Leigh

My WRX's headlamp bulb popped today, and on removing it I discovered it has this strange wattage. The nearest I can find at my local Halfords is 100/80w. Will this be too much for the wiring? I don't want to fit 55w standard bulbs as my existing lights are/were quite good, and I've heard how cr@p scoob lights are with standard bulbs.
Anyone help?

Leigh

MorayMackenzie

Hi Leigh,

I have run at least 100/80s from halfords on both my imports with no problems. Obviously, the higher wattage bulbs may have a shorter operational life than dim ones, but thats the nature of the beast. Just try to remember to switch of the headlights before you start the engine, I suspect the voltage transients encountered during cranking do horrible things to bulb life.

Oh, and ALL my cars have had uprated bulbs (some with uprated wiring), and have never had MOT problems... You just have to set the headlight alignment up correctly.

Leigh

Cheers Moray!
100/80's it is then!

Leigh

Dick White

ihave the very same in my MY98....brilliant

IWatkins

And if you do get 100/80's from Halfords, double check the brand you are getting.

Some of the H4 fittement bulbs available in there don't actually fit H4 headlamps. Although the bulb part looks correct, the mounting plate is too big. Found this on the Bosch ones. Turns out they are 100/80 H4 bulbs but a special P45 fit, whatever that means Keep the receipt I guess.

Cheers

Ian

^Gazzer^

I am using 90/130 watt bulbs from Halfords. They are fine with the existing wiring.

Combined with the 130w cibies, I can see nicely down the country lanes thankyou very much. Oncomming drivers tend to swerve off the road and crash when I have them on for some reason.

IWatkins

Rich,

Thanks for that. Didn't know there were different flavours of H4 until the other day. Needless to say, the Halfords saturday lads didn't know any different either

Cheers

Ian

richm

Ian,
H4's come in two different flavours as you've discovered - P43t which is by far the commonest, with the three rectangular tabs round the base, and P45 which is bigger and now pretty uncommon - in fact I can't recall any P45 application at the moment..... i'm a tad surprised somewhere like Halfords even keeps the P45 base.

Cheers

Rich

Neil Smalley

So whats the number on the packet then?
I've seen 742AW and 742B all in 60/55, no 100/80.