[s-cars] HIR headlight bulb warning

[Wayne Dohnal]

Do not use a 65 watt high beam HIR bulb in your low beam lights.

I've been running the #9005 65 watt high beam bulbs in the low beams for 
years with no adverse affects.  About a year ago I bought a pair of 65 watt 
HIR 9011 bulbs to try out.  Wanting to make comparisons I put them both in 
the same headlight assembly. Since I'd had no problems with 9005s in the low 
beams, I didn't have a second thought about putting in one of the 9011s.  A 
few months leater I started noticing the glass lens fogging up on the 
inside.  It's been getting progressively worse and I finally pulled it out 
for cleaning today.  What I found is that the 9011 has been melting the 
plastic low beam reflector housing, and I assume this was the cause of the 
fogging.  Since the 9011 should have the same heat output as the 9005 I can 
only guess that its spherical shape is placing the heat closer to the 
plastic.  About 20% to 25% of my low beam reflector is now shot.  There's 
also a small amount of reflector deterioration by the shank of the high beam 
bulb.  My other headlight, which has never had an HIR bulb in it, also has 
some deterioration in both of the same places, but it's not nearly as 
serious.

Not having tried a 55 watt low beam HIR bulb I don't know if it would cause 
any problems.  But if you're using HIRs and you see a lens start to fog, I'd 
recommend you take them out.