Top 10 LED Headlight Kits under $100 on Amazon Tested

April 8, 2018

PLEASE NOTE: Results and recommendations on this page are based on our version 1.0 test bench. For the latest results, please see our test chart and recommendations pages which are results from our version 2.0 testing.

When it comes to headlights, people want to see better, and be seen better.

With so many raving reviews for LED kits on Amazon, we set out to find out just how great they really are.

We scoured Amazon and purchased from what we could see, the most popular and best rated top 10 highest rated kits available. No products are sponsored here, just true facts and statistics for you guys to decide.

The most popular kit on Amazon as of this video, is the Cougar Motor brand. During testing, we expected these to produce a very high lux rating, but unfortunately, they didn't.

Comparing to an OEM halogen bulb, on the hot spot or peak brightness, they were only 15% brighter when installed into low beams, and 18% dimmer if installed into your high beams. The beam pattern was decent, but much higher focused than a halogen bulb, so you'll want to make sure to re-align your headlights. If you don't bother to do so, you'll surly be blinding oncoming drivers. Don't be that guy!

Since there are so many kits here, we won't cover them all, and I'll be skipping to the good stuff, the ones that are recommended to run in both your low-beams and your high-beams, or brights. You can find full reviews of each kit including the brightness compared to stock as well as the other kits, as well as other aspects like fan size for fitment, oncoming glare, temperature, and more. 

If you’re looking for the great low-beam and high beam performance without breaking the bank, you'll want to check out the Beamtechs. 

They ranked 2nd in low-beam performance at 49% or 1.5 times brighter over stock halogen bulbs, and had the best low-beam pattern score with almost no glare, and no re-aiming required at all! Very nice cut-off.

The high beam performance was a nice 23% brighter over stock as well. Nothing to run home about, but certainly worthy due to the strong beam focus.

Because of the smaller LED diodes lined up like a halogen, they are able to produce this better beam pattern.

This was the only fan-less kit we tested so far, and they did get hotter than kits with a fan at 163°F, but nothing critical. The color temperature or kelvin was right on par with the claim of 6500k, and in our tests they came up as 6700k.

This #1 low-beam & high-beam performance kit virtually blew everything else out of the water. I'm talking about the Lightening Dark LEDs.

They compare to some premium kits we’ve tested which are 3 times the price. These came out at an astonishing 172% or 2.7 times brighter over stock halogen low beams. All of this happens due to a claimed Philips TX1860 LED diode, which I believe is genuine due to the extremely high lux numbers.

The best part is that they too have a very nice beam pattern and cut off, with only minimal re-aiming necessary. You could get away with leaving the headlights aimed at factory, but oncoming drivers could get a bit of glare, and your hotspot wouldn't be accurate anyways, so it's recommended to re-aim.

Kelvin color temperature also tested right about at the claim of 6000k, at 6050k. These include a fan for cooling, and maintained a nice 97°F.

Just be careful when installing this kit that you make sure the LEDs are facing left-to-right, as it's easy to rotate them within the headlight. They do this so you can rotate and position them perfectly to any housing to get the beam just right. If your installing them into your high beams, make sure you rotate them until hotspot is nice and bright too.

Keep in mind that the other 8 kits we tested in a low-beam application ranked from 12-30% brighter than halogen, but because the beam pattern was so horrible, none are recommended to run that way. If you do, just be sure to re-aim your headlights or you won't get the correct hot spot for lighting up down the road, and you'll just be blinding oncoming drivers.

There was a lot of great information we wanted to share with the community before you go and upgrade your headlights to LED, and I hope it helps.

We also plan to test more kits in the future, so please let me know what you want to see tested and we'll do our best to get it purchased and tested for you and we'll release another LED review!

Stay safe out there and until next time!