D1S and D2S LED Bulb Replacements - Brighter than HID?

These days, a lot of cars with HID projector headlights, like this one, are on the road directly from the showroom. Simply put, the answer is no! You can't use D1S or D2S LED bulbs. Your car or truck must have HID replacement bulbs if it has that kind of bulb. Here are the best prices on them:

The information is for the 350z, but it also applies to a new Chevy Camaro, a GMC Sierra, a Ford F-150, or a Chevy Silverado with HID headlights. A D Series bulb, often known as a D1, D2, D3, or D4, is used in anything that came off the production line with factory xenon or HID headlights.

At first, we used only the D1 and D2, but today, we utilize the D3 and D4. Despite having the same appearance, the new bulbs are made without mercury, which makes them more eco-friendly.

They have a green plastic insert rather than a black one, which makes the distinction obvious. And that's the most significant difference in terms of functionality. The D1 LED is compatible with D1S or D3S, while the D2 LED is compatible with D2S or D4S.

It is possible to purchase an LED bulb that is compatible with D1 or D3 bulbs. You can obtain an LED bulb to fit if you have a D2 or D4 bulb.

For the purposes of this article, we'll just refer to them as D-Series bulbs because, upon closer inspection, they all have identical collars that mount on the headlight.

Although one of them has a large silver box on the bottom and the other does not, they may all be used with the same projector to demonstrate output.

To accommodate both applications, the new LED lights include the same kind of plastic collar.

Installation

Assume that you have chosen to purchase the D-Series LED bulb replacements. In the rear of your headlight, you will discover a large box similar to this one. Inside is a D-Series lightbulb.

After removing the D-Series bulb, replacing it with a new LED bulb will be straightforward.

This raises the issue of how to install it.

The original HID cable, as seen below, passes through the headlamp and into a built-in ballast on the rear of the headlight. This is the power source for your headlights. The bulb is located inside, the electricity is located outside, a cable passes through, and a ballast is attached to the headlight. The nature of this kind of undertaking is not plug-and-play.

If you have D1 or D3 bulbs, you will have something similar. Your ballast has a connection to your lightbulb, and it is powered by the bulkhead from the car.

A wire harness extends from the ballast to power everything, and if you have a D2 or D4 HID bulb, you will receive a ballast similar to this one, into which the bulb is connected. To replace this (product right), you need a product similar to the one on the left in the picture below.

Seven distinct D1 and D2 style LED headlight bulbs were purchased by us online. None of them are indeed plug-and-play.

The first thing you'll need to do is take care of the old igniter cord, your old ballast, and that incoming power wire. Nothing is a genuine kit; you will need to break things up and figure anything out. Although you can purchase new bulbs or ballasts if something on your HID system burns out or if you have a poor bulb or a bad ballast, these LED headlight bulbs aren't a fantastic choice.

Not enough of that. Let me demonstrate to you why these LED headlight bulbs' light output is so poor.

Testing: LED Vs HID

We have a wide variety of bulbs, so before you accuse us of testing only one and declaring that they are all bad, have a look. This sort of LED comes in two-sided and angled varieties.

Here, we have a Philips lightbulb. Our one-sided vehicle is a Moto moto 2Stroke. We have this large, fat LED chip on board. We even have a two-sided one.

Therefore, we have essentially one of everything. As a result, these findings are rather definitive about the type of bulb.

The Benchmark

Thus, the baseline for this test is an aftermarket Morimoto D2S projector, a Philips HID bulb, and a standard 35-watt ballast, as seen below.

As you can see, we have excellent color, a well-defined hot area, and a clear cutoff line that is quite wide and extends from left to right.

This device produces a maximum brightness of 2,240 lux, which we will use as the standard for this test.

The LED Test

Let's compare this to the various LED bulbs to see how they appear.

The brightness meter hardly notices the first bulb in our test. In addition to not being a usable pattern, this light is insufficient for driving. The main issue with this one is that there is no method to align the chips, so they are totally out of alignment.

As you can see, it is nearly impossible to get the bulb to line up in a way that creates a meaningful beam pattern when experimenting with its orientation (see below)—another failure in the domain of LED D-Series bulbs.

Color us surprised, then. None of them from the benchmark group looked as fantastic as they did.

At 1,010 maximum lux when properly positioned, which is half as bright as the HID, this is the finest one we've tested so far.

The Morimoto 2Stroke 2.0 D2S LED bulb is shown here.

This is the beam pattern, it aligns appropriately, and it fits in the projector. It's less than half as bright as the original HID, with a maximum lux of 850, and the beam pattern isn't perfect.

Here's another that doesn't fully produce the appropriate beam pattern (see below). It simply doesn't fit well, and it hardly registers on the brightness scale.

At 1050 lux, a little less than half the brightness of the original HID, this variant (below) is pretty bright, but the beam pattern is unusable. This test demonstrates that there isn't a compelling reason to upgrade your OEM HID headlight to an LED bulb.