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Is the factory LED light upgrade worth it?

FormerToyotaGuy

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I had a friend who had a Wrangler Rubicon and when I ordered my Gladiator he told me make sure you order the LED package as an upgrade, its more money but definitely worth it
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MrKnowitall

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If they're a proper ripoff of the ARB lights then those are probably decent lights and I can say the ARBs have a great throw.
Several of the reviews call them flood lights. If you run them on rural roads (rather than dirt) too much stray light ends up blinding you, coming off reflective road signs.
185W is not that much with how many LEDs are in the array and those are like 9" lights.
A lot of manufacturers quote the output of their lights based on the full output of the combined LED elements- 37 presumably 5W chips. They're usually regulated to a fraction of that. I'd like to see a bench test with a current measurement on these.
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BAT

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You will need something. The stock ones are pure garbage. I just can't morally pay FCA that much money to fix a defect. I did a bulb swap and it was better, but have Oracle ones on the way that appear to be better. Also I could care less about taillights. Really I would rank the LED option more on if you want the steel bumper since it is the only way to get it.
That was my thoughts as well cannot really believe Jeep put that trashy of a headlight in the truck should have been LED in all of them for the price. Hell even my wife old cheapy car had LED Lights all around
 

JCHGlad

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It depends on your budget. Are they nice? Sure are! Are headlights something you can upgrade later if necessary? Sure are! I have the halogens, and added some better halogen bulbs for $35, and LED fogs for another $30. I would still like something better for the headlights, but I personally would not pay $1k for the upgrade. Another consideration is how much snow you drive in. I’ve heard that LEDs freeze up because they don’t generate heat. I’ll let our northern friends have the final say on that.

The freezing thing is wildly overblown, Ive spent the last several years, driving my 18JLUR in the northeast, NY, Vermont, Canada, etc during the winter seasons it’s a none issue.
 

Gmac03

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Just brought my JT home yesterday, dark rainy and immediately realized I should have gotten the LEDs. ???‍♂
 

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Labswine

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I got my LED heads on Amazon for about $227. ( https://www.amazon.com/BUNKER-INDUS...qid=1606939016&sprefix=JT+LED,aps,171&sr=8-13 ) They have the switched Halo which is super easy to wire in. They are a head and shoulders improvement over factory (and cheaper than factory LEDs). I initially tried replacement LED bulbs in the factory housing and found that because they put that OIIIIIIIO diffuser in there, they were no better than stock. The LED lamps for the fogs that came with them, HUGE improvement.
 

GladiatorCruzen

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Personally, I did not think it was worth the $1k. I decided to add other options that were more important to me, and then upgrade the LEDs myself. Just did an inexpensive bulb swap last night on all the front lights, and for only about $90 total. Eventually, I’ll swap the headlights for some Oracles or something, but I’m completely happy with the setup I have now and the headlights has a nice cut off line.

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Jeep Gladiator Is the factory LED light upgrade worth it? 69E54333-5143-47F8-A101-31F950CE4B74
 

Gvsukids

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GladiatorCruzen

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I got the headlights and used the tazer to set the headlights to LED and it reduced the glare.
Driving in wet snow coated the headlights.

2276.jpg
Interesting. I don’t have snow to worry about in Austin, but plan on buying a Tazer soon.
 

Dqban

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Personally, I did not think it was worth the $1k. I decided to add other options that were more important to me, and then upgrade the LEDs myself. Just did an inexpensive bulb swap last night on all the front lights, and for only about $90 total. Eventually, I’ll swap the headlights for some Oracles or something, but I’m completely happy with the setup I have now and the headlights has a nice cut off line.

0038C4D2-7AAB-4FC3-AEE2-771C802FA44C.jpeg


92F06F35-25BD-43B2-933D-F8D3E3398854.jpeg


69E54333-5143-47F8-A101-31F950CE4B74.jpeg
No offense but your light pattern looks horrible. There is scattered light and random hotspots all over the road. Yes it's bright but I guarantee you are blinding people. I can see the glare in the photos. Your picture demonstrates exactly why LED bulbs do not belong in the reflector housing
 

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GladiatorCruzen

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No offense but your light pattern looks horrible. There is scattered light and random hotspots all over the road. Yes it's bright but I guarantee you are blinding people. I can see the glare in the photos. Your picture demonstrates exactly why LED bulbs do not belong in the reflector housing
Impressive you can make that assumption based off a picture. To note, the pictures were taken using an IPhone 11, which is known to have some issues taking night photos of lights, due to the the lens design reflecting light. As mentioned before, the headlight LED bulb replacement is a temporary solution for me, since I plan to replace with a quality full aftermarket housing at around a $500 price point.
 

Dqban

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Impressive you can make that assumption based off a picture. To note, the pictures were taken using an IPhone 11, which is known to have some issues taking night photos of lights, due to the the lens design reflecting light. As mentioned before, the headlight LED bulb replacement is a temporary solution for me, since I plan to replace with a quality full aftermarket housing at around a $500 price point.
It's not an assumption. You took a picture of your headlight and you're light pattern. You can see the hotspots. They are there. It's not created by the iPhone. I see this exact thing with led bulbs pretty much every time. I am very familiar with hikari lights.... many people try to use them on motorcycles (One of my passions) and I see the same effect. If you park side-by-side to another gladiator with projector housings you will see exactly what I'm talking about... and the difference will be very obvious. Be careful driving with that set up in fog...
Please understand, I was not trying to offend you... but I must stand by my statement ...your picture demonstrates why we should not use LED in Reflectors
 

Jason Oliver

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GladiatorCruzen said:
Impressive you can make that assumption based off a picture. To note, the pictures were taken using an IPhone 11, which is known to have some issues taking night photos of lights, due to the the lens design reflecting light. As mentioned before, the headlight LED bulb replacement is a temporary solution for me, since I plan to replace with a quality full aftermarket housing at around a $500 price point.

It's not an assumption. You took a picture of your headlight and you're light pattern. You can see the hotspots. They are there. It's not created by the iPhone. I see this exact thing with led bulbs pretty much every time. I am very familiar with hikari lights.... many people try to use them on motorcycles (One of my passions) and I see the same effect. If you park side-by-side to another gladiator with projector housings you will see exactly what I'm talking about... and the difference will be very obvious. Be careful driving with that set up in fog...
Please understand, I was not trying to offend you... but I must stand by my statement ...your picture demonstrates why we should not use LED in Reflectors
Maybe both of you could agree to disagree - and move on? You have both expressed your opinions and neither will convince the other. Let's hear from someone else.
 

GladiatorCruzen

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It's not an assumption. You took a picture of your headlight and you're light pattern. You can see the hotspots. They are there. It's not created by the iPhone. I see this exact thing with led bulbs pretty much every time. I am very familiar with hikari lights.... many people try to use them on motorcycles (One of my passions) and I see the same effect. If you park side-by-side to another gladiator with projector housings you will see exactly what I'm talking about... and the difference will be very obvious. Be careful driving with that set up in fog...
Please understand, I was not trying to offend you... but I must stand by my statement ...your picture demonstrates why we should not use LED in Reflectors
I’m not offended. As mentioned, this is only a temporary $28 solution prior to purchasing $500 quality aftermarket complete housings. I never stated the led bulbs were as good as Mopar $900 units, nor would I expect them to be. It’s all good.
 

Dqban

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GladiatorCruzen said:
Impressive you can make that assumption based off a picture. To note, the pictures were taken using an IPhone 11, which is known to have some issues taking night photos of lights, due to the the lens design reflecting light. As mentioned before, the headlight LED bulb replacement is a temporary solution for me, since I plan to replace with a quality full aftermarket housing at around a $500 price point.


Maybe both of you could agree to disagree - and move on? You have both expressed your opinions and neither will convince the other. Let's hear from someone else.
I am not expressing an opinion other than how I believe it looks. The hotspots are a fact. I can circle them on the picture. I can circle the glare on the picture. This is also a matter of experience in dealing with these types of lights before so I know exactly what I am looking for. I'm not trying to convince him of anything. Reality is reality and if you understand what you're looking at then the picture obviously demonstrates what I'm talking about. Providing information it's not trying to convince anything.. if a conversation is too intense for you to read perhaps you should skip this post
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