Jimny JB74 LED headlight upgrade

Seeking the wisdom of the collective... 

I'm looking to upgrade my JB74's headlights and like the LEDs Woodstock Car Sales (WCS) offer (please see attached image), but their price is eye-watering!  Does anyone know what make/model they use so I can go direct to the source and hopefully buy them cheaper than going to WCS?

Thanks everyone.

The answer for "what is the source of this Jimny accessory" is always China.

Go to aliexpress.com and put "JB74 LED headlight" in the search box.  You'll find several options that look like the one in the photo.  

Shipping from China is surprisingly cheap, but you will of course have to pay customs fees upon receipt.  I've never had a problem myself ordering from this Chinese marketplace, but if something does go wrong, you will probably wish you had paid a little more and bought it from a local reseller.  In any case, good luck.

Headlights should be ‘E’ marked for use on UK roads, you might want to check that any aftermarket ones are before purchasing.

The cost sometimes reflects the quality and with this type of sealed non repairable unit it might reflect lifetime of the LEDs. If it was me I would be keeping the old reflectors just in case.

I am not sure how much WCS are but to put it in perspective Streettrack sell an OEM unit for £750 each.

streettracklife.com/collections/jimny-li...8-sz5-led-headlights

What is the fitment? Are they jut regular 7" round lights or more bespoke?

Personally, most of the aftermarket 7" round lights looks horrid and chavvy. They also tend to dazel on coming drivers and all use a really horrid super cool white/blueish light, which causes more eye strain and makes anything green or brown (you know, things like the countryside), look a rather muddish grey colour.

I would say the factory LED lights on my SZ5 are superb however. No idea how easy or cost effective it is to retro fit them, but they would certainly be a very good and sensible upgrade.

If you can fit any 7" round light, then I have these in a Land rover Ninety:
www.banginheadlights.com/products/tradit...riant=42493072834755

They come from Australia and even with shipping are very sensibly priced. I also love how they are neutral white at 4300k. They give a superb colour tint, better than the Jimny factory lights in this regard. Note most other aftermarket lights are well over 6000k usually and have a very low colour rendition index.

The dip beam on the Bangin lights is fantastic. The mainbeam isn't quite as good, but still a step up from halogen.

 

For a while now I've been seeing news articles on what seems to be UK drivers kicking & screaming over LED headlights being too bright & dazzling, demanding they be outlawed and I wondered where the problem was coming from - is it OEM LED lights or "cheap Chinese LED lights".

I've got at least three vehicles with OEM LED headlights and they seem to be fine, I also have two more with "street legal" aftermarket LED bulbs (Osram), Osram has been certifying the bulbs on a vehicle-by-vehicle basis (the Jimny is certified) and a country-by-country basis (unfortunately they are not certified for UK use, and I don't think Osram has plans to certify them on RHD vehicles).

They do have a very sharp well defined cutoff and are unlikely to dazzle oncoming traffic.

www.osram.com/am/night-breaker-led.jsp

I need to correct an earlier "misstatement" - I just noticed Ireland is now listed as approved, so they are now legal for RHD vehicles - it might be worth investigating for yourself, or pushing Osram a little to see if you can get certified in your corner of the UK

fordem wrote:

For a while now I've been seeing news articles on what seems to be UK drivers kicking & screaming over LED headlights being too bright & dazzling, demanding they be outlawed and I wondered where the problem was coming from - is it OEM LED lights or "cheap Chinese LED lights".

There has been some hysteria. I doubt anything will be banned, as you can't undo what already exists.

My view is, the cars causing the problem are not specifically because they are LED, they are the LED matrix lights, as they are always trying to blind someone, unless they think there is another vehicle. Its sort of the wrong way round, lets use the lights in a way that will dazzle as a priority. Rather than default to dip and only use more light when it is known that there are no other cars.

I've driven a Ford Mach-E with lights like this, they where horrendous and continually got it wrong. I ended up switching to a more manual mode of control. And I see it time and time again when driving at night, that it is cars like this that dazzle. There are always a few aftermarket LED retro fit lights with poor beam cutoff, but these are the minority and are already regulated in law anyhow. Just the same as you get the occasional poorly adjusted headlight that dazzles, be it halogen, HID or LED.

The LED lights on the Jimny are great, but nobody ever flashes me for them dazzling. The auto mainbeam works well on some roads, but like the matrix lights, gets it wrong on some types of roads or situations, which can cause you to drive with mainbeam on when you shouldn't. I tend to be very observant and manually control mainbeam under these circumstances, but the reality is, a very large proportion of drivers are simply lazy and/or ignorant. So if there is an 'auto' mode, they just leave it to do its thing, even if what it is doing is wrong and an inconvenience for others.