I attend a lot of car related trade shows (e.g. SEMA, etc.) and look for interesting upgrades on various sites - ebay, ali, etc.

I see a lot of high wattage bulb upgrades, and we have all tried LED replacements with varying results. At some point I will tabulate my findings if anyone finds these of interest, but thought I would share my results from one such experiment with some H3 (fog lamp) replacement bulbs.
Usually when something is too good to be true, it is. Case and point:

Found a pile of listings for these coolish blue H1/H3/H7 bulbs on ebay - which can be had for wicked cheap per pair - $6 including shipping, I have seen them as low as $.59 each on Ali. I wanted to see if the hype holds up.
I am comparing to some H3 Philips bulbs - I had one new, and some used ones. Just for kicks, I threw in some off brand LED H3s as well that purported to be 50W brightness CAN BUS ()
I used a simple light meter, and normalized the data to the Philips bulbs. The light meter is overall visible intensity, so is not 'fooled' by bluish bulbs.

The '100w' ebay bulbs have a bluish tint in the picture. They arrived and physically fit the socket. The leads are crimped in place - same for the plug contact. In comparison, the Philips bulb has a tack welded contact under the bulb, and the plug contact has similar construction to the ebay unit.

Here is a summary:
Bulb Advertised Power Consumption Test Voltage - VDC Current - ADC Brightness Cost Notes Ebay 100W 12.5 3.06 0.81 5.99/2 Bluish light due to coating Philips 55W 12.5 3.66 1.00 5.99/1 OEM LED 10W 12.5 0.35 0.45 3.49/1 Bright White, does not fit socket


Pretty similar to what I have observed before - these high power bulbs are usually not close to OEM, and usually do not last. I verified these are 12V bulbs and actually 100W (and its stamped in the base).

Dont waste your money. There are some good LED offerings out there - these cheapies throw some light, but usually push the light emitting surface beyond what most fixtures are designed for, so actually throw light closer to the vehicle anyway - or in my case - simply dont fit the vehicle!



Three bulbs in test





Stock bulb consumption




Ebay bulb