Car Bulbs: A Guide to Buying and Replacing Your Car Bulbs

The simplest and most reliable way to find out which replacement bulbs you need is to take out the blown bulb and read off the model number that is usually written on the bulb's base, or you can identify it from our car bulb pictures below. h7 bulbs are the most popular fitting for headlights - closely followed by h1 bulbs.

Unfortunately access to these bulbs can be sometime can be quite tricky leading to the odd skinned knuckle or choice expletive. To avoid having to repeat the job when you new bulbs arrive you can normal find all of the different types of car bulbs fitted to your vehicle and their positions listed in the Owners Manual.

Alternatively there are now same very good online search tools that can be found by typing "Car Bulbs Finder" into Google. As a word of warning, whist the Owners Manual and Online Search Tools are usually extremely accurate inconsistencies, caused by the manufacture making changes during a production run, can occur.

At some point in your driving career you will probably have to change your headlight bulbs, as they typically last only for around 400-600 hours, but before you buy about a direct replacement consider upgrading them to xenon bulbs.

Normal headlight bulbs are filled with halogen gas, however the vary latest headlight bulbs, called xenon bulbs, are now filled with pressurised xenon gas, which is much brighter and whiter than halogen. Apart from the gas inside xenon bulbs are identical to standard halogen bulbs and so can be easily fitted without any modifications to your car lights.

The very best xenon bulbs are nearly twice as bright as standard headlight bulbs and can project the light beam over 30 meters further, so as well as looking stylish they also make night driving safer and less stressful. Best of all the xenon bulbs are completely road legal to use in your headlights.

All car bulbs are made the same and I should just buy the cheapest ones I can find, Right?.....
.........Wrong!

Unfortunately whilst different manufacturer brands of the same type of car bulbs all look identical, they will differ quite considerably in terms of the quality of construction and materials used.

Whilst some bulbs may seem much more expensive than others, they will last longer - meaning you will not need to change them as often, and will deliver superior levels of light throughout their life span - meaning they will not get dimmer with age.

If you want to fit the best bulbs for your vehicle you should look for a quality brand name like Osram and Philips, because these leading car bulbs manufacturers produce OEM replacement bulbs. OEM stands for Original Equipment Manufacturer and it means that if you buy one of their bulbs with the OEM mark it has been produced to exact specifications and quality as the bulbs that were fitted to your vehicle when it first left the factory.

Another way to tell if the car bulbs you are buying are good quality is to look for the "E" mark on the bulb. For a bulb to be road legal it must have the "E" mark stamp, and next to the letter "E" you will see a number. The number denotes where the bulb was tested for quality, so for example E11 car bulbs are tested in the United Kingdom.

Within the Car Bulbs industry the bulbs tested in Germany, which are marked with the "E1" label, are widely regarded as being if the highest quality.

When it comes to actually installing your new car bulbs, "Can I touch the glass when Changing the bulbs?", is the question that most often arises.

The simple answer is that it depends on which type of bulbs you are replacing.

If you are replacing a halogen bulb, which are used for headlight bulbs and some sidelight bulbs, then the answer is no. Touching the glass with bare skin will leave a grease residue from the natural oils on your skin. When the bulb is on, this residue heats up significantly and can reduce the expected lifespan of the bulb.

If you do accidentally touch the glass you should wipe it clean with white spirit or an alcohol solution, and it is a good idea to wear latex gloves when installing halogen car bulbs to make the job easier.

For standard car bulbs that are not filled with halogen, for example the indicator bulbs, brake light bulbs or tail light bulbs it is perfectly acceptable to touch the glass.

The question of whether you need to replace your car bulbs in pairs or not depends on which bulbs you are replacing.

For headlight bulbs, including main beam and dipped beam lights, and fog light bulbs you should really replace them in pairs for two reasons. Firstly, if one bulb has already blown you can expect the other one to go shortly as they have a very similar life span and secondly if you have gone to all the effort of replacing one bulbs you might as well change the other whilst you are there.

For all other bulbs like indicator bulbs, brake light bulbs, tail light bulbs and sidelight bulbs they can normally be changed individually as and when you need to.