“Three things you’ll never regret spending a little extra money on: Good headlights, good windshield wipers, and good tires.”

Why LED headlights?

Well, first and foremost, I needed to get new headlights anyway as one of them was burnt out. I usually go with traditional style high performance SYLVANIA H7 SilverStar High Performance bulbs because I’ve had good experience with them in the past, but this time around I decided to get advanturous and move technologically forward toward some H7 LED replacements. After a bit of shopping around, I decided to go with the BEAMTECH H7 LED Headlight Set.

LED headlights have the advantage of very high light output combined with ultra long life and low(ish) power consumption. The main aspects that prevented me from taking this leap previously were the price point – as LED headlights were initially very expensive – and the physical size taken up by the cooling fan, not to mention an additional point of failure and the noise from the fans.

Ok then, what made you buy them this time?

The BEAMTECH headlights are surprisingly affordable AND have a much smaller, fanless heatsink. Even if they only last as long as regular bulbs, I think they will still be worth it.

Another bonus is that the LED bulb assemblies are much more resistant to oily finger smudges which help make them relatively easy and stress-free to install.

Sounds reasonable, tell me about them.

Sure. Inside the box are the two neatly packaged LED bulbs and some limited documentation.

The bulb itself is a self-contained unit with 2 sets of 3 LEDs – one on the top and the other on the bottom, the heatsink, a mounting ring, and the wire connection.

Physically the LED bulb is much larger than its traditional counterpart, so the space must be available in the vehicle to upgrade to LED headlights.

The adapter ring unclips with a 1/4 twist and installs first, followed by the rest of the bulb. Personally, I think this is great and makes the installation process a breeze.

Here is an example of just the adapter ring installed in the headlight housing with the traditional wire clip.

With a small twist, the bulb then locks into place and held securely. Note how much room the heatsink takes up.

Fortunately, on the T1N Sprinters, the dust cover offers plenty of extra room to accommodate the larger LED bulb. It’s still to be determined if there will be enough airflow to properly cool the LED bulbs and I will update this section should they burn out early.

With one side done, the difference is obvious. The color is a much more pleasant 6500k cool white and seems to be a bit brighter as well.

With both sides done the van looks 10 years newer. The next step is to clean and polish the headlight lenses and finish upgrading the rest of the bulbs to LED.

One last picture with the high beams engaged helps to show the difference in color between the warm tone traditional bulbs and the cool white LED bulbs.

At this point I’m very impressed with these especially for the price. The installation was super easy and they look great.

*Bonus night shot*