I've got factory fitted Xenon dipped beam, but the other night I needed to use the high beam (no dogging involved) and I found it to be yellow in comparison.

So I'm thinking of maybe fitting a xenon kit to the high beam. If I opt for xenon's does anyone know the K rating of the dipped beam from skoda?

Or do I just opt for the easy route and get some LED's?

If LED's any reccomendations? And which ones.

Thanks

P.s might change the fogs for LED while I'm at it

Xenon is not recommended due to the start-up time

 

John

Aftermarket HID kits take a lot longer to warm up than the OEM's one do (or at least mine do) so this might be more frustrating than the off-yellow colour of the halogen bulbs if you are repeatedly turning them on and off (as you pass approaching cars etc.).

 

This is why most manufacturers prefer to use bi-xenon headlight designs which use a shutter instead of an additional bulb, minimising the need to flash the xenon bulbs on and off.

 

As the high (main) beam on the Octavia headlights use a reflector behind the bulb I don't think LED will work either. To get the proper benefit of LED's in headlights you really need an OEM set-up as found on high spec Audi's and the Seat Leon.

 

This is why when LED bulbs are added to rear lights designed to work with conventional bulbs they are often less bright than standard.

I've got night breaker plus fitted to my main beam. Looks white enough for me.as said previously hid kit wouldn't work for flash anyway due to warm up period.

The main beam is Halogen because Xenon lights take a while to strike and obtain the correct colour temperature, so just when you need the lights you have to wait for them to strike and warm up which may take to long. Xenon also dislike the constant switch on/off which will cause excessive wear on parts within the bulb leading to premature failure.

 

Much better to fit a better quality Halogen bulb as mentioned before, instant light when you need and want it.

OSRAM Cool Blue Intense H1

You won't go wrong

Edited 13 September, 201510 yr by alberg

Last time I looked, the LED bulbs that were available would be 100% useless and illegal, as they will not give a focussed beam pattern, and are generally just intended for use in fog lights to change their function to DRLs.

 

In OEM LED headlamps, a single point-source LED is aimed at a custom-designed parabolic reflector which then itself focusses the beam of light through a custom-designed parabolic lens to create a small portion of the desired beam pattern.  An array of similar, but each one slightly different LED/reflector/lens assemblies is then used to create an entire beam pattern.

 

You cannot currently get an LED that creates a single point (or rather a short, narrow all-round strip) of light in the same way as a lamp filament or a discharge arc, so you would be unable to generate the correct pattern from a standard headlamp design (reflector type, projector type or old lens type), and one that was sufficiently bright would generate unmanageable amounts of heat in the driver circuitry, much more than a filament or discharge lamp.

 

There were H4-style HID lamps that used a single HID capsule that moved backwards and forwards between dip and main positions, that the manufacturer claimed would light up as quickly as a filament lamp when used for main-beam flash, and although they would not be at full brightness before the flash ended, they would still be brighter than a normal filament lamp.  There are also OE manufacturers that use shuttered HIDs for a combined main and dip, and they use the HID for main beam flash.  However, there are so many risks with using HIDs in Octavias anyway, that I would just stick to a high-brightness white halogen, and match them with a non-blue HID set (lowest temperature you can find - is it 4700k?).