection, but I'm not sure how necessary that is. Any thoughts on solder vs. butt crimp connections?
 

Alaric Darconville

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Well I should have checked for voltage loss today, but after visualizing the bulbs I don't think its necessary.
"But you don't LOOK sick!"

Like medical tests, instrumented tests are still a good idea and can tell you much more about what's happening. Unlike medical tests, doing the voltage test is fairly inexpensive. If you don't have $15.00 or $20.00 VOM, you might as well pick one up because they're useful for so many things, not just checking your headlamp circuit.
 

Buck91

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Well the replacement Philips lasted significantly shorter with the heavy gauge relay harness. Purchased 12/2018 and burnt out earlier this week. They were VERY decent when new but lighting quality degraded significantly in the past year. Overall poor return on investment. Running an old bulb until I decide on what to replace them with but I'm pretty tempted to try the Hella +50 or the Wagner Nightdefense.

I'd love to go with a higher wattage bulb since I have the wiring but they look fairly unavailable for the H13... Probably a reason. Even the Hella's aren't made in that size (although when I tried the 9007 in my Mustang they offered no visible improvement over the Philips).
 
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Alaric Darconville

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Well the replacement Philips lasted significantly shorter with the heavy gauge relay harness. Purchased 12/2018 and burnt out earlier this week. They were VERY decent when new but lighting quality degraded significantly in the past year.
Odd that the performance dropped off long before the bulbs dropped off completely; as high-performance bulbs they should fail before lumen maintenance drops off very much, assuming the bulbs were getting the voltage they need.

Running an old bulb until I decide on what to replace them with but I'm pretty tempted to try the Hella +50 or the Wagner Nightdefense.
Well, aren't those Wagners CUTE!!! It's like an homage to Pikachu! I would avoid both these bulbs.

I'd love to go with a higher wattage bulb since I have the wiring but they look fairly unavailable for the H13... Probably a reason.
Higher wattage bulbs often have larger filaments, meaning poorer focus. Also, H13 bulbs have tiny contact pins which lead to heat problems as it is. Overwattage bulbs will result in real problems for the bulb socket.

Even the Hella's aren't made in that size (although when I tried the 9007 in my Mustang they offered no visible improvement over the Philips).
The Hellas aren't even made by Hella. Again, avoid them and avoid overwattage bulbs.
 

-Virgil-

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Well the replacement Philips lasted significantly shorter with the heavy gauge relay harness. Purchased 12/2018 and burnt out earlier this week. (...) Overall poor return on investment

If you got close to a year-and-a-half lifetime out of the high-perf Philips bulbs fed by a fire hose (relay harness) and you're complaining about that, you really need to adjust your expectations to conform to reality.

They were VERY decent when new but lighting quality degraded significantly in the past year.

Interesting...how did you measure this?

tempted to try the Hella +50 or the Wagner Nightdefense

Both of those are a complete waste of money if what you're trying to get is a bulb that will give a real headlight performance benefit over a standard bulb.

I'd love to go with a higher wattage bulb

That would be a very bad idea for all kinds of reasons. Poor beam performance (see what high-watt bulbs do to beam focus here). Also, your headlight reflectors -- the plastic substrate and the shiny material that makes them reflectors -- will perish. Also, the base contacts in an H13 bulb are undersized even for standard wattage, never mind for high wattage. Also there are no high-wattage H13 bulbs that are of good enough quality (filament placement, etc) to be worthy of serious consideration. Also you're in a pickup truck, so your headlamps are at a high mount height, which means you'll be throwing unsafe levels of glare all over the place (unless you lower the aim, then your seeing distance will be much too short...lose/lose).

It sounds like you're kind of splashing around, grabbing at random bulbs you think (based on _______?) will be better than the Philips. If you really have a hate for the Philips because you think their performance degraded over time, try the GE product and at least grab at something decent.
 

Buck91

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-Virgil-, you may very well be right that I need to adjust my expectations. I only drive about 10k miles per year in this truck, about half is with lights on and half without so I never even considered I'd get less than a good couple years. Previous experience with the philips and STOCK wiring they always lasted many years... As for measuring the output its completely subjective :shrugs:

Can you please explain why you have that opinion of the other bulbs I mentioned? I don't doubt you have very good reasons but just curious what they are. At this point I'm really tempted to try some standard replacement H13's (the philips OE replacements are only $8 at Menards right now) just for a baseline with the relay harness. Worst case is they become garage spares.
 

-Virgil-

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Can you please explain why you have that opinion of the other bulbs I mentioned? I don't doubt you have very good reasons but just curious what they are.

1. Poor quality (sloppy filament placement, etc)

2. Gimmicks (colored glass) that degrade seeing performance.
 

T-Steve

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A big thank you to the mods. I replaced the H13s in my '18 Jeep Renegade with the recommended Philips X-TremeVisions. They are noticeably brighter than the OE lamps.

Out of curiosity I took a close look at the filaments of my old lamps.
H13 1 Screenshot 2022-01-02 154328.jpg

and
H13 2 Screenshot 2022-01-02 154444.jpg


I was curious if there is a reference where we can determine if a lamp is getting close to end of life.

Here's the old H13s I removed.
20220101_160437.jpg
 

Alaric Darconville

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Good examples of the dendritic "growth" of the filament caused by bits of filament flying off, then bouncing back on to the filament and reattaching. This starts to ruin the quality of the beam by reducing the filament luminance. Higher quality/higher performance bulbs will burn out before their lumen maintenance and focus are reduced very greatly, but "long life" bulbs will long outlive their useful life-- lighting up but with a poorly focused beam and with low filament luminance.
 
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