Piston Slap: A Stern Talkin' to About OEM Headlamps (Part II)
TTAC Commenter flipper35 writes:

I thought I would give everyone an update on the lighting situation on the Durango. After considering the advice from both you and Mr. Stern, I decided that after all the expense of the new OEM lights, the better bulbs and the relay harness, I would just go with the more labor-intensive lights and less labor-intensive wiring from The Retrofit Source. I ended up spending a little over my budget but the lights are worlds better. They’re also an engineered solution that doesn’t blind other drivers.

I made an album with several pictures, before and after, with different settings. As you can see, on the new set there is a distinct cutoff on the “dims.” The low beams are currently adjusted a bit low and I haven’t taken the time to fix that yet, but on the road it is a major improvement. Other than a confused look from my wife when I had to bake the headlight buckets to remove the lenses and finding a place for the computer, ballast, and relay, it wasn’t too bad.

It was a little more work than I had planned, but the all-in price wasn’t much more than going the OEM route. It is a very significant improvement. I did get to adjust them a bit, and then followed my brother-in-law to see if they were blinding everyone. He said it was no different than other traffic, so I think I will leave the alignment right there. The beans line up on the door with the dims slightly higher than the other lights, but the old lights were sort of a blob on the top and I used a guess as to where the “cut” line was.

Thanks for all the help. I wanted to do it right and have them be able to align correctly. Even though I didn’t follow your exact advice, you gave me the push in the right direction. It still isn’t a bad looking truck for 190k miles!

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  • ToolGuy I was challenged by Tim's incisive opinion, but thankfully Jeff's multiple vanilla truisms have set me straight. Or something. 😉
  • ChristianWimmer The body kit modifications ruined it for me.
  • ToolGuy "I have my stance -- I won't prejudice the commentariat by sharing it."• Like Tim, I have my opinion and it is perfect and above reproach (as long as I keep it to myself). I would hate to share it with the world and risk having someone critique it. LOL.
  • SCE to AUX Sure, give them everything they want, and more. Let them decide how long they keep their jobs and their plant, until both go away.
  • SCE to AUX Range only matters if you need more of it - just like towing capacity in trucks.I have a short-range EV and still manage to put 1000 miles/month on it, because the car is perfectly suited to my use case.There is no such thing as one-size-fits all with vehicles.