As the original owner of a 2008 LS460 I am surprised and happy that the original headlight bulbs have lasted this until now. I am looking to replace the low beams with something significantly brighter and whiter than the OEM bulbs. Would like recommendations from people who have found a good bulb upgrade.

 

Welcome to the forum. There are several threads about bulbs. Try a search and do some reading. I will say that it's recommended to use only big brand bulbs (osram, Sylvania) from national vendors as counterfeits are abundant and off brands don't perform and/or last.

 

In my experience the oem hid ballasts often do not play nice with aftermarket bulbs. They may illuminate for a random amount of time ( 15 minutes, 2 hours, ect), then turn off until you restart your car. Unless your going to replace your ballasts I'd stick with oem bulbs.

 

Good post. The threads I recall never post back with long term results. I'm not surprised that people don't talk about their mistakes especially when it's an effort to "upgrade" from OEM.

 

Do you have HID's or halogen? You can't switch between the 2. You also can't put in LED's. Your bulb housing is measured in microns and any deviation from OEM will create lighting issues for you and oncoming traffic.

If you have the 9006 I've read that you can upgrade the 9006 to the 9012 high beam with some trimming on the base. I have not personally done that one.

 

The best upgrade for the 9006 / 9005 is LED. I had it done on few of my previous cars (2012 and 2016 Avalon Limited). It is direct fit, plug-and-play sort of thing. On 2016 Avalon Limited I replaced High beam 9005 with GTR Lighting Ultra 2 LED and Low Beam HID got replaced with newer HID bulb with higher output. It worked out really good.

 

You can't switch to LED's in a halogen housing. They are brighter and physically fit but they don't put the light where it's supposed to go. The only way you can put in LED's is if you buy a housing retrofit kit.

 

I swapped out my headlight bulbs in June '23 with - D4S: Osram 66440CBN Cool Blue Intense NEXT Gen HID Xenon Bulbs.

It's only been 5 months, but haven't had any issues thus far!

 

This is the kind of post we all love. Someone who has done it several months ago and includes specific info.