Few bulb questions

[The Whispering Gallery]

Can I please have a recommendation for the halogen low beam bulb in a 2008 Mazda 3 (USA)? Is the Osram Rallye 65W H7 a good choice?

Is there any chance that the Philips red 7443 drop-in LED would work well as the Mazda 3 stop light bulbs? I would guess not based on the fairly sharp angle of the bulb, but figured I would ask here anyways. How about the same bulb for 2014 Nissan Rogue stop lights? I see that this bulb is part of the Vision line which I believe has been stated on this forum to be lacking a bit in their overall brightness.

Thank you.

 

[haha1234]

The 65w H7 is a good bulb, and so are the top stock-wattage 55w bulbs like GE Nighthawk Xenon, Osram Nightbreaker, and Philips Xtreme Vision. The Nighthawk Xenon is also sold in Europe as the Megalight Ultra (part #58520SNU) and available at a great price. GE also has the Night Hawk Platinum H7 which is almost as good as the aforementioned bulbs and also cheaper.

I'm not a fan of the LED's, but if you insist on using them, get the Philips product.

 

[The Whispering Gallery]

The 65w H7 is a good bulb, and so are the top stock-wattage 55w bulbs like GE Nighthawk Xenon, Osram Nightbreaker, and Philips Xtreme Vision. The Nighthawk Xenon is also sold in Europe as the Megalight Ultra (part #58520SNU) and available at a great price. GE also has the Night Hawk Platinum H7 which is almost as good as the aforementioned bulbs and also cheaper.

I'm not a fan of the LED's, but if you insist on using them, get the Philips product.

Thanks for the reply. One thing I was curious about is the issue of glare with the Osram 65W bulbs, given that they produce something like 1/3 more light than a standard bulb. Is it true that they aren't a good choice for some H7 headlamps? I would guess that my headlamps have good glare control though.

Not at all insisting on LEDs but yeah I wouldn't try anything other than Philips at the moment. Was mainly just curious about how they would work in those particular tail lamps.

Thanks again.

 

[-Virgil-]

There's a chance the Philips Vision LED red 7443 might work well in those stop lamps. There's also a very promising new (brand new, released a couple of weeks ago) contender being sold by Osram-Sylvania in their "Zevo" brand line, with extremely limited distribution so far. My initial reaction to it, pending more tests, is that it is kind of a leapfrog over the Philips Vision. But how well or poorly it works is heavily dependent on the lamps themselves; see discussion here (and follow the link it contains).

As for the headlamps: Osram or Flosser 65w H7 would be the premium pick if you keep your headlamps in proper aim. They produce very little glare, nowhere near the legal limits, so there's a lot of "headroom" for more light without approaching glare danger limits. If you want to stick with nominal 55w bulbs, the Philips Xtreme Vision is the cream of the crop. The other ones haha1234 mentions are also very good.

 

[The Whispering Gallery]

There's a chance the Philips Vision LED red 7443 might work well in those stop lamps. There's also a very promising new (brand new, released a couple of weeks ago) contender being sold by Osram-Sylvania in their "Zevo" brand line, with extremely limited distribution so far. My initial reaction to it, pending more tests, is that it is kind of a leapfrog over the Philips Vision. But how well or poorly it works is heavily dependent on the lamps themselves; see discussion here (and follow the link it contains).

As for the headlamps: Osram or Flosser 65w H7 would be the premium pick if you keep your headlamps in proper aim. They produce very little glare, nowhere near the legal limits, so there's a lot of "headroom" for more light without approaching glare danger limits. If you want to stick with nominal 55w bulbs, the Philips Xtreme Vision is the cream of the crop. The other ones haha1234 mentions are also very good.

Think I'm going to try the Osram 65W. Looking forward to hearing more about the Zevo LEDs after more testing has been done. Thanks for the replies.

 

[Alaric Darconville]

There's also a very promising new (brand new, released a couple of weeks ago) contender being sold by Osram-Sylvania in their "Zevo" brand line, with extremely limited distribution so far. My initial reaction to it, pending more tests, is that it is kind of a leapfrog over the Philips Vision.

And this is why being an early adopter is painful.

Unfortunately, with every new legitimate brand, there will be a slew of knockoffs trying to get on that bandwagon.

 

[The Whispering Gallery]

Saw that the Zevo 7443 red LED bulbs were in stock at my local O'reilly and I couldn't help but test them out. I found them to be inadequate in my tail lamps.

Tail lights seemed to be about as bright as the incandescent bulbs (which are Philips standard bulbs and only a few months old), but the beam pattern is weird. Incan is left (passenger's side) and Zevo LED is on the right (driver's side).

LED seemed dimmer than incandescent with brakes on. I would guess that the beam pattern of the LEDs is the same for the brake lights and parking lights, but that detail doesn't show up in this photo.

Pic from rear with parking lights on:

Pic from rear with brakes on:

I know that photos or visual impressions are not typically that useful to evaluate bulb performance, but I think it is evident that these particular LEDs don't perform well in these particular tail lamps.

 

[-Virgil-]

I think your conclusion is correct: these bulbs don't work safely in those lamps. Your photos and observations are very good illustration of the one-sidedness of subjective, visual assessments: they can't be relied on to tell us a setup is good enough, but they can definitely tell us a setup is not good enough.