They’ve been around for decades. Halogens use filaments of glowing halogen gas to create their light; modern halogen bulbs are far brighter and longer lasting than they used to be. They use a range of H fittings (for example, H1, H4, H7), so make sure you know which one you need when replacing your own.
Top halogen bulbs
1. OSRAM NIGHT BREAKER LASER
Price: £19.18 | VIEW OFFER
High intensity, bright halogen bulbs.
2. OSRAM COOL BLUE INTENSE H7
Price: £19.79 | VIEW OFFER
These Philips bulbs give a crisp, white light.
4. Philips RacingVision
Price: £19.37 | VIEW OFFER
Philips bulbs for extra brightness.
5. Philips LongLife EcoVision
Price: £14.99 | VIEW OFFER
These bulbs claim a service life of four times that of standard halogen bulbs.
Replacement bulbs
The first, natural step is finding out which bulbs your car already has fitted. Please don't be one of the wombles who asks a shop assistant for a replacement bulb without knowing which one; I used to sell hiking footwear and the number of people coming in who didn’t know their own shoe size (predominantly men), was ridiculous.
To check, your car’s user manual should tell you. Alternatively, you can check the actual bulb itself (some cars also have the bulb type on the headlight casing inside the engine bay), or you can go online. There are numerous car parts websites that allow you to plug in your car’s rego or details and the correct bulbs will be presented to you – Amazon does this too.
Halogen bulbs are easy but sometimes fiddly to replace:
1. Access to headlights is from behind, inside the engine bay, don’t have to remove the headlight
2. Designs vary but generally, there will be a plastic cover that you remove to access the bulbs inside the light.
3. Carefully unclip or pull out the bulb from the mounting. And look at the position the bulb was clipped in, so you know how to fit the new one.
Tip: It doesn’t matter with the old bulb but do not touch the glass on the new bulb because your oil on your skin will blow the bulb immediately.
4. Remove the old bulb from the connector.
5. In order to fit the new one, do the exact reverse of steps 1 to 4.
6. Once you’ve fitted the new bulb, give them a test.
Xenon/High Intensity Discharge (HID)
These bulbs have an arc that use xenon gas and metal salts to generate their light. Xenon bulbs require a momentary high voltage to ignite. They burn colder than halogen which is why they emit a bluer light; Xenon bulbs also tend to be brighter and last longer too. Consequently, they are more expensive to buy than halogens. In terms of fitting, xenon bulbs can only be fitted to cars that came with them from the factory; it’s illegal to install them. They use a range of D fittings.
Some xenon bulbs can be replaced in a similar fashion to halogens – it depends on the car model. However, some xenon bulb replacements require removing the entire headlamp, in which case, you can still buy the bulbs to save a few pounds if you wish, but get them fitted by a professional.
Top xenon bulbs
1. OSRAM XENARC ULTRA LIFE D3S
Price: £101.20 | VIEW OFFER
Osram claim four times the lifespan of ordinary xenon bulbs with these.
2. OSRAM XENARC COOL BLUE INTENSE D1S
An extra blue tinge glows from these Osram bulbs.
3. Philips Xenon Vision D3S
Price: £69.67 | VIEW OFFER
Good quality standard replacement bulbs at a good price.
4. Philips X-tremeVision
Price: £131.17 | VIEW OFFER
Philips grant improved visibility with their expensive but seriously punchy X-tremeVision bulbs.
LED bulbs
Like HID, are not allowed to be retrofitted on car headlights – you can fit them in interior lights for example. You may find LED lights with H7 fittings for example, but they are not road legal or ECE compliant. LEDs are more energy efficient and long lasting than the competition - up to 10 or so years. These days, LED lights are generally replacing xenon in new cars – for example, current higher-end Mercedes-Benz A Class models feature LED headlights. They’re practical and allow car makers to create cool headlight shapes. LEDs can be fitted with sensors and therefore become adaptive. The downside is they can be incredibly expensive to replace and only done by professionals.
Future of headlights
These days laser lights are coming into the battle. These work by firing a laser at phosphorus, emitting light which is filtered through a lens and then hits a reflector. The advantage is a cool gimmick. Also, this laser light technology uses hundreds of mirrors that can be individually adjusted by the car’s brain to tune where and how the road ahead is illuminated. In simple English: smart adaptive headlights. Cool stuff.