BRIGHT fog lamps

duffus · July 31, 2004

I went for a ride in a 2004 2500 LD truck-- one of my friends-- and he turned his fog lamps on -- they were like daylighters!! VERY bright. It made mine look like a joke (1999 & they are a joke they are so dim). Anyone had success with aftermarket fog lamp bulbs for those of us with kiddie fog lamps on our trucks?

99silveradoz71 · July 31, 2004

I believe the stock bulbs are 33 watts. Others(myself included) have upped theirs to 38W bulbs. DO NOT go with a 55w or you will melt the housing. The 38's will give you some modest improvement. Another option is to go with Sylvania Silverstar bulbs. I replaced the 38's I had put in with the Silverstar 38's. They are noticeably brighter and give off a more white light vs. yellowish. Those are about the 2 easiest/cheapest upgrades I can come up with.

Avionix · July 31, 2004

You can always purchase, or make your own replacement lighting harness, couple relays and plug it in to the factory system, that way you can get a higher light output with the heavier guage wires. Just another idea. Worked for me.

--Adam

thebassmasterj · October 12, 2004

i just put the silverstar high and lows in my 03' silverado and took the 2005's and put them inplace of the 9145's for the fog lights...there working great... i have been running them for a month and inspect the lamps every other day...there not overheating at all....

XTOAK · October 12, 2004

I too have the factory fogs on my '04 2500LD and am amazed at how bright they are compared to my '02 2500HD. I've read of guys complaining that they're not bright enough but have been very pleased both last winter and now this fall...lighting here in Alaska is critical with as much darkness as we get, and these things on mine are fantastic.

millerwd · October 12, 2004

i just put the silverstar high and lows in my 03' silverado and took the 2005's and put them inplace of the 9145's for the fog lights...there working great... i have been running them for a month and inspect the lamps every other day...there not overheating at all....

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

what do you mean by "the 2005's"

i can't find that as a bulb number

thanx , BillM

thebassmasterj · November 2, 2004

i just put the silverstar high and lows in my 03' silverado and took the 2005's and put them inplace of the 9145's for the fog lights...there working great... i have been running them for a month and inspect the lamps every other day...there not overheating at all....

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

what do you mean by "the 2005's"

i can't find that as a bulb number

thanx , BillM

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

i meant the 9005...sorry

millerwd · November 2, 2004

The factory bulbs stink. I've tried driving with just them on in fog.

Very very scary. they're only 45 watt

The factory bulbs 9145 and connector are keyed differently than a 9006 .

Just this morning I tried swapping them.

The 9006 is the low beam type bulb with the coating on the tip and are 55 watt.

I assume, but wouldn't bet on it, that 9005s (65 watt) are also keyed differently than a 9145

so I'll have to remove the molded in key in the 9000 series bulbs.

at 12 volts a 45 watt bulb draws aprox 4 amps for a total of 8 amps

at 12 volts a 65 watt bulb draws aprox 5.5 volts for a total of 11 amps

So what are we looking at a 30% increase in amps?

If I didn''t have to drive through the moutains in the dark 3 hours a day i would not have gotten this interested in "bulbs"

At least it's cheap experimenting.!

neomorphin · November 3, 2004

Speaking from experience. 9005 will burn the housing eventually. I believe they are 65 watt or so. Twice the 9145. It happened in mine and my friends. They were regular sylvania 9005's in mine and some aftermarket ones in his, but they did melt the housing on both lamps. Luckily I took them to my local dealer and they warrantied them out. Where can you get the 9145 in sylverstar. 3 stores her sell sylvarstar none of them carry 9145.

Hecktorx · November 3, 2004

According to their website, they don't make the 9145 in a Silverstar.

millerwd · November 3, 2004

After having used them, in my opinion Silverstars are a waste of money.

After have read this article by Danile Stern I now understand why..

http://www.danielsternlighting.com/products/products.html

I'd like to find some amber/allweather 9145s..

I tried to put the 9006s in my fog lights but the circular portion of the bulb base is a larger diameter than the fog lamp in addition to the tabs being oriented differently.. 9006's are 55 watt so I thought I'd try them.

Scrap that idea. i'm not wasting anymore time or money on the factory POS foglights unless I can find the amber/allweather 9145s

After reading Sterns article I measured the height if the middle of the lamp.

I then adjusted the top height of the beam to that same measurement. That's as good as they'll get.

I also tried the 9005 bulb in the 9006 's place in the headlight assembly. I parked outside with the lights shining on a building aprox 100 yards away.

This swap provided no lighting enhancement what so ever. In fact it was a degradation.

I am running 100 watt Hella Xenion XB's in the 9005 socket . They are blue masked and not ideal but better than stock. They are advertised as being white, but they defintely are not. And they are not street legal.

I'm going to try 9011's in a couple weeks. They are hard to find. They're used in the Viper.

03GMCinBC · November 3, 2004

I am running silverstarts in both the high and low beams for almost 2 years now with no problems. I did see a difference over my factory bulbs and have really enjoyed them and the look they give compared to the factory ones.

my .03

atomoverride · November 16, 2004

I got a 2003 gmc sierra, I replaced my bulbs with 9005 yellow xenon / krypton and they were REAL bright only problem was the bulb covers inside the foglight shell were becomming discolored from the added heat.

So I bought some new foglights off ebay.

as you can tell they dont have the domes over the bulbs. Already out of the box they were 2x brighter than the ones with domes using my yellow krypton / xenon bulbs. But I still wasnt satisfied. So I purchased new bulbs 9005 Yellow ION bulbs from Japan.

Show is Manufacturer sample of bulb case. Mine were JDM JAPAN MTEC 9005 ION YELLOW CRYSTAL BULBS. Now they were 20x brigher than my stock bulbs and 10x brighter than the old yellow xenon ones I had. These bulbs and foglights are right what I needed, in fact after testing them I was seeing spots for awhile.

If you cant get the foglights off ebay without the dome, you can do it yourself it seems as easy as clearing out your headlights.

I also bought some InvisiGARD Headlight Protection for my foglights as I chiped one on the way back from LA, AGAIN! so this time after replacement I am going to protect them. Paid 20$ just for the foglight coverings.