I noticed that my headlights aren't that bright AND they don't illuminate a lot of the road infront of my car - compared to past vehicles. (audi, etc).

THEN, one of my bulbs died.. so I switched them both...(6000k bulbs)

Now, the bulbs are great, but I have noticed that the illumination still isn't great in front of the car.

ANY ADVICE????? How can I improve the illumination???? thx

 

You may like the look of the violet 6000k bulbs but they illuminate less than the OEM 4300k bulbs. I've found that Philips 5000k are a nice alternative - no violet, very white and almost as good as OEM for illumination. Search eBay for Philips D2S 85122CM color match bulbs.

 

Have you verified that the height/angle of the headlights are correct? The manual has a description of the procedure... it requires a long allen wrench (around 6") to adjust.

I assume that the bulbs you changed were the low beams, thus implying that you don't have the xenon version of the headlights which would help a lot. Unfortunately, I don't think the OEM ones can be reasonably retrofitted. Hopefully others will have more substantial suggestions.

 

The headlights in my 997.1 TT are fantastic. They are the best I've ever had, and are far better than the headlights on my old 996, my Cayenne or even my 2014 Audi SQ5. This leads me to believe that there is something wrong with your headlights. I believe that there is a "safe mode" that will engage if the level sensors fail which will aim your headlights into the lowest position, only illuminating the road directly in front of your car. You might check this, although I would think you'd get a warning message if this were the case. It could also be that somebody messed with the headlight alignment and screwed it up...

The other issue as mentioned above is the 6,000K bulbs. They look very cool, but they put far less usable light onto the road than the 4,300K bulbs. If you are looking for maximum visibility, you might consider a bulb with a lower color temperature. 4,300K bulbs mimic natural sunlight very well. The human eye evolved over hundreds of thousands of years to perform in natural sunlight, which is the reason this color temperature was chosen. The human eye doesn't perform well with blue or purple light, and depth perception is impacted significantly.

 

Sounds like OP doesn't have Xenons. In which case the bulb really isn't going to matter much. Get a HID kit fitted on the current lights and you'll see a real improvement.

 

The HID conversions look fairly reasonable in price, at least when they are just a bulb and the electronics need to drive them properly. I assume they must have the CANBus problems worked out for those advertised for Porsches. OP, make sure if you go this route you verify that the setup in CANBus compatible or you may get light-failure warnings on the dash.

The big difference between OEM and the ones I glanced at briefly are the OEM ones include a mechanical shutter in the lens assembly that keeps the bulb from blinding on-coming traffic. You can actually see that the shutter is shaped to reduce light projection distance to the left and allow more to the right, again to reduce blinding on-coming cars while allow more light along the shoulder. The shutter opens when you turn on high beams (BMWs and others have this as well). It looks like the bulb-replacement ones do not have a shutter mechanism, but maybe they aren't as bright and don't have that problem. I don't know.

Towards the end of writing this, I decided to check to see if the articles on Pelican cover this and they do. Here is a writeup on using general HID replacements: http://www.pelicanparts.com/techarti...ing_System.htm

and another one the more OEM-like solution here (lots more $$$s): http://www.pelicanparts.com/techarti..._Headlamps.htm. One of the big costs here is the cost of the new headlight assemblies themselves, I happen to know they are over $1400 each.

 

The shutter mechanism is the genesis of the term "bi-xenon" - a mechanical high beam so to speak with a little help from a supplemental halogen bulb.

 

There are several types of HID light capsules. Bi-xenon is one of them.
In my experience, bi-xenon capsules (not bulbs) are HID, only. On low-beam (dipped), a metal shutter covers part of the light going to the reflector. On hi-beam, the shutter is moved forward by a magnet, allowing the light to reach the high-beam portion of the reflector. This is not the best way to do things, IMHO. A better approach would be to use an HID bulb for low-beam, and some other light source for high-beam.
Most other automotive light sources are "instant on": one turns a switch, and the lights come on, as bright as they can be. HIDs capsules take a while to get to their best operating temperature (not the same as their color).
If I had a choice, I'd go with LED headlights. They are much brighter than many light sources, last longer than bulbs, have a small electrical load, and produce very little heat.

 

Sorry to ask a dumb question: when I purchased my used 2010 997.2 C2 last year, the dealer told me all 911's come with factory HID. So did he tell me the wrong info? =(

 

Bi-xenon were standard equipment from model year 2009 and subsequent - 2008 and prior they were standard on the S and an option on non-S.

 

If the OP doesn't have HID headlights, then the problem with 6,000K lights becomes even more pronounced. The only way to achieve that color temperature in a halogen lamp is to put a blue or purple filter on the bulb. This filter severely diminishes the light output of the bulb. Some companies that sell these bulbs try to compensate for this by increasing the wattage of the bulb, which leads to considerable increases in heat. The increased heat causes all sorts of problems, such as melted wiring harnesses, melted light sockets, burned headlight lenses, etc.

 

The bluer the bulb the less light you experience and the cheaper (IMHO) the car looks. All we see in the Bay Area with that heat range bulbs are riced out Honda Civics, etc.

 

In a previous post, OP said he had an 08 C4S which would have had HID/bi-xenon as standard equipment.