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Another headlight topic...


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I know I'm beating a dead horse with this topic, and believe me; I've searched through here trying to get a reasonable answer with just further confusion. But I wanted to throw it out here to get any fresh ideas...

 

The headlights on my 2017 2500HD Silverado are horrible - specifically, the low beams. So what, if anything, can I do to make things slightly better?

 

I would like something "plug-in-play" where I don't have to cut out parts of the housing to make things fit or cut wires under the hood. I'm open to better halogens, LED, HID, anything. And I have no problem paying good money for a good product. I don't want to "rice up" the truck with a bunch of screaming blue, make grandma run off the road from the glare, nonsense. I want to be respectful of other driver's on the road. But keeping these stock headlights are driving me to not want to drive at night - we have a heavy deer population and it's just a matter of time before catch one!

 

This is by far the worst vehicle I've owned or driven when it comes to headlight quality. I figured it out tonight, and I've operated around 18 different vehicles in the 25+ years I've been driving - between personal vehicles and company vehicles. Never have the headlights been this bad. My 1980's era classic sports car with the rectangular sealed beam headlights has better illumination then my truck! And before someone says that the projector style gets some getting used to, my previous vehicle had projector HIDs with the same cut off line and they were fine. In fact, probably the best light I ever had on a vehicle!

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I've looked through several really good topics on this page, and it seems there are a few popular options for replacements that are plug-n-play. The downside is it also seems that many of those options are more for show. HID lights will give much better output, but they require more during installation and some have flicker issues. I'm sure I've only made your research more convoluted, but I'm honestly in the same boat as you. I have a 2015 though, and the headlights may be even worse.

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Probably not the answer your looking for but i leveled my truck and did not have the headlights adjusted now they are perfect. Honestly I think they are pointed to low from the factory. I do not get high beamed by other drivers. I do try to give space to smaller cars when following them I can see their cars fill with light if I'm to close. No tailgating!

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Go with Morimoto HID's. I had them in my stock 1500 headlamps and they were a day and night differences halogen. Put them in my Winjet projector headlights and they are even better. Make sure you get the anti flicker DRL device so they operate at the DRL voltage (9 volts instead of the full 12)

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Probably not the answer your looking for but i leveled my truck and did not have the headlights adjusted now they are perfect. Honestly I think they are pointed to low from the factory. I do not get high beamed by other drivers. I do try to give space to smaller cars when following them I can see their cars fill with light if I'm to close. No tailgating!

 

 

I did the same on my truck. I also installed Sylvania silverstar ZXE bulbs in mine. It did help, and now they work fairly decent. But I agree, no tailgating. I only get brighted once in a great while.

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Go with Morimoto HID's. I had them in my stock 1500 headlamps and they were a day and night differences halogen. Put them in my Winjet projector headlights and they are even better. Make sure you get the anti flicker DRL device so they operate at the DRL voltage (9 volts instead of the full 12)

 

This. The P-n-P kit is available here:

https://www.theretrofitsource.com/vehicle-specific/trucks/2014-silverado-morimoto-elite.html?carDisplay=2016+Chevrolet+Silverado+2500-3500&preselect=47309&preselect_restrict=1

 

Since you have an HD you should have projector lenses already so get the H11"B" bulbs.

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Thank you everyone for your help and suggestions. I'm going to try to adjust the headlights first and see what that does. I looked today and didn't see any obvious way to adjust them, but then I didn't take off the plastic shroud because I wasn't going to fool with the dozen or so pop rivets (or whatever they are called) tonight. I'll mess around with that this weekend. People around here seem to be overly sensitive to improperly aimed headlights so I'm sure if I turn them too high, I'll get flashed.

 

I don't know if it just the nature of the halogen bulbs, but my previous vehicle with the HID projectors the light seemed to be even throughout the entire beam spread. This, to me, looks like the light just isn't consistent - the cut off line for the projection isn't very crisp. But then maybe I'm biased because I coming from a vehicle with true HID projection.

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Well, I finally got a chance this past weekend to look into it further and just do a simple adjustment on the stock lights. I simply parked my truck 3 feet from my garage door and raised both beams 1". Drove it around at night and what a difference! Not "perfect", I'm still seeing some shadowing, but I can now see better down the road. At least to the point where if a deer was standing in the middle of the road, I feel I would have sufficient reaction time to avoid a collision. Driving around it seemed like I was projecting light right onto oncoming traffic, but I never got flashed. So I think a simple adjustment will do wonders if anyone else is running the stock lights. I may eventually look into the Sylvania ZXE replacements - or even the Xenon Depot LEDs, but for now I'll run with this and see if I upset anyone with the higher aiming.

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I advise AGAINST the aftermarket LED for main headlights. They are simply not bright enough to be effective beams without having multiple LEDS and engineered for that.

 

the OPT7 ones I tried were awful

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