xjohnmatrix

My headlights suck pretty bad, looks like someone is shining a Coleman flashlight out of the center of my grill at night.

Any suggestions on a pair of powerful headlights at a reasonable price that look similar to stock, style-wise?

Thanks!

EZEARL

Do a harness upgrade and you'll see a difference in your current headlights.

mschi772

https://www.cherokeeforum.com/f67/headlights-203245/

Please read.

4x4jeepmanthing

Im in the same boat as you and today I bought new sylvania silver stars. Its what i had before i replaced them today. They beat stock lights probably by the amount a headlight harness would aid your lighting. Im thinking of adding the harness next myself.

If i was to say your options to lighting improvement what ive read goes like this:

A) Sylivania silverstars 50$ (or any stock upgrade you can think of)
1. (better) stock head lights plus wiring harness upgrade or A+1.

B) H4 conversion: new housing and your choice of bulb. The reviews of those that run this without the wiring harness upgrade seem to be mixed, but IMO the h4 housing and bulb without the harness does not allow its full potential. h4 (housing) 80$max + your choice of bulb 10$-30$ + wiring harness 40$
brands for housing: hella, rampage, ipf(ARB) all good options.

C) L.E.D.s $$$ probably twice the cost of H4 done right. If you buy cheap the light is scattered/ potentially dangerous for oncoming drivers. When you buy reputable product truck lite or break the bank JW speakers, the light is fantastically bright,clear vision and the lights run COOL (temp) snow can = iced over lenses. IMO its either trucklite or JW the rest so far is ebay junk.
max 400$ vs 800$

D) H.I.D. really im not well versed here, but it seems this option is a bit Sol. You have great amounts of light a little less than regular amperage. The reason it hasnt been IMO the best option is because there is no lense (for the XJ) that amply projects the light where you need it and most importantly safely for oncoming drivers.
aiming lights is very important no matter the option but for the $ idk because i havent found options that i can safely recommend. maybe around the cost of h4 but idk. as i said i know very little on these.

if i had the money i would like to see a comparison of H4+harness vs trucklite+harness

best of luck

mschi772

Just a comment that occurred to me for the previous poster...

HID can only be done correctly by retrofitting projectors into some form of housing. It's expensive and requires some effort to craft it all together.

EatonXJ

Retrofiting some Morimoto mini H1 projectors in a H4 housing is not that hard. Throw in some night breakers and it's the best easy light output you can get.... Oh wait no TRS now has an LED bulb called the 2stroke 5000 lumens per bulb. Throw those into the mini H1s and dang.

andrewmp6

Most don't have the money to do hids right or the skills to do the diy stuff.A headlight harness and hella h4 housings are around 100 bucks total.Good hids your looking what 300 up if not more.

Guywitha92

My hids were like $200 with a wiring harness. I had to buy an anti flicker harness as well because they just wouldn't work right. That was another $50. I bought cheap amazon hids prior to that, and they scattered the light bad, were blinding to oncoming traffic, unless I had them pointed so far down that I could barely see the road, and one light went out after 3 days. I emailed the company, and they tried blaming me for plugging them in wrong and using them in my jeep which they were for a 94 Chevy 1500. Same size lights and same plug. Never go with cheap hid lights. That's my $.02

investinwaffles

H1 projector retrofits can be done pretty cheaply, probably $150-200 all in.

Off the shelf - a good set of standard 5x7's plus a relay harness, or TruckLite LED's would be a good improvement over stock

cruiser54

If you don't do the harness upgrade, you're wasting your time and risking headlight switch failure.

Fred/N0AZZ

Do this first and see how much better your stock headlights work about twice as much if not more. New headlights alone will give you nothing unless done correctly.

XJlimitedx99

I did the H4 conversion with the Putco harness and Cibie housings with stock wattage Osram bulbs. The difference is pretty great. The Cibie housings are great and IMO well worth the extra dough. The beam pattern on the low beams is phenomenal. The Putco harness is unbelievably easy. Don't buy bulbs that are tinted blue.

extrashaky

The harness should have been first. Brightness is not the only reason you install a relay harness. It also protects your headlight switch from (further) damage and/or fire. Now you have even more powerful lights running through a corroded headlight switch, speeding even faster toward failure.

4x4jeepmanthing

The silverstars are stock oem sealed beam replacements. The system isn't being pushed as a h4 upgrade would. Though yes a harness is better but I'm not worried until the lights are truly upgraded.

EZEARL

Standard OEM replacement headlights draw 35watts where the Silverstars draw 55watts. When it comes to the XJ's headlight switch even a little bit more heat isn't good.