So you would agree then that when the "official" philips site points you to Zenon Corp, who sells them via Amazon for a little over $50 each, that that would be a legitimate source? I'm sure if a reseller was selling knockoffs, then Philips wouldn't be linking to them.

If you do the research, you can find quality products. Even on ebay and Amazon. But you are correct. If you don't know what you're looking for, it's easy to find an inferior product.

 

If the official Philips site points you to that source I would have more confidence. On eBay though, most of that stuff is fake.

 

My lights were flickering and I wanted genuine bulbs so I actually came to that link and was surprised that it linked to xenon corp. I called Philips and was told that they do not sell directly to Xenon Corp and they are not an authorized dealer, I was told that the seller should be Philips in order to ensure authenticity (I was unable to find them selling on amazon) what may have happened is that link is pointing to a listing they used to have and now a different seller is selling. As for me I ended up ordering direct from amazon (ships and sold by) and have received bulbs that I'm trying to figure out what the story is with. I'm thinking grey market as the packaging does look different than the box on Home Depots site, but it seems quite possible they're from a different country.
I should add that they told me they DO sell to / on bulbs.com a site which I had never heard of before.

 

That's quite possible. I never argued that there isn't some crap knockoffs out there. My main point was that if you do the research, you can find authentic bulbs at a great price. Even on ebay. One seller I saw on ebay was selling Sylvania original bulbs. 100% customer satisfaction rating. Actual pictures of the item. Original packaging. Including posting the UPC code. And when plenty of past customers give positive reviews and say the items they received are genuine, I sometimes am willing to take a chance.

Light bulbs are very difficult to verify. So many companies hire another company to build the bulb for them. Nissan for example uses Matsu****a bulbs. "Marked with an "M". However, Matsu****a doesn't make bulbs. They have their bulbs made by Panasonic. Many people don't know that Sylvania and Osram are the same company. Also with them is Xenarc. There's also Koito, and GE as well as Philips. Philips is probably the most difficult of them all. They've been around a very long time and they build a lot of bulbs for a lot of different manufacturers. And those manufacturers pay Philips to put their name on the bulb.

I've bought a lot of car parts in my time. From Mexico to germany to china. For everything from old classic fords and chevy's to newer corvettes and porsche. If you do your homework, you can find some really good deals. Even on ebay. "Assuming the individual has a good reputation and posts ACTUAL pictures". A couple years ago, an article was posted on Prius Chat about bulbs. Especially HID bulbs. I learned a lot from that. But I've been to swap meets, yard sales, amazon, ebay, and similar where I get reviews from past customers. Here's a link to the article. It's pretty cool info.

http://priuschat.com/threads/not-all...-equal.101472/