Headlight Beam WIDTH

Gangly · January 25, 2021

The headlights cast a gloriously bright light, but it seems that it is directed straight ahead like a flash light and I cant see much to the side past the ditches. With deer all over the place around here, it would be nice to see farther to the side than just to the edge of the ditch. My 2003 Escalade has ten times (not literally) the side visibility making the limited side visibility of a much more modern T1 annoying. So is there an adjustment that can be made to make the beam cast out wider on the T1's?

kodiakdenali · January 25, 2021

I have exactly the same problem. my last truck had HID projectors on it which had optics which really cast a nice wide beam. by comparison the T1's reflector LEDs don't provide nearly as high quality a light pattern as my much older previous vehicle did. very disappointing to say the least.

I don't think there's much of anything that can be done to the lights themselves. consider adding some projector style fog lights somehow which have a wider beam pattern. supplementing the factory headlights may be the only option. Maybe some day the aftermarket community will come up with a high quality headlight replacement that uses LED projector light elements instead of the OEM reflector style. I wish they hadn't gone back to such an old method of putting the light out. I also miss the sharp cutoff the projectors had.

BluegrassMotorsport · January 25, 2021

Yeah, this is annoying. The bixenon lamps on my K2 were definitely wider, especially on high beams.

kodiakdenali · January 25, 2021

1 hour ago, BluegrassMotorsport said:

Yeah, this is annoying. The bixenon lamps on my K2 were definitely wider, especially on high beams.

definitely!

its so frustrating when a new model comes out with so many improvements and so many features to be excited about...and a few features which are actually worse than the predecessor, like interior lighting or headlight performance.

the biggest one for me is the instrument cluster. I didn't own a previous generation, but I did test drive one. the last gen's instrument cluster was better in every way than the current one. the T1's is terrible. worst part about it is there's really no easy way to fix that.

headlights on the other hand...at least you can add more light.

I hope to find a way to retrofit a set of these on mine:

https://www.theretrofitsource.com/universal-70mm-morimoto-xb-led-LF-UNIV?quantity=1

this would fix the narrow headlight beam problem

Edited January 25, 2021 by kodiakdenali

calgator73 · January 26, 2021

8 hours ago, Gangly said:

The headlights cast a gloriously bright light, but it seems that it is directed straight ahead like a flash light and I cant see much to the side past the ditches. With deer all over the place around here, it would be nice to see farther to the side than just to the edge of the ditch. My 2003 Escalade has ten times (not literally) the side visibility making the limited side visibility of a much more modern T1 annoying. So is there an adjustment that can be made to make the beam cast out wider on the T1's?

Which headlights do you have?

Gangly · January 26, 2021

LED

calgator73 · January 27, 2021

20 hours ago, Gangly said:

LED

Basic LED or the hid led? The basic LED lights get pretty bad reviews but the HID ones are great but you can only get them with the midnight package or ltz or high country

Rob Mugs · January 27, 2021

49 minutes ago, calgator73 said:

Basic LED or the hid led? The basic LED lights get pretty bad reviews but the HID ones are great but you can only get them with the midnight package or ltz or high country

That's like saying an Apple or an Apple Orange.

HID is High Intensity Discharge. They create an arc inside of a gas (usually xenon)

LED uses well, an LED. There's no such thing as an HID LED

The older technology (still in use) is incandescent halogen where a filament is burning

The new vehicles have either Halogen (incandescent) or LED (light emitting diode)

Edited January 27, 2021 by Rob Mugs

calgator73 · January 27, 2021

1 hour ago, Rob Mugs said:

That's like saying an Apple or an Apple Orange.

HID is High Intensity Discharge. They create an arc inside of a gas (usually xenon)

LED uses well, an LED. There's no such thing as an HID LED

The older technology (still in use) is incandescent halogen where a filament is burning

The new vehicles have either Halogen (incandescent) or LED (light emitting diode)

That's what I thought. You have 3 headlight options to choose from. Incandescent, led and whatever the hell a high intensity discharge led is. I have it on my at4 but on the silverado... You've got to work to get it.

JimCost2014 · January 27, 2021

2 hours ago, Rob Mugs said:

That's like saying an Apple or an Apple Orange.

HID is High Intensity Discharge. They create an arc inside of a gas (usually xenon)

LED uses well, an LED. There's no such thing as an HID LED

The older technology (still in use) is incandescent halogen where a filament is burning

The new vehicles have either Halogen (incandescent) or LED (light emitting diode)

So, you are saying the salesman might have lied about my Halo Projector HID LED Xenon Laser headlights?

Rob Mugs · January 27, 2021

1 hour ago, calgator73 said:

That's what I thought. You have 3 headlight options to choose from. Incandescent, led and whatever the hell a high intensity discharge led is. I have it on my at4 but on the silverado... You've got to work to get it.

That advertisement must have been written by a 16 year old that didn't know the difference. HID/high-intensity discharge and LED are two very, very different types of light.

The new models have 2 options. LED or Halogen. That's it. There's no HID LED

Edited January 27, 2021 by Rob Mugs

Rob Mugs · January 27, 2021

34 minutes ago, JimCost2014 said:

So, you are saying the salesman might have lied about my Halo Projector HID LED Xenon Laser headlights?

Absofreakinglootly lied, or, quite possibly, doesn't know the difference

HID uses Xenon gas for the path of the arc between two tungsten electrodes. There is no filament like a typical incandescent light (eg halogen bulbs). There's a ballast that provides a high voltage "wake up"

LED uses a diode. A little bit more complicated but a quick Wiki here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light-emitting_diode

The easiest way to tell without popping the hood? Turn it on. Does it have a flash of brightness and then slowly warms up? That's an HID. If it's all-on from the get go, it's LED

EDIT: I didn't notice the "laser" part and maybe my brain has been reading code too long and took this as serious LOL

Edited January 27, 2021 by Rob Mugs

JimCost2014 · January 27, 2021

13 minutes ago, Rob Mugs said:

Absofreakinglootly lied, or, quite possibly, doesn't know the difference

HID uses Xenon gas for the path of the arc between two tungsten electrodes. There is no filament like a typical incandescent light (eg halogen bulbs). There's a ballast that provides a high voltage "wake up"

LED uses a diode. A little bit more complicated but a quick Wiki here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light-emitting_diode

The easiest way to tell without popping the hood? Turn it on. Does it have a flash of brightness and then slowly warms up? That's an HID. If it's all-on from the get go, it's LED

You know I was kidding, correct, thanks for all of the information though.

Rob Mugs · January 27, 2021

LOL... I edited it to note my realization of that. It's been an 18 hour day. LOL

Transient · January 27, 2021

That advertisement must have been written by a 16 year old that didn't know the difference. HID/high-intensity discharge and LED are two very, very different types of light.

The new models have 2 options. LED or Halogen. That's it. There's no HID LED

I had to look this up. I was ready to dispute it, but turns out you're right. GM parts catalog shows 3 different headlights. Halogen, LED, and HID LED.

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