Dec 19 2007
Not so bright
A couple of months ago, I started getting concerned about my night vision — I felt almost blind driving at night. This was a bit frightening for me, because when my mother was about my age, she was diagnosed with a degenerative eye disease called Retinitis Pigmentosa — RP for short. Her first symptom: reduced night vision.
There is currently no cure for RP, and it typically results in total blindness within a few decades. Mom has no perceptible vision in one eye, and maybe 10-15% in the other. Did I mention this disease is hereditary? Well it is.
I made an appointment with the optometrist, and he checked me out real good. No sign of the disease! After the initial relief of a good examination, I forgot about the night vision problems. I don’t drive that much at night anyway.
Then there was today. It was a VERY foggy drive into work this morning, and that old sense of blindness came back. No big deal. It’s foggy. You’re not supposed to see in the fog.
After the kids went to bed this evening, I went to Wal-Mart to pick up the last Christmas present for my wife. As I pulled up to the car parked across from me in the parking lot, I could tell by the light pattern on the other car that one of my headlights had burned out. I know they were working before I went to the eye doctor, because that was the first thing I checked when I noticed reduced night vision. Must have just burned out.
This brings me to the point of this post. Sylvania Silverstar headlights suck!
I “upgraded” from my stock headlights to the Silverstar after receiving them for Christmas last year. I compared brightness after installing the first Silverstar, and it was indeed much brighter than the stock headlight… at the time anyway.
I’m somewhat of a pack rat, so I had kept my stock headlights. I replaced the burned out Silverstar with one of the old ones and guess what? The stock light was MUCH brighter than the remaining Silverstar.
Apparently the Silverstars get dimmer with age before finally burning out. The problem is, these headlights are less than a year old. I don’t expect anything to last forever, but less than a year for headlights?
What if you had more light when you needed it most, like while driving at night? Brighter light is as easy as upgrading to SilverStar® bulbs.
Source: http://www.sylvania.com/ConsumerProducts/AutomotiveLighting/HighPerformance/Silverstar/
Gimme a break.
Update: Days after posting this, one of my fog lights burned out. I’ve also replaced the ignition switch that powers AC/Power Seat/Defroster/etc. This week, one of the stock headlights burned out. I replaced both headlights with Sylvania XtraVisions. We’ll see how that goes. If I have one more electrical problem, I’m trading the car in!
