Anzo headlights for 2015 silverado

hamel01 · December 13, 2014

Has anyone done an upgrade to the Anzo headlights on their 2014 or 2015 Silverado? I want to upgrade my LT regular lights to some type of a projector and these appear to be a great direct replacement but i am not sure how the light output is. Can anyone comment?

BowHunter1 · December 13, 2014

Not my truck or video. Hope this helps

beard_up · December 14, 2014

Not my truck or video. Hope this helps

I've only heard complaints about the OEM and aftermarket projectors for these trucks. Buyer beware.

richyssilverado · December 14, 2014

I have them on my truck, i like them but they come with halogen bulbs so you will have to upgrade to hids or leds. Simple plug and play

Stallion225 · December 15, 2014

I'm interested in seeing how these headlights hold up long term. Mainly the halos in them. I'm saving up for LTZ headlights now although I do like these better.

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hamel01 · December 17, 2014

How about the Recon's? Has anyone tired those?? I am trying to decide between the Anzo's, Recon's, or just getting the Morimoto Mini stage 3 H1 projectors and retrofitting my regular lights to have those projectors. I wouldn't get the cool looking LED accent lighting but the projectors are top notch from what i can tell.

Dangerdick · December 17, 2014

Has anyone done an upgrade to the Anzo headlights on their 2014 or 2015 Silverado? I want to upgrade my LT regular lights to some type of a projector and these appear to be a great direct replacement but i am not sure how the light output is. Can anyone comment?

I've sold and installed hundreds upon hundreds of pairs of Anzo headlights and overall I'm right on the fence about the quality. The build quality is typically good, as I've seen very few leaks and condensation issues when installed properly and their fit and finish is overall very good.

However, I am a stickler for projectors and I have been less than impressed with what I've seen. Anzo, Recon and Spyder all suffer from a mismatched supply of projectors, it seems. I've received lights that had a perfect cutoff with an H1 HID installed and were good to go out of the box. Others, the cutoff shield was not the expected steel plate, but instead a weird chopped aluminum square - producing a blob of leaked light and no real cutoff to see.

You can see below what I mean. First is a Anzo Projector with a decent cut off shield:

And sadly they also ship these bad boys out:

That is NOT a cutoff shield you want focusing the projected light, and will result in a beam pattern looking like so:

Their halo quality however has soared. The older designs used a serrated plastic shaft that had LEDs shining into the ends, producing a terribly inequal light distribution.

In this photo, you can see what I mean. The light is strong at the bottom, and weak by the time it reaches the top. This is resolved by the use of better technology like CCFL (Fluorescent glass tubes), COB rings (xBLed from TRS) or sequantial LEDs.

Versus a good quality xBLed ring like the ones I installed on my other truck, a 2009 F150 that I did a EVOX-R retrofit in, with the xB accents.

They're VERY bright and I'm VERY happy with the overall look. I can't wait to get these GMC lights opened up and toyed with.

How about the Recon's? Has anyone tired those?? I am trying to decide between the Anzo's, Recon's, or just getting the Morimoto Mini stage 3 H1 projectors and retrofitting my regular lights to have those projectors. I wouldn't get the cool looking LED accent lighting but the projectors are top notch from what i can tell.

As I mentioned, they're basically the same as Anzo and Spyder, except they black their housings out more and are offering a CCFL halo. The Retrofit Source offers a Quik-Fit setup for the Mini-H1 projector however, so you could buy the Anzo kit, which doesn't use Permaseal and would be much easier to open and retrofit a Mini-H1 into the low beam spot. This would give you a proper cut off, and dual high beams with very minimal work. You could add in the proper xBLeds as well for the whole meal deal.

LINK

Spurshot · December 17, 2014

How about the Recon's? Has anyone tired those?? I am trying to decide between the Anzo's, Recon's, or just getting the Morimoto Mini stage 3 H1 projectors and retrofitting my regular lights to have those projectors. I wouldn't get the cool looking LED accent lighting but the projectors are top notch from what i can tell.

What have you seen that indicates how well these projectors work? I read some negative comments about these projectors in the aftermarket headlight assemblies on the HID Planet forum.

Spurshot · December 17, 2014

For me, the bottom line is: Do they have a better beam than the factory projector and are they reliable? If they have less performance then the OEM light, I don't care what they look like.

Dangerdick · December 17, 2014

The projector I've seen in the new bi-xenon Spyders for the F150 seems to be a D2S based on the E55 housing, but is using a fresnel lens and of course isn't tuned for cutoff.

The nice thing is that they're much easier to open and retrofit an even better projector into.

hamel01 · December 17, 2014

Ok so lets say it's your truck and you have stock non-projector headlights. What would you do to get a projector headlight in it with the high beam spliter. Some sort of LED DRL or accent lighting optional. Main goal is better light for night driving.

Dangerdick · December 17, 2014

Well, going back to my F150 - At one time in it's life I had the Spyder projectors in it. I opened them up and used the Retro-Quik that I linked you to and replaced the low-beam projector with the Mini H1 6.0 running a 50w Morimoto bulb.

Resealed the headlights and the lowbeam had a beautiful cutoff, and the high beam was the H1's and the PNP HID kit in the high beam spot. Very nice output without a ton of work or any alignment issues.

hamel01 · December 18, 2014

I am assuming you had projectors in that truck from the factory? And also had high beam HID's from the factory. My issue is I have neither. Just stock headlights.

Dangerdick · December 18, 2014

Well, in your situation you could follow that same routine with a set of Anzos for your truck. The cost of the Anzos plus the Mini H1 kit will be just over $600 probably and you'd end up with a very capable lighting system. You could also drop a PNP HID kit into the high beams for max output when you really open it up.

The other option is opening the factory lights up and using a EVOX-R or a FX-R for a wicked output but exponentially more work.

A.J. Curtis · January 31, 2016

I've sold and installed hundreds upon hundreds of pairs of Anzo headlights and overall I'm right on the fence about the quality. The build quality is typically good, as I've seen very few leaks and condensation issues when installed properly and their fit and finish is overall very good.

However, I am a stickler for projectors and I have been less than impressed with what I've seen. Anzo, Recon and Spyder all suffer from a mismatched supply of projectors, it seems. I've received lights that had a perfect cutoff with an H1 HID installed and were good to go out of the box. Others, the cutoff shield was not the expected steel plate, but instead a weird chopped aluminum square - producing a blob of leaked light and no real cutoff to see.

You can see below what I mean. First is a Anzo Projector with a decent cut off shield:

And sadly they also ship these bad boys out:

That is NOT a cutoff shield you want focusing the projected light, and will result in a beam pattern looking like so:

Their halo quality however has soared. The older designs used a serrated plastic shaft that had LEDs shining into the ends, producing a terribly inequal light distribution.

In this photo, you can see what I mean. The light is strong at the bottom, and weak by the time it reaches the top. This is resolved by the use of better technology like CCFL (Fluorescent glass tubes), COB rings (xBLed from TRS) or sequantial LEDs.

Versus a good quality xBLed ring like the ones I installed on my other truck, a 2009 F150 that I did a EVOX-R retrofit in, with the xB accents.

They're VERY bright and I'm VERY happy with the overall look. I can't wait to get these GMC lights opened up and toyed with.

As I mentioned, they're basically the same as Anzo and Spyder, except they black their housings out more and are offering a CCFL halo. The Retrofit Source offers a Quik-Fit setup for the Mini-H1 projector however, so you could buy the Anzo kit, which doesn't use Permaseal and would be much easier to open and retrofit a Mini-H1 into the low beam spot. This would give you a proper cut off, and dual high beams with very minimal work. You could add in the proper xBLeds as well for the whole meal deal.

LINK