Sylvania Silverstars bulbs: phooey!

rallysam · Post by **rallysam** » Tue Feb 04, 2003 6:56 am

Sylvania Silverstars headlight bulbs
Supposedly, much brighter than stock. Supposedly, the one bulb that is not just a phony color-changer. Most users on Subaru forums claim it's the brightest you can buy without going to over-wattage Halogens or HID.

What can I say: pretty frickin underwhelming. They definitely change the color and appearance of your headlights. Whoopy! I'm not a fricken Honda driver with light-up windshield sprayers. I'm looking for function, and the color change is of pretty marginal value.

Personally, I replaced 1 of my bulbs with a $25 Silverstar, and kept the other (crappy) bulb in there for a nice scientific test. Next, I squinted a lot while driving different roads and even pointed my beams at walls. I still can't discern any difference of brightness between two beams. Like I said, it was a color change - not a brightness change.

Consider that for $4 of turtle wax you can scrub the yellow fog off your headlights and make 100 times more improvement than $50 worth of Sylvania bulbs.

Rant over.

eastbaysubaru · Post by **eastbaysubaru** » Tue Feb 04, 2003 8:10 am

Interesting. I've been considering this for a while too. I think I'll just try to clean the lenses first and see where that gets me.

-Brian

JasonGrahn · Post by **JasonGrahn** » Tue Feb 04, 2003 6:14 pm

Yeah, i dropped the cash for both bulbs after listing to a friend of mine rave about these for about a half hour.

Considering that regular replacement bulbs come out to about 20 bucks, and they set of these silverstars are 50; it's definitly not worth the 30 extra. Don't get me wrong, I like the color change (it's NOT blue, which is the nicest part), but that's not worth $30 to me.

save your money, polish your plastic. or drop some serious dough and pick up some glass units from overseas.

-Jason

ciper · Post by **ciper** » Tue Feb 04, 2003 7:27 pm

I dont agree. Your first mistake was paying so much for them. For a while you could even buy them at Kragen/Schucks/Checker for 40 a pair plus a 10 dollar store gift certificate.

If you look online you can find them for about 45 shipped.

I cant say for sure if they are brighter or not, but they do produce more light than the bulbs I had. If that makes sense.

vrg3 · Post by **vrg3** » Tue Feb 04, 2003 8:10 pm

A color change can make it look brighter... Greenish and bluish colors look brighter to our eyes than reddish and yellowish colors.

I personally would rather avoid bulbs that are meant to give a "whiter" appearance or to look brighter due to a change in color. Short wavelengths are bad in rain; they scatter. Consider what happens in our atmosphere on a sunny day. The sun really is white, but the shorter-wavelength components get scattered all over the place so the sky looks blue, while the longer-wavelength components go straight through the atmosphere so the sun looks yellow.

Other drivers' eyes also recover from long-wavelength light more quickly than short-wavelength. That's why you use red-colored flashlights when you need to preserve your night vision.

I got rid of the fogging on my headlight that was fogged by going to a junkyard and getting an unfogged light for $20. Later this week I'm going to redo my headlight wiring the way it was meant to be done, with 10 gauge wire and relays right up near the nose of the car, which should net me a good deal more headlight efficiency. A good aiming session and a set of overwattage bulbs combined with the European-style beam pattern of the 92-94 BC/BF headlights should give me nice results.

JasonGrahn · Post by **JasonGrahn** » Tue Feb 04, 2003 8:10 pm

Got 'em from Shucks. WA state tax in my area brought 'em up to about 50 bucks. Everything else being the same, i don't think they're worth the extra money.

Later this week I'm going to redo my headlight wiring the way it was meant to be done, with 10 gauge wire and relays right up near the nose of the car, which should net me a good deal more headlight efficieny

Wanna post directions and pics of the change? I'd like to see how you do this.

Post by **Legacy777** » Tue Feb 04, 2003 8:24 pm

Where are you getting your european beam pattern? Any chance they would have anything for the 90-91 models?

vrg3 · Post by **vrg3** » Tue Feb 04, 2003 8:25 pm

I seem to have developed a habit of promising pictures that I never take...

I'll see if I can swipe my girlfriend's digital camera when I do it. I'll do a quick search for posts I've authored that contain the word "picture" to see what pictures I owe, too...

vrg3 · Post by **vrg3** » Tue Feb 04, 2003 9:03 pm

Starting in 1992, until at least 1997, Subaru used hybrid ECE/DOT headlights on the Legacies. The resourceful Japanese developed beam patterns that comply both with the European and American standards. Basically, they're better than any other American headlight but not as good as any other European headlight.

I remember when I switched from driving my old '91 Legacy to my old '93 Legacy. The difference in headlights was amazing. Not quite up to the standards set by my "real" European lights on my old '84 Mercedes 300D, but still miles ahead.

If you feel like doing all the work to swap 92-94 Legacy headlights into your car, you'll get much better and safer lighting.

Post by **Legacy777** » Wed Feb 05, 2003 4:57 am

nah....can't do that really....the 92-94 model headlights won't fit.

I'll just have to try and get some JDM ones

ciper · Post by **ciper** » Wed Feb 05, 2003 5:26 am

I searched around for a while and found specs for the amount of Lumens from the 9004 silverstar and other bulbs showed equal or better for the silverstars. (at the same wattage)

Most of the lower end "blue" bulbs ran at higher wattage yet didnt deliver a good amount of light. The silverstar outputs the same amount of "white" light as the other "orange" bulbs.

vypa · Post by **vypa** » Wed Feb 05, 2003 5:38 am

all i kno for sure.. is even with my headlights CLEAN my stock bulbs suck badly... when there is another car comin at me that has even decent headlights... or worse yet has the brights on... i cant see the road... any improvement at all would be good for me...

ciper · Post by **ciper** » Wed Feb 05, 2003 5:45 am

So while we are talking about bulbs I read this

http://chemistry.beloit.edu/BlueLight/p ... 1155-3.pdf

Which was very interesting, so then I found these

https://www.netdisty.net/ds/aut1157/default.asp
http://performanceunlimited.com/cobrava ... lamps.html

What do you guys think? Ive always thought that LED based lamps look great when flashing, far cleaner or"instant" than standard filaments that sort of fade. LED based lamps are easily more noticable when switching from on or off.

rallysam · Post by **rallysam** » Wed Feb 05, 2003 3:32 pm

all i kno for sure.. is even with my headlights CLEAN my stock bulbs suck badly... when there is another car comin at me that has even decent headlights... or worse yet has the brights on... i cant see the road... any improvement at all would be good for me...

I hear ya! I was desperate, too. I don't know why Legacy lights suck so bad compared to new cars.

But, before any of you drop the dough, make sure you buy from a store that lets you return an opened package because Silverstars may not satisfy you. All they do for you is change the color of the light to a more "balanced" tone. Sure, white light might be easier on your eyes. You could even argue that you can discern things better with a white light than a yellow-tinted beam. But, the road will not be any brighter or more visible. And like somebody said, red or yellow-tinted lights like your crappy OEM's ARE actually better for your night vision than bluish bulbs like Silverstars.

And realistically, it's not like these bulbs cost an extra $2 over standard bulbs. They are like double or triple the price. For that price, you can almost buy a kit of Hella fog lights or driving lights.

Maybe some Hella's are in order

Post by **Legacy777** » Wed Feb 05, 2003 3:42 pm

I like the LED's at Ledtronics.

They look like high quality units and are sealed.......I could possibly justify the brake lamps at $38 a pop.......you see the backup lights??? $84 each!!!!

vrg3 · Post by **vrg3** » Wed Feb 05, 2003 4:12 pm

vypa wrote:all i kno for sure.. is even with my headlights CLEAN my stock bulbs suck badly... when there is another car comin at me that has even decent headlights... or worse yet has the brights on... i cant see the road... any improvement at all would be good for me...

It's important not to get confused about what makes a good headlight. A car with decent headlights coming at you should not blind you. A good headlight has a good beam pattern, and a good beam pattern does not shine into other drivers' eyes, both because impeding other drivers' vision is dangerous and because shining light up into the air just wastes it and causes glare.

If you have a 92-94 Legacy you actually have a decent beam pattern; it throws most of the light onto the lower half of your field of view, with a little bit above the centerline on the right side to illuminate signs. Increased brightness could help; once I do my lighting wiring upgrade and document it, you might consider doing the same. Stock 9003 bulbs should do decently if they actually have the proper backup in the wiring department.

Also, it's possible for your headlight lenses to seem clean but not actually be fully clean. I had one headlight that was really yellowed and another that looked brand new. I used Mothers Mag & Aluminum polish to take out the yellowing and fogging on the bad light. If I didn't have the two to compare to each other, I would have said the bad light was like new. But, compared to the other light, it did still have quite a bit of barely perceptible fogging, which brought down the light output tremendously.[/b]

Js92Tru · Post by **Js92Tru** » Wed Feb 05, 2003 4:34 pm

One issue I can think of with the LED lights...

Since LEDs are quite directional and it looks like those bulbs are placed in a parallel array facing the back (or front) of the bulb that is where most of the light is going to be directed.

Now I'm not sure of the 90-91 cars but on my 92 sedan the 1157 bulbs on the outermost array of bulbs is set in at an angle. I think this angle may cause the light to be wasted on the inside-side of the lens instead of increasing rearward vision.

I will try to get a pic after I am out of class.

Jay

vrg3 · Post by **vrg3** » Wed Feb 05, 2003 4:40 pm

LEDs don't have to be directional. Many of them are due to the design of the plastic housing which acts as a lens. They can't really be omnidirectional but they can get close.

I'd bet that some of the cheaper LED-based automotive lights use directional ones while better ones use more diffuse ones.

You have a good pount... It's also not exactly clear how these LED lamps would behave in a light that has a reflector designed for a filament-based bulb.

vrg3 · Post by **vrg3** » Wed Feb 05, 2003 4:47 pm

rallysam wrote:Sure, white light might be easier on your eyes. You could even argue that you can discern things better with a white light than a yellow-tinted beam. But, the road will not be any brighter or more visible. And like somebody said, red or yellow-tinted lights like your crappy OEM's ARE actually better for your night vision than bluish bulbs like Silverstars.

Yeah, that was me...

Actually, light without a blue component makes it easier to discern objects.

The reason has to do with your anatomy. Your retina has three types of cones, which more or less correspond to reddish (long), greenish (medium), and bluish (short) wavelengths. The long and medium cones are on the imaging surface made at the back of your eye by your eye's lens, but the short cones are actually slightly away from that surface. The result is that blue objects are always slightly out of focus!

To see this effect, look at a blue neon light or something at night. It'll look a little blurry no matter what you do.

This is why skiiers, for example, sometimes use yellow-tinted sunglasses; it increases the perceived contrast of what they see.

Post by **Legacy777** » Wed Feb 05, 2003 8:05 pm

For those that haven't gone night skiing with a yellow goggle type lense.......it's amazing what sort of difference it makes in being able to see.

Maybe we should just be wearing yellow sunglasses at night

vrg3 · Post by **vrg3** » Wed Feb 05, 2003 8:07 pm

France used to require that all cars have yellow headlights...

Ogre · Post by **Ogre** » Wed Apr 16, 2003 8:52 pm

The French also do not wear any deoderant. Not a good example.

paf · Post by **paf** » Wed Apr 16, 2003 11:21 pm

I have actually worn yellow lensed sunglasses for night driving, its pretty good but as soon as the lenses are scratched it glares.

anyways about blue and yellow lights etc
I find this link quite useful
http://lighting.mbz.org/tech/bulbs/bulbs.html

rallysam · Post by **rallysam** » Thu Apr 17, 2003 2:46 am

paf wrote:I have actually worn yellow lensed sunglasses for night driving, its pretty good but as soon as the lenses are scratched it glares.

anyways about blue and yellow lights etc
I find this link quite useful
http://lighting.mbz.org/tech/bulbs/bulbs.html

awesome link!
Read it if you're thinking about ANY headlight upgrade

Grant · Post by **Grant** » Mon May 12, 2003 5:50 pm

I needed new headlights and since I have a ten mile interstate drive through the Denver Tech Center (road construction, lots of cars, high speeds, skinny lanes that shift all over, and no shoulders just jersey barriers) I wanted something that would help me see better. I've almost hit the wall a couple of times when they have changed the lane layout (which they do every few weeks) and my headlights weren't able to let me see it. Anyhow, I didn't want to fork out for the Silverstars so I went with the Cool Blue. I tested very scientifically. I was out front of my house at night. I turned on the lights and looked at how far up the street I could see both with and without brights on. Also looked at peripheral distribution pattern. Changed the Cool Blue Silvanias in and I had improvements in every category. I hate the color of them but they DO help me see better at night especially on the highway and their only like 25-30 a pair.

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A forum for 89-94 BC-BF(BJ) Legacy Owners and Fans

Sylvania Silverstars bulbs: phooey!

Sylvania Silverstars bulbs: phooey!