HELLA H4 100/80W High Wattage Bulb, 12V

So far, these have been mighty fine bulbs on my ’13 JKU Rubi although I would not use them with the stock 16ga wiring. With the PWM, your not getting even close to their full potential since voltage and current is limited. I upgraded to the Hella Vision plus housings, which made quite the difference themselves, using the included H4 bulb and stock wiring. You will need to get an H13 to H4 pigtail for this to work. Then I installed an upgraded wiring harness and installed the 100/80’s in the Hella housings. On low, these things are now cutting through the dark like sunrise and with the Hella housings, the light is focused with a nice cut-off so I’m not blinding traffic. On high beam, they throw farther than I can see. Even with the light flickering problem from the PWM since I don’t have a capacitor installed yet, the difference is dramatic. Yes, you will need an anti-flicker on the harness upgrade since the PWM really messes with the load relays needed to run full current to the higher output bulbs. They flicker just like LED’s since the relay’s are turning on and off so fast it sounds like a bee buzzing. Hopefully my 2nd order for the anti-flicker device will be here tomorrow since my first order was through an ‘overseas’ supplier and is still over a month out.
The one major problem I’m having is that when driving the back-roads, bugs come from miles and it sounds like I’m going through a rain storm. I’ve had to start carrying around a gallon of washer fluid as I go through so much now.

Edit 1.0 – I received the Rigid anti-flicker device and I guess the more stable current really brought these 100/80’s to life. The relay buzzing was cured instantly. I pulled them and reinstalled the factory wattage Hella bulbs. With the updated harness and the Rigid anti-flicker installed these were just too bright to run on the highway. My goodness they got hot! To the point even with the upgraded wiring I was concerned of melting something. I could not touch the Hella glass reflectors without causing pain. It’s fortunate I did swap back because these bulbs running ‘wide open’ charred the ground plug slot on my ceramic H4 connector after a 30 minute road test. The stock bulbs with the upgrades are giving me more than enough light to see by and although under the right connection conditions these 100/80 will throw incredible light, they had to go. Also, now I don’t have to worry so much about Mr. D.O.T. officer saying hello to me. If I ever run the Baha in my Jeep, I will put them back in with even heavier upgraded wiring but for now they will just collect dust on the shelf.

First, be aware that no automobile or motorcycle sold in the United States has, stock, a wiring harness and headlight switch capable of surviving these bulbs. You *will* eventually burn out your headlight switch on your turn signal stalk, which *will* cost major dollars to repair — *unless* you buy or build a heavy duty relay harness for your headlights. Furthermore, even if your headlight switch survives, it is quite likely that you will melt the light bulb socket down at the headlight unless you’ve replaced it with a heavy duty high temperature one, both due to the high amperage caused by voltage drop in too-small stock wiring and due to the simple fact that these bulbs put out more heat. The end result is that a simple light bulb change will turn into a trip to your local NAPA store to get a high-temperature socket, then a lot of cursing as you cut off the old socket (and bulb) and wire in a new socket.

With that aside: I have used these bulbs in two Jeep Wranglers (using H4 conversion kits with heavy duty relay wiring harnesses) and two motorcycles (using a custom relay kit and harness that I built myself). They are as bright as stock reflectors are capable of handling. They do make more heat than stock bulbs, thus I recommend them only in glass enclosures, not in plastic ones. My Kawasaki motorcycles had a glass enclosure, and the Hella H4 conversion kits I used on my Jeeps have glass enclosures too. My Suzuki motorcycle had plastic enclosures so I used the Phillips X-Treme Power bulbs in that one instead.

That said, the Phillips X-Treme bulbs are quite a bit more expensive than these bulbs and last about the same amount of time. If your car or motorcycle is properly set up to use these, they’re a lot cheaper than the X-Tremes and put out a little more light. They’re great bulbs, all in all. Just don’t think you can put them into a stock wiring harness without a problem — you *will* eventually burn something out or melt something.

Bad product