I have found my 2015's headlights unsatisfactory. worst problem is when turning from a main road onto a side road, there is not enough light thrown to the sides for me to see where the new road ends on the right and the shoulder (or the cliff) begins, and where the center of the new road is, on the left. These areas are too dark, so unless i proceed very very slowly (with cars backed up behind me and maybe crashing into my rear), I can't steer my car into the proper spot. But simply driving along, the high beams don't throw enough light immediately in front of the car for me to see that part of the road well, and the bright spot down the road, simply isn't bright enough; the low beams simply aren't bright enough.

 

Can anyone tell me if it is possible for me to have headlights like this in my 2011 LX? If so, what hardware do I need, and how difficult is it to do?

 

The output in the video looks like ECE or right hand drive HID's. You can achieve the left hand drive equivalent with a retrofit.

 

I'm new to this. Could you be more specific about what exactly I need? It says LED in the video; is it HID?

 

Looking at the video, I don't think its as bright as a full on HID. It's probably just a high lumen LED like the video says.

You need to find a high lumen/LUX LED for H4... good luck with that. I'm still searching for one that fulfills three conditions: 1. high output, 2. clean cutoff, 3... lasting more than a few months while driving 5 hrs every evening.

I've gone through four LED kits... First only had high output, didn't have even a good cutoff and died after a few months. The next two had okay cutoff, but not high enough output. The fourth, had better cutoff, decently high output... but died after only a week.

The first three I bought off Amazon... and what I noticed is... a LOT of customer pictures that show AMAZING images, do not have H4 type bulbs... they have H7, H11, etc... everything except H4. Of the main types of bulbs, H4 is the only one that has dual filaments... so, it's likely the manufacturers are having issues making LED types for it.

 

Hmm. And I take it H4 is the only kind that will work for us? I thought LEDs were supposed to be the longest lasting option by far. Can these results be achieved with an HID kit, and would that last longer than the LEDs you have gone through?

 

Yup, that's what the headlight housing & bulb mounting is designed for. Using anything else (like the H7 that sort of fits), will only give you one output type... always ON high beam.

A good quality LED from a reputable manufacturer will last a long time... but the issue is, there just aren't many good/reputable manufacturers to begin with.

Two of the LED kits I bought, are actually the same brand, Hikari (just the one was is a "premium" version of the other). Supposedly, that's made by Philips. Technically, they haven't died on me, but I haven't used each of them for more than a month yet. I originally bought the premium version, but later switched to a "cheaper" version and finally to a completely different brand LED because of the quality of the light output. The cutoff wasn't clean and both weren't bright enough for me.

There's another thread on the forum somewhere about headlights rotated (I think in the GK section). And honestly, I had never thought about it... but as it turns out, it is indeed rotated. A standard halogen H4 works, so I think it's part of the standard. I mentioned earlier that H7 sort of fits in an H4... and in reality, what a lot of manufacturers do is share parts between H4 and H7 to keep their costs down. And I think that's where the issue about rotated comes in, as they share the outer housing and need adjustments to fit the appropriate adapters.

The premium version Hikari isn't designed to lock in the right place for our H4 housing (it's locking position is wrong, at least for USDM H4), meaning I can rotate it to make the cutoff a little better, but it won't stay in place can easily rotate in either direction and mess everything up. The cheaper version, DOES have a way to lock at the rotated angle, and even though that cutoff is like the premium version's "adjusted" position, it's not that great (and don't forget what I've also mentioned about brightness). These two also trigger the DRL warning light in the dash (like what would happen if a bulb burns out) when in DRL mode. The other two kits didn't trigger this.

Moving on... if you want to use HID... that's even worse unless you do a retrofit. The issue is the same, no real good quality/reputable manufacturers for H4 kits. I went through 3 H4 HID kits when I was driving a Nissan Pathfinder (uses H4). All three were "bi-xenon" types which are supposed to move the bulb and a shield to change from low beam to high beam. The first kit was the only one of the three that had the exact cutoff as a halogen bulb. However, the output was barely brighter than the halogen bulb... and didn't last long (but longer than the LED kits so far). The second kit was MUCH brighter, but the cutoff was TERRIBLE making it even LESS useful than the first kit (unless you like blinding oncoming drivers). The third was a bad combination of the first two... not as bright as the second kit AND bad cutoff. Of course, they didn't last too long either. What's annoying, is that the first and second set were supposed to be the SAME BRAND. It's likely the bulbs are rebrands of something else and they switched between the time I bought them. I wanted to move the shield from the first kit onto the second, but they are mounted differently.

After I got the Fit, I switched out the headlight housing from a single H4 to dual H1 type bulbs. And even then, the issue persists with finding quality/reputable manufacturers. They weren't as bright as I knew they could be and usually didn't last long. The dual bulb set up also introduced a slightly annoying aspect of HID bulbs, they have a warm up time. So, when switching to high beam for moment (to flash or in areas that need it, like dark road through a pseudo forest), it might not even be as bright as the low beam that's been on a while.

If you do a retofit, you can avoid having to move the bulb itself. The shield for projectors are also different. But of course, in the end, you're actually changing from an H4 type bulb to a 'D' type HID bulb (there are eight D type bulbs, D1R, D1S, D2R, D2S, etc). I haven't done this, so I can't really say anything about quality and such.

 

Hi there, the headlight you saw in that video is the stock LED projector headlight we get in Australia.
The wirings are completely different from an H4 headlight, a conversion will cost too much.
You won't achieve the same performance with a simple LED or HID kit.
I would suggest keep it stock or save up and get the COPLUS headlight, they do make headlights to suit H4 models.

COPLUS Honda Jazz/Fit headlight

COPLUS Honda Jazz/Fit headlight on-road test