I don't doubt that. They just haven't moved the WRX/STI into the new chassis. Test driving a 2016 WRX premium is what led me to buy my Lincoln. The interior was just sad. Lots of hard plastic with nothing soft touch and cheesy red incandescent lighting (I'm old enough to still think of Pontiac Grand Am's when I see cheesy red lighting inside). A good friend has a Legacy and a Crosstrek. Both are phenomenal cars with great dependability. He even uses the Crosstrek to tow his boat. He loves them, but also sees them as crude appliances.

VW's are a different story. The level of detail and soft touch materials is pretty amazing at their price points. I'd consider the new 1.4 Jetta's to be about the best buy in the modern automotive world. Long term dependability, however, is yet to be determined.

 

Nice win/win! HID projectors on a fun car!

 

The 2016 and up Civic has optional LED’s. My friend has one and they aren’t bad but aren’t great. The HID projectors on my MX-5 are better but they are retofits.

 

yah, you dont buy a WRX for its interior. but why you 40-something fellow buying an old man geezer car is quite unique too.

you buy the wrx for the driving dynamics and all the fun. if youve been in a Evo, the WRX's interior is actually pretty nice. but no where at the level of my Golfs for sure. but the quirkiness of the STI is kinda charming to me for a japanese car. something about subaru's..definitely has a unique character. as for lighting, not as good as my Golfs but still leagues ahead of the GK. but then it's twice the price, better be good.

 

All cars should have the option of brighter headlamps as an ala carte option. LED HID or similar as OEM are the best way to go here. Anything in the aftermarket realm is a recipe for disaster imo. As an example, GM will force buyers into a higher trim level, and will NOT offer brighter headlights as an option on lower trims.

 

^ agreed. i'd take a lighting package option on the GK even if it costs $1k more.

i too not fond of aftermarket lamps.

 

Incorrect. Sure, there are a lot of terrible aftermarket kits and bulbs out there that are poorly done but a properly retroftitted headlight swap can rival OEM lights especially if you use better lenses and bulbs.

I opened up my Mazda MX-5's headlights and swapped in the projectors from a Mazda RX-8. It takes some work to open them up but it's a popular swap. The RX-8 HID projectors bolt in to replace the halogen projectors that came with my car. If I had just put HID bulbs in my stock halogen projectors, it would have been a terrible aftermarket solution as the projectors are different between the HID and halogen cars. The light is aimed differently.

I didn't buy the higher trim of MX-5 with HID's because I didn't want the leather seats (I hate leather) and retractable hard top of the higher trim level. No one makes an SCCA approved roll bar that fits under the hard top, only the soft top. Plus the OEM HID projectors aren't that great.

I then used clear lenses to replace the fresnel-cut OEM Mazda ones in the RX-8 projectors. The bulbs are D2S OSRAM Xenarcs and everything is connected with a plug and play harness that includes proper relays. I've had my retrofitted headlights for 4 years. They look OEM but are much brighter with a razor sharp cut off and perfectly light up the road and side of the road. I rarely use my high beams. No one every flashed me as they are properly aimed too. Even my friends who have higher end cars comment on how incredible my lights are. Sure, they aren't adaptive but my car pulls well over a G in the corners and as with most sports cars, the AFS motors couldn't keep up anyway.

 

sjd, I'm glad yours went well, but I see lots of bad ones on the road. Mis-aimed, poor fitment, bad housings, etc.

Nothing better than OEM perfection when it's right. That goes for any vehicle mod. I'm in the process of putting a turbo, better brakes, suspension, etc on our Fit, but I promise you that Honda could have done it better. Their engineers are certainly better than I am at making perfect finished product.

Well, their engineers were perfect. I'm not sure that's still true. Would have to go back a decade to get good OEM Honda headlights.

 

I really hated the lights on my 2016 LX.

Have a rental Camry today and, on the same dark areas, the Camry nearly put out more than twice the light on low beam. than my LX.

Should I raise the beam? Dealer said they not do this. Should I go up the line in bulbs trading higher brightness for much lower life?

Looking fora solution since the OEM brightness is downright dangerous.

Do not want to go to HID because of cost/reliability.

Thanks

 

yah aim it up a few degrees for certain. if u find a good bulb, let us know.

 

do retrofit. yes it involves HIDs, but you will be adding projectors to your headlights and will give u a better output.

 

hey ryu do you know if there are 3rd party lamps that have the HID's already built in? like a simple plug and play kit that are actually good?

i dont feel like taking apart my factory lamps.

 

Sold by:
$26.45

 

The trouble is that in the USofA we lag so far behind in lighting tech. I think our 1930 something rule requiring 7" sealed beam tungsten headlights stayed in effect until about 1986. How's that for glacial movement? The retrofit was easy you'd buy a set of Hella's or Cibie conversion lights & put them in. Instant halogen lights the best there was!

How times have changed. Car makers can now make aero headlights that are halogen. But that is not enough so folks convert them to HID & that is much harder to do right. Most I see are F'n terrible for oncoming traffic. Lifted trucks are the worst.

If we wait another 50 years or so we'll have those great lights that are being used in the rest of the world now.

Maybe the answer is a rack of driving lights across the front bumper. ;-)

 

thanks, cgs2000. used some amazon points to try a pair. will keep u folks posted.

ash- if it was a MINI, sure!

 

Only had 2 on the MINI.

As you can see our Arrow rally car had more lights, plus Cibe conversions & a big fog light on the back bumper for use as a backup light. That was a long time ago when cars had bumpers you could mount lights on. Pre-HID days so state of the art halogen. ;-)

 

yah that rally car looks cool.


hey got the bulbs yesterday. will install maybe tomorrow and yank the DRL fuse.

 

Is there a DIY guide somewhere about changing GK headlight bulbs?

UPDATE: I found this on youtube, it looks easy:

 

thanks but yah, already changed the bulbs this am.. it's real easy to do, just pull the connector off, pull off the rubber boot, unclip wire bulb holder where there is a curved 'handle' (just push in and move it one way or the other and it will unclip), pull bulb out without touching the bulb glass. and install in reverse order. maybe 3 min per side to do.

will see how my wife likes it in a few days.

 

Ken do you see a noticeable difference in light output from these bulbs?