Luxster Punisher 2024 LED headlight bulb review

[2015 Blue RT]

I noticed one of my Hikari "Eye of Megatron" LED H1 high beams was starting to flicker on my daily commute, so I thought I'd replace all the bulbs. I had Cougar "Flagship" H7 in the low beam and the Hikaris in the high beams. Overall a pretty good setup. I had used bulbfacts.com back in 2021 when I bought them. I revisited there, and the best compromise (price vs performance) I found was the Hikari 2023 Future. I'll add I was looking for one bulb maker that sold both H1 and H7. The Hikari did both. Here's why this is not a review of the 2023 Hikaris:

 

Amazon despite having delivered to me for years could no longer find me (new driver?), so after two failed delivery attempts I ended up canceling those and found another site on YouTube called Car Light Reviews (link to 2023 LED bulb reviews). He does fairly in depth testing, to include things like performance after 27 minutes, which is slightly shorter than my daily commute. Based upon this, I decided to try the Luxster "Punishers" (Amazon non-affiliated link). I gave Amazon a second chance and they managed a late delivery. The saving grace was that they refunded 20% due to the combined hassle.

 

Unfortunately, I didn't think to take some before & after photos in the dark. Today when I tested them on the road, it was so foggy that I mostly couldn't make full use of the high beams, so this is strictly a seat of the pants assessment. All bulbs were installed with the LEDs at 3 and 9 o'clock, and the wiring harness at 6 o'clock.

 

Replacing headlight bulbs in the wethead is a chore. I made a 2-day project out of it and fixed some broken tabs while I was at it. These bulbs come with steel adapters and basically mount via dual o-rings inside the adapter collar. While this provides some vibration resistance, it also allows them to flex more than seems good. Both H1 and H7 have fans, and both fit under the covers of the housing. Both have driver boxes that tucked inside the housing. I used some heat shrink tubing around the connectors, and in the prior install had to tap into a ground wire for the H1 bulbs. One point of info- the Luxster H7 connector is marked + and - and will plug into the BMW connector either way. I tested the BMW connector, which has 2 black wires on one terminal and one black wire on the other. I found the terminal with dual wires was positive. I tested with the housing in place and both low and high beam worked.  I tried the low beam adjuster lever in all 3 positions and started with the highest point.

 

The light color (6000) seems whiter than the Cougar at 6500, while the Hikari was also rated at 6000. The lower the temperature, the yellower the light, while higher temps make a bluer light (blog post talking about headlight temps). The sweet spot to me is around 5-6K, which is considered natural light.

The low beam pattern seems good, but this is mainly a design of the headlight. The high beam pattern seemed to be higher than before, but that may have been due to the fog making it more visible. When I did find a clear spot of road, the high beams definitely increased illumination down the road.

 

Overall, I'm satisfied with the bulbs. It will remain to be seen if I get flashed on a 2-lane road while on low beam. I regularly pass a truck that uses cheap aftermarket LED bulbs that shotgun light everywhere, so I'm mindful of the low beam pattern.

 

I'll attach some box photos, and if I can remember to do it & the weather permits I'll take some after dark photos & update.

 

 

 

[2015 Blue RT]

Here are some night shots in my driveway. The first two are against the door to show the pattern, while the next two show distance illumination.