As I'm looking to upgrade my headlights, has anyone experience of using LED bulbs or any advice please on the best and brightest bulbs to but?

Thanks lads,

Regards,

Stan.

My advice is on an older car - don’t fit LED bulbs. Apart from being illegal and an MOT failure, older reflectors mean the light scatter is less controlled.

I tried a set in my daily drive (a Citroen C1) and quickly went back to a pair of good quality H4 halogen bulbs; these actually performed better, with less “dulling” of the light output the further it was thrown.

You’d be best served ensuring the reflectors & lenses of your current headlamps are in tip top shape (so no yellowing, tarnishing or “product”, as MOT testers like to advise!) and fitting a pair of e.g. Osram Nightbreaker bulbs.

itcaptainslow wrote: ↑Sat Sep 09, 2023 11:32 am You’d be best served ensuring the reflectors & lenses of your current headlamps are in tip top shape (so no yellowing, tarnishing or “product”, as MOT testers like to advise!)

This is a bit of a worry, given that internal maintenance or refreshing of R8 headlamps wasn't provided for.

It seems to be particularly an MGF problem, but R8 and R3 reflectors are of a similar material and design. Only cure is a new headlamp, unfortunately.

Stan Thomas wrote: ↑Sat Sep 09, 2023 8:47 am As I'm looking to upgrade my headlights, has anyone experience of using LED bulbs or any advice please on the best and brightest bulbs to but?

Thanks lads,

Regards,

Stan.

You could try Osram Nightbreaker or Philips Xtreme bulbs for a higher light output. They're legal, they have up to 200% light output compared to minimum specification, and they're a cooler white so they look more modern.

Thanks for all your advice lads - although it looks a devil of a job to change the bulbs on my headlights -and I'm even contemplating taking the bumper off and removing the headlight units to get at the bulbs!!

My MOT tester will fail LED headlight bulbs on sight especially on the R8s - I can get away with them on the pre war 6v stuff and even the pre 1930 stuff but H4 particularly are too modern to change over even if the H4 is designed specifically as LED bulb
My MOT station will not tolerate and so will anyone else.