Headlamp bulbs

Hi. New to this forum. I've just moved to a rural area and find the Halford headlamp bulbs on my Freelander 2 are ridiculously dull when driving on unlit country roads. I can barely see in front of me! What are the best replacement bulbs for my car, so that I can at least see the road ahead with a brighter lamp. Thank you.

Chard lass said:

Hi. New to this forum. I've just moved to a rural area and find the Halford headlamp bulbs on my Freelander 2 are ridiculously dull when driving on unlit country roads. I can barely see in front of me! What are the best replacement bulbs for my car, so that I can at least see the road ahead with a brighter lamp. Thank you.

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Hi,

Don't expect front lights to last many years. Put you car in front of a wall, the light patern should not but be blurry, if so you need new light bulbs.
When you change your bulbs, you will certainly need to adjust them, put your car in front of a wall, and put marks, it will be easier to adjust them.

You can put basic lights from osram, philips or bosch, they come at a decent price and do the job.

Chard lass said:

What are the best replacement bulbs for my car, so that I can at least see the road ahead with a brighter lamp.

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What version Freelander 2 is it? Early version had reasonably good headlamps, but later models had appalling headlamps.

Mine is a 2009MY SE, has basic model headlamps, which come with standard H7 bulbs for dips and mains, giving around to 6600 lumens of light down the road on main beams, and 3300 on dips.

Most later models used H11 bulbs which do both dip and main. These headlamp models have maximum light output of 2700 lumens, which is pretty pathetic when compared to early basic headlamps.
There are some later headlamp units which have H11 bulbs for dip, and separate H7 bulbs for main beams. These are an improvement on mains, but still underperform on dips.
There were also xenon headlamps available which were very good, but only the top models got those, and only as an option IIRC.

You can get various upgraded bulbs for the Freelander headlamps, but to keep legal, these will only produce the maximum allowance of lumens, but they are still an improvement over old standard bulbs.

Thanks for your replies. I have a Freelander 2 2014. The headlamps are HB3's and are very orangey and dull.

Chard lass said:

Thanks for your replies. I have a Freelander 2 2014. The headlamps are HB3's and are very orangey and dull.

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You can get Osram Night Breakers in an HB3 style bulb.
They will be brighter than standard halogen bulbs, but not by a huge margin.
The main problem with the projector headlamp is the reflective material behind the lens burns off, which gives that characteristic orange light.

Nodge68 said:

You can get Osram Night Breakers in an HB3 style bulb.
They will be brighter than standard halogen bulbs, but not by a huge margin.
The main problem with the projector headlamp is the reflective material behind the lens burns off, which gives that characteristic orange light.

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Thank you!

Have you tried giving your headlamps a good clean & polish to remove ingrained rime ?
Recently done my old Mondeo, surprising what difference it can make.