Miata Mailing List: June 1999, Message #220

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James,
          I don't have any idea why you would think that I thought it was a
stupid question. We take H4 for granted here, all our cars have used it for
20 or 30 years, back in the dark ages when sealed beams were normal,
comments were always made by motoring journalists, when road testing
European cars, about how good the headlights were. Usually, the lights were
the (then) old fashioned removable bulb type incandescent but it was the
design of the lens which made the difference, on low beam, they would (and
still do) throw a long beam of light up the left side of the road (we drive
on the left) and as we were always taught never to look at oncoming
headlights, the logical place to look, was up the side of the road, with
lights such as Hella, Cibie and Marchal, that area was well lit, with early
sealed beam and early Japanese headlights, the importance of lens design had
not been realised and that area was quite dark. It had nothing really to do
with H4, H4 just improved the situation. I considered fitting better lights
to my '92 but never got around to it, they were adequate (H4 of course) for
city use, if I still lived in the country I would have done something about
them. My '99 has lights which are the equal of any European car I have
owned, excellent beam pattern with sharp cut off on low beam, so as not to
dazzle on-coming drivers, more powerful bulbs may improve that slightly but
I don't do a lot of night driving outside the metropolitan area these days
so do I really need it?

Jeff Gehrig
MX5 CLUB of NSW #169 Australia
'99 Grace Green (Kelly)
MCA #42017
Oz TeamVoodoo
Team Grandpa
Team Loch Stewart
http://www.mx5.com.au/nsw/index.html


----- Original Message -----
From: James Davison <james.davison@home.com>
To: Jeff Gehrig <miata@bigpond.com>; Multiple recipients of list
<miata@realbig.com>
Sent: Wednesday, June 02, 1999 5:33 PM
Subject: Re: Headlight Advice (Stupid Question)


in addition to the fact that they contain halogen bulbs, which contain a
different mixture of gases (halogen is a patented mix of inert gases, im
guessing? anyone know which gases?) than lesser bulbs. not a stupid question
at all, i don't think.

james
'94 BRG

----- Original Message -----
From: Jeff Gehrig <miata@bigpond.com>
To: Multiple recipients of list <miata@realbig.com>
Sent: Wednesday, June 02, 1999 12:03 AM
Subject: Re: Headlight Advice (Stupid Question)


> The reason for changing to Hellas, or Marchals or Cibies, is the vastly
> superior lens design which gives much better illumination.
>
>
> Jeff Gehrig
> MX5 CLUB of NSW #169 Australia
> '99 Grace Green (Kelly)
> MCA #42017
> Oz TeamVoodoo
> Team Grandpa
> Team Loch Stewart
> http://www.mx5.com.au/nsw/index.html
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: mchehab <mchehab@abac.com>
> To: Multiple recipients of list <miata@list.miata.net>
> Sent: Wednesday, June 02, 1999 1:00 PM
> Subject: Re: Headlight Advice (Stupid Question)
>
>
> Ok.  So let me get this straight, the bulbs in the original headlight unit
> on a miata can be replaced with ones of a higher wattage?  If this is so,
> why do people buy the hella's.  why not just put in a great wattage bulb?
>
> Merwan
>
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