HID Headlight Shootout - All three options tested

[Dangerdick]

We have three trucks lined up. All 2015 Sierras, 1 SLT and 2 Denalis.

• Stock Headlights
• Morimoto Sierra-Spec HID kit in factory housing
• FX-R Retrofit with XB35 bulbs courtesy or a popular retrofitter

FX-R Truck




Morimoto Kit





FX-R vs Morimoto






FX-R vs Stock









Results: The Retrofit is obviously the brightest. The FX-R is a very bright and has a good beam. Issues were the build quality. Broken tabs, stripped adjusters and missing parts meant that we were unable to align them to the factory truck we had on site. Awesome upgrade and WELL worth the work, but either do it yourself and make sure it's done right or pay for a skilled retrofitter. The work to open these lights is painful and getting it right is important. Not being able to adjust these ones that he purchased means we will be removing them tomorrow and installing the factory housings back in with a Morimoto kit instead.

My Morimoto kit was still quite bright despite being a much higher kelvin. Having this kit in own vehicle, I'm quite happy. I will be doing a retrofit at some point but for the time being I am happy.

I have had no issues with the install and have had no issues with reliability since. For the cost and effort, I definitely recommend the TRS kit for these trucks. Great improvement from stock with little work.

Stock is obviously rubbish compared to either setup and should be changed out ASAP.

 

Retrofit:

 

10/10 Function

2/10 Ease of install

 

Morimoto

 

8/10 Function

6/10 Ease of Install

 

Stock

Shitty.

Edited February 12, 2015 by Dangerdick

[WendysOrBust]

You've done a great service to this forum.

 

[Dangerdick]

Too bad there isn't a Canadian flag

[GMC-AT]

+ 1 Danger knows his HID sh$t

[corwest]

Nice work here. Should put some rx350's or evox-r's on the list of great retros too.

[morrislee]

Where is this? I dont mind coming down and do some comparison for DDM vs Morimoto. I think that is a very big topic people have always asked

[hutch08]

No love for DDM??? Haha, I don't doubt that the Morimoto's are better quality but I've always had great success with DDM... especially for the price!

DDM 35watt 4500k


DDM LED Fogs + Amber Delete Tron Mod

[Dangerdick]

Doesn't help when they're not head to head so we can see a direct comparison.

 

 

Taken at my shop in Edmonton, Morrislee

[thetruck454]

Doesn't help when they're not head to head so we can see a direct comparison.

 

 

Taken at my shop in Edmonton, Morrislee

What do you guys do in that shop? It looks huge!

[ls13sierra15]

Which TRS Morimoto kit is that? 35 watt or 50 watt and what bulb?

[Spurshot]

DD,

Thanks much for posting this.

 

But, while the efforts to compare these is honorable, the information to the reader is anecdotal.

 

In order to tell how well a driver can see with each, there would have to be some kind of testing at distances encountered in real driving situations, including beam width tests, since that is the biggest complaint about the Sierra. The "brightness" of a hot spot on a wall is difficult to translate to any type of driver vision.

 

Also, the "brightness" is affected by the bulb in a large way. To make a fair comparison, all of them should be with comparable bulbs.

 

This is a good place for a Lux meter test.

 

[elviswas]

I'm from edm as well where did u get the lights from

[Dangerdick]

Ordered my lights (big black denali) from TRS, and my friend bought from a retrofitter. Third one is stock and I'll be retro'ing that one as well.

 

I'm going to be doing the RX350 Projectors in my truck soon.

[Spurshot]

DD,

Did you get non-AFS or AFS projectors?

[ls13sierra15]

Ordered my lights (big black denali) from TRS, and my friend bought from a retrofitter. Third one is stock and I'll be retro'ing that one as well.

 

I'm going to be doing the RX350 Projectors in my truck soon.

Hey Danger,

 

Which TRS kit did you go with? The 35 watt or 50? Also which bulbs?

 

Thanks