Dumb question, light bulb in headlight - 986 Forum - The Community for Porsche Boxster & Cayman Owners

Kirk · 05-12-2009, 12:29 PM

On my litronics it is a H6W bulb, but I've read in several places where people had W5W bulbs instead. I would double check and actually pull the bulb to check. The headlights are very easy to remove.

None of my local autoparts places sell this bulb. Why then order a yellow replacement bulb? They make a white/blue LED H6W bulb that would match the litronics better. I've seen them on eBay. When I get around to it I plan on ordering those...

Kirk

Wingnut2u · 05-13-2009, 05:04 AM

I just bought a set of Xenon White LED H6Ws on Ebay for $11.98 CAN that's about $10.50 USD. These bulbs should do a much better jobof matching the color of Xenons in the Litronics. I never did like the yellow halogen glow of the stock bulbs

ekam · 05-13-2009, 10:04 AM

Call me stupid but I actually went to the dealer and paid $40CAD for a set of these bulbs... I should check to see if they're stamped PORSCHE and made in Germany.

I've played with aftermarket bulbs in the past and trust me it's not fun when something goes wrong and you're trying to troubleshoot. There's too many versions just on eghey and it's difficult to tell which one works best. Maybe I'll go LED for my next set.

ekam · 05-20-2009, 04:58 PM

Found out you can buy Sylvania "64132L Osram" bulb which is the same as the H6W. If you google it they sell for USD$10 each.

Link to photos:
http://www.ppbb.com/scgi-bin/boards/986/main.pl?read=1505667

t2-bxtrs · 05-20-2009, 06:59 PM

guys,
this bulb is called a "position bulb", and i am one of the many that have been scammed by the stealership for would you believe? for $cdn 19 each and that was with a 10% discount !
i just could not believe it and so i went and searched this position bulb and here i am sharing this with all of our forum members to discourage all this scammers, stealership, ebay, craigslist, kijiji etc..
so stop searching, the only place to be is called "Pelican Parts" and it sells for an amazingly price of $2.75 ! so here you go, there should be enough in stock to supply all of us that would need one.
installation is pretty straight forward, just make sure you read and follow the owner's manual carefully.
good luck!
t2 :dance:

ekam · 05-21-2009, 10:39 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by t2-bxtrs

guys,
this bulb is called a "position bulb", and i am one of the many that have been scammed by the stealership for would you believe? for $cdn 19 each and that was with a 10% discount !
i just could not believe it and so i went and searched this position bulb and here i am sharing this with all of our forum members to discourage all this scammers, stealership, ebay, craigslist, kijiji etc..
so stop searching, the only place to be is called "Pelican Parts" and it sells for an amazingly price of $2.75 ! so here you go, there should be enough in stock to supply all of us that would need one.
installation is pretty straight forward, just make sure you read and follow the owner's manual carefully.
good luck!
t2 :dance:

This is great if they aren't charging $23 shipping!!! I was trying to order a set of (4) bleeder valves for brakes ($36 worth total) and that's the best Pelican Parts can come up with. Spoke to them thru the phone, I told them they can throw them in an envelope. Lady on the phone said, nope, that's the best they can do. So I canceled my order.

zoomster1776 · 07-19-2018, 10:56 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ekam

This is great if they aren't charging $23 shipping!!! I was trying to order a set of (4) bleeder valves for brakes ($36 worth total) and that's the best Pelican Parts can come up with. Spoke to them thru the phone, I told them they can throw them in an envelope. Lady on the phone said, nope, that's the best they can do. So I canceled my order.

If you have a password manager it MAY be changing your original shipping selection to 'overnight'. very expensive option. My personal experience speaking.

Kirk · 05-20-2009, 08:33 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ekam

Found out you can buy Sylvania "64132L Osram" bulb which is the same as the H6W. If you google it they sell for USD$10 each.

Link to photos:
http://www.ppbb.com/scgi-bin/boards/986/main.pl?read=1505667

Okay, I'm going to get a little technical here... I need one of these H6W bulbs because the 996 I just bought has one burnt out. Of course you can't get them anywhere locally. Well no worries, I've got Litronic/Xenon lights on both my 986 and 996 and both use the H6W bulb as the "parking light" or "city light". So now it's time to upgrade to a white LED to better match the whiter light of my litronics. The normal halogen H6W bulbs give a bit of a yellowish glow - not cool.

So I did some more digging on eBay and was happy to find that Chinese imports have brought the price down from about $25/pair for LEDs a year ago to just $10/pair now. Here are some eBay auctions of LED replacement lights that I found:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/2X-12V-Blue-Concave-BAX9S-H6W-64132-LED-Bulbs_W0QQitemZ350204495431QQcmdZViewItemQQptZMoto rs_Car_Truck_Parts_Accessories?hash=item5189d08647&_trksid=p4506.c0.m245&_trkparms=72%3A1171%7C65%3A12%7C39%3A1%7C240%3A131 8

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/2X-12V-White-Dome-BAX9S-H6W-64132-LED-Bulbs_W0QQitemZ350204495434QQcmdZViewItemQQptZMoto rs_Car_Truck_Parts_Accessories?hash=item5189d0864a&_trksid=p4506.c0.m245&_trkparms=72%3A1171%7C65%3A12%7C39%3A1%7C240%3A131 8

I don't think that the single LED bulbs will be adequate. I've got a 4 LED bulb for my side markers and they're definitely not as bright as the regular bulbs. They look a lot like these:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/2x-12V-4-LED-Xenon-White-BAX9S-H6W-64132-Bulbs_W0QQitemZ350204495441QQcmdZViewItemQQptZMoto rs_Car_Truck_Parts_Accessories?hash=item5189d08651&_trksid=p4506.c0.m245&_trkparms=72%3A1171%7C65%3A12%7C39%3A1%7C240%3A131 8

So I'm going to go with the 5 LED version of the H6W bulb, it uses a different kind of LED that's not as pretty but hopefully brighter:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/2pcs-BAX9S-H6W-64132-5-Power-LED-Xenon-White-Bulbs_W0QQitemZ200343531806QQcmdZViewItemQQptZMoto rs_Car_Truck_Parts_Accessories?hash=item2ea567b11e&_trksid=p4506.c0.m245&_trkparms=72%3A1171%7C65%3A12%7C39%3A1%7C240%3A131 8

What I like about this one is that it's cheap, looks bright, and I like the fact that the seller has the dimensions pictured. I have two regular halogen bulbs to compare to - Osram and Phillips. I measure a base diameter on these of about 9.2 mm, base height of 13.5 - 14 mm and overall length of 29 - 30 mm. These numbers are very comparable to the 5 LED bulb except that bulb is about 2 - 3 mm longer, but that's not a fit issue.

My biggest concern with fit is the actual LED portion of the bulb that is 11 mm in diameter. The standard bulbs are less than 9 mm in diameter. But not worries... look at the second picture in this thread:

http://www.ppbb.com/scgi-bin/boards/986/main.pl?read=1505667

The plastic base that the bulb locks into is about 12.5 mm in diameter on both the turbo-style 996 light and 97-04 986 light. So the 11 mm bulb should fit through the hole fine.

We'll see how it works out...

Kirk

ekam · 05-21-2009, 04:37 AM

Kirk:

This is what I mean. LED lights reflect differently compare to halogen bulbs, there's no "fix" for this but to put LEDs all around the housing like one of the ebay items you posted. It also no longer makes sense to have a LED cluster since they do make single 5W LED circuit for a while now. They do this probably because of cost and it looks cooler so people will buy it not knowing it actually produces less light output.

Until they can unify their design (ie. one that produces the same amount of non-directional light than halogen) I'm going to stay away from these "retrofit" bulbs.

Kirk · 06-15-2009, 08:33 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kirk

So I'm going to go with the 5 LED version of the H6W bulb, it uses a different kind of LED that's not as pretty but hopefully brighter:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/2pcs-BAX9S-H6W-64132-5-Power-LED-Xenon-White-Bulbs_W0QQitemZ200343531806QQcmdZViewItemQQptZMoto rs_Car_Truck_Parts_Accessories?hash=item2ea567b11e&_trksid=p4506.c0.m245&_trkparms=72%3A1171%7C65%3A12%7C39%3A1%7C240%3A131 8

Kirk

BTW, I got these bulbs from the eBay seller a couple weeks ago. Install was no problem. As I surmised from my measurements and the dimensional specs, the bulbs fit fine in both my 986 and 996. However, one LED of the five was already not working on two of the bulbs. I e-mailed the seller and he immediately shipped me two new bulbs - so he stood by his product and had excellent service.

Brightness is still lower than the standard bulb, but not bad. I have no issues with them being just very slightly dimmer in this application. Color is definitely white, not yellow like stock. Overall I'm happy.

Kirk