Came back last night using all unlit country lanes. My, the lights are awful!

Is there a way to improve this?

Osram Nightbreaker Ultimate bulbs and use the front fogs to give a wide spread of light directly in front of the car.

Ordered. Thank you.

After you play with the (very good!) bulbs recommended by Gd ... or GD ... or if we say Gilbertd might as well go as "GTD" ... look some day closely at your headlights. If the glass is very scratched/darkened, and/or the shiny chrome is dull/yellow, and especially if it starts to flake off ... time to search for better looking lights ... no easy repair for our Valeos :-/

Will do when it stops raining but I believe they are in excellent condition as the car has been well looked after.

As I regularly drive through the night on the Continent where there's no streetlights (and on a cloudy night with no moon it can be completely black), the lights were great on main beam but when dipped I may as well have switched them off! As much of my long distance driving is done on the wrong side of the road, rather than a stick on mask or bit of tape, I've painted out my lights so I've got a flat dip too. I tried the Osram bulbs and that made a huge difference and using the front fogs as well gives a good spread of light and doesn't appear to dazzle anyone coming the other way (nobody has ever flashed me anyway). I had one of the Osrams blow so put a standard one in until a replacement arrived. Driving into my driveway, I've got a window directly in front of me so could see the reflection of the lights. The Osram side was a bright blueish white while the standard 55/60W bulb in the other side looked a dirty brown colour in comparison.

I changed my standard ones out for Osram about 12 months ago. A definite improvement. No need for driving lights on high beam but and GD says, low beam is still poor. I think it is the design of the lights. If I was honest, the best lights light I seem to have are on my old Series III which has 7” QH sealed beams.

It seems that one manufacturers started going away from standard lights to all sorts of artistic shapes, lighting power has been an issue. I had a 2015 VW Amarok, candles would have been better for illumination, awful. Prior to that a Mitsubishi Tirton, same thing.

It's a vote in favour of the US style parts bin approach. If you have 6"x4" recangular lights (as fitted to many many Yank cars) there are tons of upgrade options available and aftermarket replacements at all levels of quality.
If you have a Fiat and crack a rear light - God help you. The Italians seem to have a tail light fetish and no two cars are the same.

I might give them a go as well. They seem to be known as Osram nightbreaker Laser. Can't see any "Ultimate".
https://www.amazon.co.uk/stores/OSRAM/page/F4D6C1DE-F0FB-4E94-8DED-F7679B2D9819?ref_=ast_bln&productGridPageIndex=2
I have got 100 watt bulbs in at the moment, which have been in for years. Got through the MOT without any comments. I should try some of these new generation bulbs. Am I right in assuming the dipping bulbs are H4 and the inboard main beams H1 ?

Yes, they keep changing the name, Ultimate, Platinum and I think you are right, the last ones I bought were Laser. Yes, mH4 for dip/main and H1 for main (I've still got standard Halogens in there, main is so good anyway, although it does look a bit odd with the different colour light from the two). I've used 100W bulbs in the past in other cars but they were 100/55W so no different on dip, just higher wattage on main which is good anyway.

The Yanks went away from standard lights a decade or two ago as well. I completely agree, the old standard system is better. My 1963 Series 2 has better low beams than my newer Rovers and my wife's Mustang.

New Osram bulbs fitted.

Definitely better. Main beam really good but dipped still leaves a lot to be desired. I realise that It is the design of the light fitting itself but compared even to our dogsbody 13 year old Rav4, it is pretty poor.

That's why I tend to use the front fogs as well on country roads or when it's really dark.

i find the lights on the rangey pretty reasonable, and given my other cars all have HID/LED systems thats decent praise.

As mentioned above, might be worth inspecting the reflector chrome. It can become tarnished and blackened with age, which really kills the light output.

My led bulbs ( powerfuluk.com ) light up the kerb pretty good, beam is excellent, OB recommended them but I was scared off by the price then ( £99) , when they dropped to half of that I bit the bullet, best £47 I’ve spent on the old girl,, I can now see where I’m going, not been flashed at either which was a regular occurrence while trying other bulbs

I had the LEDs from powerful uk and unfortunately I had to return them as they lasted around 6-7 months.
It was pretty good while it lasted though ... will try the OSRAMs when I gather some $$$ for them.

leolito wrote:

I had the LEDs from powerful uk and unfortunately I had to return them as they lasted around 6-7 months.
It was pretty good while it lasted though ... will try the OSRAMs when I gather some $$$ for them.

Wow, had mine a couple of years with no problems,,

Yeah, service staff at powerful.uk they were surprised, it hadn't happen so far. I was very pleased with them btw, hope to do business again if anything else of interest pops up

If you think that the lights on the P38 are bad then try a 2013 Lexus IS300H.

I have the Lexus and I can't believe how poor the LED lights are. There is very little difference between dip and main beam, but dip beam is really poor. I am sure that it really is down to headlight design. Having a clear plastic lens and a single, angled light source [headlight] just seems to waste any directional control of the light beam.

In fact I feel that with these new lights there is not actual light beam, it is just a light source.

Years ago I had four KC daylighters, rated at 150 watts each, on an Isuzu Trooper and with them on you could could see everything for about 1/2 to 3/4 of a mile, even a mouse on the road. They were supposed to be good for a mile. One thing that I liked was if some prat came in the other direction and didn't dip his lights I would wait until he was about 200 yards away and then switch on full beam and the plonker really looked like a rabbit in the headlights !! You really would be seeing stars, they were so bright and clear.

On the matter of using fog lights to drive on dip beam, I really hate this. It is also against the law unless there is falling snow or fog. It is not allowed to use fog lights in heavy rain due the the diffraction of the light, they are blinding to someone coming the other way.

One model of car that always, always seem to have foglights on with dipped beam are Nissan Micra's. I hate the darn things and I don't use courtesy when I see one coming the other way at night, I just leave my main beam on in the forlorn hope that the dummy driving might just think about why I didn't dip my lights. But I don't think that Micra drivers have a brain big enough to actually think !!

My P38 headlights are good, but that might just be that in the P38 I am much higher up that in the Lexus, which is very low in comparison.

Pierre3.

I think the main problem with a lot of newer cars is what we assume to be fog lights are the Daytime Running Lights, compulsory on all new cars from March 2018 but fitted to many before then. These can't be switched off and come on as soon as the engine is started. I agree that fogs can dazzle and the law says they should only be used in fog and falling snow but I suspect that is likely to change now the difference between front fog lights and DLR lights has become blurred, if you'll excuse the pun. Having replaced one of my front fog lights today for one that didn't have a stone chip hole in it so had filled up with rainwater, I checked the alignment against the garage door. The front fogs on a P38 give a very wide, very flat beam of light with a sharp cut off at the top. They have less range than dipped beam even, so light the edges of the road directly in front of the car but don't illuminate anything further away. Although I've never tried it, (except using them as DLRs in Poland and further east where DLRs or dipped headlights must be switched on at all times) I suspect that trying to drive in the dark just on front fogs wouldn't be a good idea at anything over about 20mph as you can only see what is immediately in front of you.