If you’ve ever driven off-road at night, you quickly realize the limits of the factory headlights. In pitch black wilderness, there’s only so far that your headlights can reach. But before you begin pricing aftermarket light bars and figure out where you’re going to drill holes in your vehicle to mount them, try upgrading the headlight bulbs first. There are a multitude of LED headlight bulb replacements that can dramatically improve how far you can project your headlights in off-road situations. Some LED replacement bulbs can provide anywhere from a 25 to 50 percent increase in light without any modifications needed to your vehicle.
DISCLAIMER: Keep in mind, however, that LED bulb manufacturers and the automotive aftermarket lighting industry remind us that upgrading factory headlight bulbs is not compliant with Department of Transportation (D.O.T.) regulations. But as many off-road enthusiasts are already aware, utilizing aftermarket lights is something that is only used for off-road purposes. Fortunately, headlight bulbs take minutes to install and are something that can be done during your off-road or overland excursions, then switched back to factory bulbs for the highway if that’s what you want to do.
OUR TEST: We did our research and looked up a variety of LED Bulb manufacturers and found several that would fit our 2020 Ford Ranger 4×4. We selected the GTR Ultra 2 high beam bulbs to replace the factory high beams on our truck. While the company also makes upgraded LED low-beam bulbs, we wanted to stay with a factory D.O.T. bulb to ensure safety for oncoming traffic on the highway, and selected to use upgraded high-beams that we can use only for off-roading.
The first thing to note about any performance aftermarket headlight bulb is that not all of them fit within your specific vehicle’s headlight housing. The bulbs we found were tested by the manufacturer to fit and was one of the reasons we selected it. The best way to find the right bulb for your vehicle is to research them online and see what others are using or which manufacturers have test-fitted them to work in various make and model vehicles.
Replacing the factory Ford headlight bulbs for the GTR Ultra 2 LED bulbs was simple. We reached into the back of the headlight from inside the engine compartment, removed the plastic dust cap, and twisted off the factory bulb, and unplugged it from the harness. We test fitted the new LED bulb to see how it would fit and how the wiring harness would plug back into it. The bulb was larger than the factory bulb because it had a heat sink behind it to help cool the LEDs. Once we got it plugged in and inserted into the factory headlight housing. Because LED bulbs have the LEDs on both sides of a center mount, it’s important to make sure they are installed so that the LEDs are facing horizontally in the headlight reflector. Installing them vertically (facing the hood and ground) it may cause the light patterns to be different and not work correctly with the headlight reflectors.
RESULTS: According to testing done by the manufacturer, these GTR Ultra 2 LED headlights deliver an amazing 191 percent more light. From what we could tell from our installation, the difference was amazing and allowed us to see much further while driving off-road. We were so impressed by the difference in lighting that we also decided to see what a low-beam LED upgrade would do. We installed the GTR CSP Mini which was just as simple to install and we noticed a great result with a much whiter light than the factory halogen light.
Although the headlights were much brighter, off-road racing light manufacturers tell us that their testing shows that white light can cause more eye strain than a light with a warmer tone. Furthermore, it’s very important to re-adjust your headlights, especially if you have a lifted vehicle or if your vehicle has larger diameter tires. This prevents you from potentially blinding other vehicles in front of you with your brighter lights. For us, we put the factory low-beam headlights back on and saved the aftermarket LED lights for when we head out off-road to overnight excursions. Nevertheless, our high-beam LED upgrade provides plenty more light for driving in pitch black conditions, and makes for a great baseline for adding light pods or a light bar for greater vision at night.