Does the age of a headlight bulb have an effect on the bulb's brightness? We have a car that has original bulbs, and it is 11 years old. Its a GM car. The headlights do work, but we think they aren't as bright as they used to be - both regular and high-beams. The lenses are not excessively clouded, just mild. I have definitely seen worse. We had the aim checked and re-aimed to factory specs. The only thing i can think of that would have an effect is either the housing (aim or lens) or the bulb itself. I dont want to buy new bulbs if its not going to help - I wonder about age and bulb filaments.

 

I bet today's bulbs are better than they were 10 years ago. I just buy a couple for the low beam and see how it works

 

Your bulbs are probably wearing out and the lightly clouded lenses aren't helping. I've found that the best stock replacements are the Sylvia Silverstars. Advanced Auto Parts usually has the best deal. Go to www.advanceautoparts.com and use the promo codes in the special offers section. You'll end up paying about the same for the Silverstars as you would the cheapo bulbs. And you can pick them up if you have a store locally. I have them in all 3 cars and they work great!

If the lenses are lightly clouded, 3M makes a great headlight restoration kit. It's usually $16-19, but get it @ Advance and use a coupon code. It works great. I've used it on my parents 12 year old car and it looks like new. All you need is a power drill and 15 minutes. If you don't find the codes, pm me I have them saved. And no I don't work for AAP, I just use them a lot for my Jeep.

 

We did use the 3M lens restoration kit - it improved a bit. I definitely see cars that are much worse. How can they have improved the bulb in 10 years? What is there to improve on? I mean, the regular filament-style bulbs are 100+ year old technology.