luxury1

OK, I asked this before but still haven't found what I am looking for. Now that you have had your cars for a while, has anyone changed the parking and fog light bulbs that would be willing to provide instructions and bulb types?

luxury1

Bump .

Luxofreak

I was thinking about that too. I think the stock xenons on the LS-460 could be a little whiter (higher color temp) but I think they went with what works in various situations (fog, rain, etc).

What kills me is that the blinkers (front and rear) are not LEDs. Infiniti FX, and some BMW 3 series all have amber LED blinkers at least at the rear, I think they look awesome. And our +70K car doesn't.

Johnny

Car manufacturers generally hit the 4300K +/- as this is closely emulates daylight, and provides optimum night time visibility. As the Kelvin temperature rises it becomes bluer and eventually purple; it also loses its ability to light the road ahead, and is painful to look at. So, raising the Kelvin temp won't help, but increasing the wattage (30W Std) will give you what you're after. Then again, as you do this you will also make oncoming drivers' eyes very uncomfortable. Perhaps converting your fogs to Xenons will be a better option.

luxury1

I need to clarify what I am thinking, while I would like xenon fog lights it is not realistic. What I am talking about is halogen bulbs that are superwhite or even have a blue tint. The purpose of this is to provide color uniformity. When you look at the front of a standard LS at night you see the blue xenon's and the yellowish fog and parking lights. What I want to do is change the fog and parking bulbs so they all have pretty much the same color.

My biggest problem right now is accessing the parking and fog lights so I can replace the bulbs. Does anyone know how to do this?

hawkeye-se

EVERY OEM bulb is 4100k or 4300k depending on who they contract to make the bulbs.

Luxofreak

You can use silverstar bulbs for the fogs. They're whiter.

Johnny

You're right.

Sorry for the typo; I was thinking of a pure daylight white, whereas OEMs install lamps with a slight yellow tinge.

Thanks!

G2Lexus

Had my LS for 2 weeks and couldn't stand it, I had to replace the fog light bulbs. I went with some suggestions from different searches and installed the Silverstar Ultra 9006. These are 4100K and while not an exact color match to the low beam, they are a vast improvement. With reading the manual, doing the replacement in the dark, taking pictures, cleaning up and washing my hands it still took less than 30 minutes total. I could do it next time in 10 minutes or less.

With the factory fog...


With the new fog on the drivers side only. Notice the difference in the light on the ground...


The bulbs...

encore888

Looks very nice. Thanks for sharing G2Lexus!

garyr

I have not had time to do the fogs yet but I did do some research. many aftermarket companies sell the kits. The stock light range for the LS is 8000k. 4300k is pure white.

The 4300k actually looks dull next to the 8k even though the 43k is brighter. The 8k has a white light with a slightly blue tint. I have both bulbs.

I just went through all this on my bikes, I put in 6 sets of HID's. I used this guy Rick Sullivan for all my kits http://www.supershinedetail.com/ he stands behind what he sells. He made his own custom tire shine hence the web site.

rominl

iTrader: (4)

factory are all 4100-4300k... that's the only legal color temperature for manufacturers..

any of those blue hues or so it's done by the projector metal piece inside controlling the flickering, where honda and bmw/audi in general has more. but all the bulbs are in the same color temperature range

garyr

Put 43k bulbs on the car and IT WILL NOT MATCH but......go for it.

rominl

iTrader: (4)

bulbs turn bluer and bluer over time, initially they are more yellow anyway. fact is fact that all bulbs aer 4100-4300k from any factory. anything 6000k or higher they all say off-read use only for a reason, coz' all of them are simply illegal for street use.

fact is on my sc430 and gs400 and is300, changing the bulb from factory to 6000k (not even 8000k), the 6000k was much bluer than factory, showing that factory is LOWER color temperature.

also, 8k "appears" brighter not because it's brighter, the reason is because of the glaring since it has very different color wavelength so the reflector/projector can't concentrate all the light on the ground. therefore, usable light on the ground of higher color temperature bulbs are less than factory, and the glaring (light shooting everywhere) give people the perception that higher color temperature lights are brighter

G2Lexus

The factory low beam is a HID-D4S. The spec on the factory bulb is 4300K. Looking at these new fogs at ~4100K versus the factory low beam I can believe that they are 4300K and not 5000K or 6000K. You can find the HID-D4S bulbs on the web at 4300K, 5000K, 6000K, 8000K and a ticket to jail 10,000K.

With regard to appearance, you also have to take into account the projection / reflection of the enclosure.

Illegally bright lights will do nothing but blind the oncoming car...which may in turn knock all of your headlights out.