Headlights
 

I have a question for 5th gen owners. How good are your headlights? Especially the pattern they put out. My light pattern is rather just splattered on the road with no form. I just got sylvania silverstar ultras as i have a had time seeing on low beam, i notice the color change but these lights just dont put out alot of light, they're not bright. i'm wondering if maybe my car has an issue and its not these bulbs:confused:

I just replaced the headlights on my 99 with new genuine GM replacements (thank you e-bay) and the light they put out is ok, but not anywhere near as good as what the new cars put out. I think it's the fact that the headlights on the 5th gen montes is a 17 year old designs. Those headlights came out in '95 I think. And yea, the housing is all prismed up (for lack of a better term), not the clear smooth lens of the newer model cars, and the pattern is not so good. When a car with really good HID's like a Lexus, Benz or Bimmer is behind me at a light, there is actually a shadow in front of my car - the light from the car behind me is sooo much brighter than my headlights.

Yea i noticed that last night on the highway, cars would pull up next to me and my lights would just disaspeer. Maybe it is because its an old design and i'm just not going to win.

The light output on my headlights are amazing.. I don't know what you guys are talking about :rotfl:

$32 hid's > $50 silverstar ultras

get some hid's from ebay for most light output get 4300k to 5000k most stock hid's are around the 4300k

the light output on our intrigue wasn't bad by anymeans but i got 6000k hid's 35w and it made a world of differeance!

Stock is terrible. I couldnt see anything with the low beams. Got 55w 5000k HIDs and they are much brighter but the pattern is still terrible.

So it seems that the lenses are just bad design. If i got HID's if i recall correctly i wouldn't need to bother with high and low anymore would i?

HIDs only way to go & you won't use em much with em but I done mine anyways :D

Definitely agree with HIDs. I'd got both high and lows, might as well :thumbsup:

I thought if you had HID's in high and low it was bad for them with all the switching back and forth? I might return these silverstars and put my other lights back in and go HID, just not sure yet...

I came up with an idea to test these silverstars, my dads suv uses the same low beam bulb. I'll put these silverstars in his suv and see what the result is. Hopefully that'll help to determine if the bulb is lousy or if the lenses are lousy.

What's a HID? Bulbs or headlight replacement?

HID's stand for High intensity discharge. They're usually just a bulb you swap out. But newer cars have them built into projector headlamps.

Nothing but bad news after some tinkering. I went out to put my silverstar ultras in my dads suv to see if a newer lens design made a difference. As i pulled his bulbs out one of them blew wonderful. Then im putting my old lights back in my car and i notice my passenger side headlight bracket is completely broken, you can pull the whole light in and out of the bumper.

This explains the shaking i noticed while i was driving, and i couldn't even get the bulb back in, it doesn't fit right at all. Makes no sense, so before i broke anything else i just came back inside and i'm done. The lenses in my car are only like 5 months old and i cant believe they broke:mad:

i think i found a good part of my problem. the lights i bought for around $50 are ofcourse not genuine GM parts. I think that explains part of my lousy light patterns, bad fitting, broken parts etc...

There is also a ballast that needs to be wired in, so it's more than just a bulb.

Dang! Cheap knockoffs, that does make sense. What now?

Yes ballast too, and i dont know whats next. I really dont have the money to buy genuine gm parts at $150 a light. But it does seem these cheap ones are causing me a problem.

Pull yard?

Usually the lights are all yellowed over and look like crap. Thats why i replaced mine to begin with.

True. You either get looks or function. That's what drove me to make my own.. I wanted both :thumbsup:

Get some yellowed ones from a pull yard and then buy my headlight covers to cover them up :rotfl:

yea, i'd like both aswell, but we'll see

Cover the yellow lights, brilliant idea lol. Final verdict on the Silverstar ultras. Tested them in my dads GMC envoy and they are considerably brighter which leads me to the conclusion that the monte carlo lens is just of bad design. I'm back to square one with my original bulbs and i now need a new plan for lights. My guess is to go HID, recccomendations?

ddmtuning.com 35 watt hands down.

The ebay ones aren't too bad either.

Now would i need highs and lows or just replace my low beam lights? (hate to sound noobish but i'm not very familiar with HID's)

You can do just lows if you want, might be a good place to start and see how you like them. You can always upgrade the highs later.

Hmm ok, i was thnking 5000k, did you need any of the other stuff? Harness, adapter etc...? If these work it'll be good, $30 instead of $50 for hopefully better lights.

Most that I've seen are plug and play. I'm not 100% sure on the relay harness people say you need to use. I'm pretty sure you can just do plug and play on Montes.

I'll probably order them tommorow and hope for the best.

I got real lucky when I went looking for replacement headlights - there were left and right genuine GM headlights on ebay - brand new!. I got each for $45 from different sellers (total $90). These were the second set I put on the car - the first was a set of cheap aftermarket lenses I bought in 2006. The cheapo aftermarket lenses looked good, but the pattern was really screwed up - if you aimed the low beams correctly, then the high beams would be way off, and vise-versa. I ended up setting the low aim and living with it until those ones got all cloudy. Sounds like you are seeking something even better than stock, which is probably a good thing if you drive a lot at night.

Thats the problem i have, i have cheap knock off gm lights and the light pattern is just terrible, road is splattered with light that has no form what so ever.

you could always get a set from the boneyard and try to use some of those cleaners to take out the yellowing and such. I've never used them but i've heard from a few people that they work fairly decent