[h8ten]

From all the searching to find out the bulb 'type' I have found that the standard Philips HIR9012LL gets a fairly good write-up. Granted that some of the reviews relate to a year or so ago but they still come out as a lot of user's preferred choice to the extent that some users are even buying them and adapting the bulb base to fit older/inferior fitments. If I get any further with the normal bulb reference I will post here.

 

[Topvaux]

Opened up the NS headlight and guess what I found?

A single Phillips HIR2 /2012 bulb. Oh but that's a low beam 55w bulb right? So where's the high beam bulb?...... There isn't one, just a single low beam bulb.

So, how does high beam work without a bulb? Those who don't want to be on a downer quit reading now.

The headlight is angled up, sort of where a high beam should be but there is a what looks like a gate blocking just less than half the light. Select high beam and the gate moves and you get all the light. If you use a white wall and park about 1m away then you can see for yourself. I did take some pics waf the inner working of the lamp but the 'choose file' is greyed out.

So low beam is like driving on high beams, with a low beam bulb and tape over the top half of the headlight. I need a box of doughnuts right now.

I think the reason for the mechanical moving shutter controlling the beam dipping is that anything other than halogen bulbs need warm up time, so a conventially dipping lamp which switches on the main beams would leave you literally in the dark for a few seconds whilst they warmed up.

I have fitted HID lamps to all of my cars for some time now: my Trooper has regular H4 twin filament bulbs which are replaced with an HID bulb with an electro-magnetically moving lamp tube so the same bulb does dip and main and are always hot; an Astra MklV convertible which my wife had had projectors for dip and reflector lamps for mains which was OK-ish because the dips stayed on and covered the delay of the main beams starting up; and my Aston has the electro-magnetically dipping bulbs in the projectors and regular non-dipping bulbs in the supplementary driving lamps which come on with the main beams, but it takes a few seconds which doesn't matter because the main beams in the headlamps are always hot and move instantaneously.

The Ampera, instead of moving the bulb, moves a little shutter which does a similar job.

In any event, now I have HID'd my Ampera it is no longer scary to drive at night!

 

[Snaxmuppet]

Remember guys... fitting HIDs without approved self-levelling is not permitted... see link earlier in thread.

 

[HandyAndy]

Guys,
I too have fitted "Osram Night Breaker Unlimiter HB4 Headlight Bulbs (Twin Pack)" from amazon. They are far, far better than the originals. On paper these are a different fitting to HIR2 9012s, but all you need do is clip a tiny bit off one of the 3 plastic lugs. See the Customer Reviews where I've posted tech info about light-output compared to originals, plus a piccy of what to trim. It's obvious when you put them side-by-side.

The other thing I've done is make a tiny fresnel-lens beam-director which redirects an un-used bit of light-beam so it illuminates the verge nicely. So at last I can see the grass at the side of the road when on country lane with oncoming cars! If anyone's interested, I can supply details, but it's your choice to do this! IMHO it makes the car safer at night.

 

[toscal353]

As a mere onlooker, not yet worthy of an Ampera (still have our Leaf 'L' plates on!), i cannot understand why such a superbly spec'ed out and made car has crap headlights and no rear wash-wipe.......

 

[Snaxmuppet]

I have always wondered that. They produce a state-of-the-art car and spoil it with cheap lights and attachments.

 

[HandyAndy]

... cannot understand why ... no rear wash-wipe....

Re the wash-wipe, I suspect they were trying as hard as poss to get the drag coeficient as low as they could - in the way thet nerdy engineers will! (I'm onemyself...). They also don't allow you to attach a tow-bar - a shame as I have a smal trailer for taking cuttings to the tip - very green, no? - and they don't allow a roof-box (here in UK that might have lost sales if this had been a high-selling car). I've applied Rainex & that works a treat for me - when it's wet, I get a surface with the rain in tiny dots & I can see clearly through rather like those beaded-curtains in continental cafe-doors to keep flies out. But I do find that the sun can shine on the rear window when it's dry, and there's enough dust in the rainex film to scatter light & make it hard to see out of the back. So it's back to the rear-view mirrors!

 

[Jim]

I think the reason for the mechanical moving shutter controlling the beam dipping is that anything other than halogen bulbs need warm up time, so a conventially dipping lamp which switches on the main beams would leave you literally in the dark for a few seconds whilst they warmed up.

FWIW I would think that LED (or LASER) headlights would be even better than halogen at turning off and on quickly - they use them for fibre optics comms for that reason.

 

[Topvaux]

Yes, Jim, I agree with you certainly concerning LED lamps which have a very satisfying snap-on and snap-off kind of performance. I'm well into my LEDs, having 130-odd throughout the house and every incandescent bulb that I can replace on my older vehicles and trailers etc has been replaced with an LED.

The up-spec bulbs I think we're talking about here (well, I know I am! LOL) are HID, or High Intensity Discharge Xenon, run at a few squillion volts - and definitely have a warm-up cycle. The way they come on is a little odd in that you get a very bright flash of a millisecond or so, followed by a gradual increase from maybe half strength to a tarmac-melting full strength! In truth, it's possibly only a full second or two, but whatever it is is too long to be flying on instruments!!

Although they are bright I must say that there seems to be much less stray scatter compared with incandescents. Maybe because the source is a smaller spot with less escape, but the cut-off is much sharper.

I have no problems with oncoming traffic being dazzled, incidentally, but I do drive with the levelling switched down a notch as a courtesy, really, and only put them right up when I'm on B roads and the like.

 

[donald]

As a mere onlooker, not yet worthy of an Ampera (still have our Leaf 'L' plates on!), i cannot understand why such a superbly spec'ed out and made car has crap headlights and no rear wash-wipe.......

There's really no need for a rear wiper. What is its purpose? I've never seen any road dirt settle on the window. Rear wipers were invented as bluff hatch backs came along where dirt tumbles out of the poor aerodynamics. No such issue here. Why do you want one?

I don't find the headlights too dim. I find everyone else's too bright. Headlights should be limited to 55W. .... oh, OK, they are.... so why does everyone seem to fit 100W bulbs?

 

[Brett Sinclair]

There's really no need for a rear wiper. Why do you want one?

I don't find water is cleared from the rear screen effectively without one. I have had many cars which don't have a rear wiper because aerodynamics are supposed to do the job of clearing the screen but they don't and I usually resort to applying rain repellent.

I don't find the headlights too dim. I find everyone else's too bright.

 

[toscal353]

A rear wash-wipe is a useful aid to rear visibility @donald - you dont have to use it, but if you need it, it helps. I agree with you about headlight brightness.... to a point. Vehicles travel much faster now, and therefore 'demand' much more effective long range visibility. When i was a lad, my mark 1 Cortina managed 50mph in daylight, and 40 at night because the lights were so bad. Now German motorway cruisers seem to want to do 85 all day/night and need ultra bright headlights and fogs so their progress is not impeded.
The problem is that the human eye reacts to a very bright light at night, closes off a bit, and then an 'ordinary' headlight (or object with no light at all) is much less visible for a few seconds.
I find a number of DRL's increasingly blinding in full daylight, and we seem to moved moved away from one reasonable DRL to a bank of them on each side like a set of false eyelashes....

 

[donald]

I have to admit I was squinting into the dark rain tonight at 50 on back roads. I could see the road, but went banging through a few potholes I did not see. That might have simply been inevitable, but brighter bulbs might have helped me see them.

 

[Russ]

My Ampera has again passed the MOT with flying colours..............with HID headlamps for the second year running.
After fitting these the lights at night are way better than they were with a far better cut off (reduces dazzle) and usable main beam.
Supplied by HIDS4U who also supplied the HID lamps on my other two cars. They supply a very decent kit and are certainly not the cheapest.
The bulbs were 9012 direct replacements and took just half an hour to complete the job.
Only snag was that the supply plug to the ballast was cross wired but easily corrected as the ballast is reverse protected.
No extra wiring required as the supply comes from the headlamp bulb connector.
No bulb blown alarms as the ballast loads the wiring up to fool the ECU that it has higher wattage bulbs.

 

[Richard Gledhill]

My Osram Nightbreakers were £25 the pair and give excellent light, and need no special fitting... I'm still struggling to find what the issue is here...

 

[HandyAndy]

My Osram Nightbreakers were £25 the pair and give excellent light, and need no special fitting... I'm still struggling to find what the issue is here...

Even with these, I find the standard light-pattern fails to illuminate the nearside verge when driving down country lanes at night. So I've added a small section fresnel-lens to divert an otherwise wasted section of beam over to the left instead, result is I can now see the verge!

 

[Topvaux]

Richard - I find it hard to understand how anybody can drive an Ampera after dark and not be driving with a white stick out of the window! Seriously - awful, awful lights!

Andy - That's an innovative idea, using the Fresnel lens...

I, however, would never change back from the HID bulbs I have. I reckon the light source is very small with HIDs because in every application that I have used them the beam cut-off is as sharp as a sharp thing! The dipped beam is well controlled with the boot lids of cars in front brightly illuminated but absolutely nothing reaching their back windows! There is a distinct flick up of the beam running up the nearside bank giving excellent visibility at all times.

The main beams, furthermore, are spectacular with the HIDs! Not only is the road illuminated with great clarity, but so are the verges both sides and, when you drive through trees even they are brightly lit ABOVE the car!

I have an Isuzu Trooper and an Aston Martin DB7 and they both have HIDs, too, and they also have the same razor sharp cut-off on dipped beam.
They do take a little more fitting than bulbs alone, but it all simply plugs together and is really easy - well worth the slight effort!

 

[Lee Dalton]

I must just drive too slowly, but I don't have any problems with the standard lights....

 

[donald]

I agree they are definitely not the brightest, and I don't disagree they can get problematic in a world of cars with illegally bright bulbs (like, er, Amperas fitted with HID bulbs - illegal!!). They are, at best, adequate and at worst 'could be brighter'.

 

[Richard Gledhill]

It's strange as I find the verge particularly well lit with the new bulbs. Presumably down to how the flip mechanism is fitted, maybe it's very sensitive to manufacturing tolerances?