Fritzz

Pretty sure I am going to send them back and use the $50 to put towards a proper retrofit. I am a little worried about making the mods, but with enough research I think I am going to do it. Either going with the Mini Stage III D2S Square or the FX-R. With the group buy it makes them more reasonable, now to find a set of donor headlights so I can take my time and get it right.

Fritzz

I received my Diode Dynamics HP48 Taillights on Thursday. All I can say is I am finally happy. I feel like my search for bulbs with enough differentiation between low and high is over. I wanted as close to stock with the added benefit of auto on/off that LEDs give you. Things look great at night, dusk and during the day. I no longer have any reservations that I am putting myself or other drivers on the road in danger because others cannot tell what my intentions are. Hopefully this helps folks get the right tail light LEDs. I highly suggest the Diode Dynamics HP48 bulbs.

I was able to take some pictures, albeit not as great and not as in depth as Masejoer, but I feel the comparison is sound. All photos were taken with the same camera, same settings (1/30, F4, ISO 400) and take within a few minutes apart.

If there are any other shots or questions anyone has please let me know.

Bulbs I tested:
Stock Sylvania 4057
JDM ASTAR Super Bright AX-2835 Chipsets - - These are definitely brighter but the differentiation just was not there. During the day they were hard to see and at night it was hard to tell I was braking.
Diode Dynamics HP48 - Link - Brighter than stock, differentiation is great. The difuser that is built around the LED helps eliminate the sparkle effect I had with the JDM ASTAR. Also you can see output is quite a bit bigger than stock or the JDMs based off the pictures. Ultimately the differentiation from low to high is what sold me on these bulbs. Half the bulb is lit up on low and on high an additional set of leds are lit along with the low set having the voltage increased, which ultimately leads to the 1:6 ratio of low to high.

My2013STX

Running stock halogen lighting at the moment, I am considering adding an aftermarket LED or Xenon/HID lighting for those long dark roads in foul weather. What I've enjoyed with the Xenon/HID lighting is that it picks up the reflective pigment in the road stripes and makes poor weather visibility better. Do LED's perform the same way?

naplesbill

Yes, this is something I tried to express very early in this thread. The poor weather performance of HID and LED far exceeds halogen, regardless of any beam tests you will read in this thread. I suspect this is a function of the color temperature more than anything else.