# Lights

**URL:** <https://community.cartalk.com/t/lights/41663>\
**Category:** Maintenance/Repairs\
**Created:** [January 2, 2010, 2:05pm UTC](https://community.cartalk.com/t/lights/41663 "2010-01-02T14:05:48Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![shaner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9c0ed/32.png) [@shaner](https://community.cartalk.com/u/shaner)\
**Post date:** [January 2, 2010, 2:05pm UTC](https://community.cartalk.com/t/lights/41663/1 "2010-01-02T14:05:48Z")

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what are the thoughts on best quality/brightness over the counter replacement headlight bulbs?? any brand thats great or bad?

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**Author:** ![UncleTurbo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/e9a140/32.png) [@UncleTurbo](https://community.cartalk.com/u/UncleTurbo)\
**Post date:** [January 2, 2010, 2:49pm UTC](https://community.cartalk.com/t/lights/41663/2 "2010-01-02T14:49:46Z")

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I bought some of the “bright” bulbs at an AutoZone, I think they were the “Silver Star” brand. They provided a “blue” light but I couldn’t really see a difference in a better view from the driver’s seat.

What I did notice is they didn’t last very long. The car was a Volvo which ran with “Daytime Running Lights”. This car used low beams as the DRL. Perhaps that is why they didn’t last for me. They burned out in about a year, but the car was only used for 10K miles in that year.

Not very good life for expensive bulbs so I replaced them with standard cheaper bulbs.

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**Author:** ![shaner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9c0ed/32.png) [@shaner](https://community.cartalk.com/u/shaner)\
**Post date:** [January 2, 2010, 3:18pm UTC](https://community.cartalk.com/t/lights/41663/3 "2010-01-02T15:18:57Z")

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thats what im hearing, silver stars no good. your not the only person to say that they dont last.

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**Author:** ![87\_Ranger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/8/f14d63/32.png) [@87\_Ranger](https://community.cartalk.com/u/87_Ranger)\
**Post date:** [January 2, 2010, 5:50pm UTC](https://community.cartalk.com/t/lights/41663/4 "2010-01-02T17:50:25Z")

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I found at the sylvania canada website that halogen headlamps (H-7 in my case) have a range of life from a pathetic 80 hours up to 520 hours in the long life version.

The standard H7 bulbs are $19.00 and the long life are $23.00.

I have no idea what you can do about the brightness problem & as i recall the chart showed the silverstars as an 80 hour bulb.

That would explain UncleTurbos experience with them.