[lamont]

I am very interested in the Renegade and it is one of the vehicles near the top of my shopping list.

I would like to know how good the headlights arem, since I do a good amount of night driving and I am used to good lights. Can someone please elaborate on the beam pattern? Ramped or stepped? sharp or fuzzy cut-offs? good range? Even lighting? Wide lighting? Etc et al. Any comments are appreciated.

Also, having not yet test-driven a Renegade, I better disclose the other candidates on my shopping list: Mazda CX-5, MB GLA.

 

[Girenegade]

Stock lights sick. Led headlights with hid fogs do the trick

 

[lamont]

Could you please elaborate specifically on how the OEM lights are subpar?

 

[arild]

Since the Renegade comes with halogen headlights and in certain markets xenon headlights as an option, it would probably help if you tell us where in the world you live and if you're considering xenon if it's available in your market.

 

[raz-0]

I'm going to assume US market.

The low beams with fog lights on provides a nice broad lighting pattern. They are really pretty nice for suburban and urban driving where they illuminate well at intersections and illuminate a large patch of road surface for seeing potholes etc.

The high beams suck. Mostly because of the fact it is a single bulb system, and the way the headlights are aimed to avoid blinding oncoming traffic. Turning on the high beams turns off the fogs no matter what, and you get this pretty weak beam that doesn't reach out much farther than the low beam.

The cutoff is not sharp like a projector, and there is no obvious step due to that.

 

[lamont]

Correct, I'm in the US. I am used to e-codes on my previous vehicles. So I googled low and highbeam bulbs and it says the renage has icky H13 bulbs. My previous vehicle had H7 for low beams, seperate H7 for high beams and H11 for fog lights. The fog lights stayed on with the high beams. Since I had e-codes, the beam pattern was very good. Low beam pattern looked like this:

_____/------/--------

So what are the best options for improving the Rengade's lights? Low beam seems to be okay. Are there good and legal HID aftermarket options? Someone mentioned LED, but I am wondering abou the effect on the beam pattern.

How about separate high beams, maybe mounted on a bullbar? Is there an bullbar available?

Thanks!

 

[Sam1]

i emailed Daniel Stern about the Renegade and what the options were with regard to switching out for Wrangler headlamps from CIBIE , as well as bulb recommendations. This was his response:

"You're stuck with the lamps you have. The Wrangler uses standard-size round headlamps, which is why they can be replaced by any of numerous different lamps. The Renegade uses model-specific lamps. So, your one and only legitimate upgrade is to put in better bulbs. Each lamp takes an H13 bulb. The best H13 bulbs presently on the market are the Philips Xtreme Vision items:

[ame]http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00BQWQN3E/?tag=2402507-20[/ame]

Do not buy blue or "extra white" bulbs (Silver Star, Crystal Vision, Hoen, PIAA, etc.); despite the heavy advertising push and claims of "brighter and whiter" light, they actually produce _less_ light due to the blue glass they use."

Reprinted with his permission.