I read glowing reviews on the MTEC bulbs, so decided to try a couple pairs for different vehicles of mine. I did the easiest first - my 03 Mercury Mountaineer. I had Silverstars in it and they were quite bright with a nice high and bright hi beam. I put the MTEC's in in about 10 minutes. The low beams do look like HID, but are about 20% dimmer than the Silverstars. During my first drive, I swtiched on the hi beams and cursed out loud. The hi beams actually shot lower on the street and were the same brightness or even lower than the low beams. I then put one Silverstar back in, and it was much brighter on low beam than the MTEC, and the hi beam was no comparison. I now switched both back to the Silverstars.

Question: If you have MTEC's do your hi beams work ok? To put the bulbs in the G is a bit more involved, so I don't want to waste my effort to put them in if the hi beams are no good. Perhaps I got one bum set of MTEC's.

Your opinions appreciated

TallG35
2003 G35 Sedan, Garnet Fire, VIN #398
Eibach Springs, 18x8 AT Italia Riva Wheels, 245/45ZR18 Tires
Body-color skirts, Rear tint
AL004 TCM program, Stillen Intake, 7 wire ground kit

 

It's been said a thousand times before.

The more tinted the glass on your halogen bulb, the less
actual light output on the road. The MTEC bulbs are no
different from any other generic "Superwhite" halogen bulb
out there on the market. You will find the SAME color
output if you went to Pepboys and bought a pair of their
generic $20 "Superwhite" bulbs.

"Superwhite" bulbs are one of the biggest marketing scams
in the automotive industry, simply because it's so misleading.
If you want the COLOR of HID, fine. But you're not gonna
get the actual light performance. It will always be worse
than the stock, clear glass halogen bulbs.

 

I agree- it appears I got the color of HID with MTEC, but only about 80% of the light output of halogen. The Silverstars, while not HID blue, are very white and bright compared to Halogen, and much brighter than the MTECs I installed in the Mountaineer. The glass on the Silverstar is basically clear with a very very faint blue/silver tint. The MTECs are a deep medium blue tint.



TallG35
2003 G35 Sedan, Garnet Fire, VIN #398
Eibach Springs, 18x8 AT Italia Riva Wheels, 245/45ZR18 Tires
Body-color skirts, Rear tint
AL004 TCM program, Stillen Intake, 7 wire ground kit

 

If you want brighter halogen light, try the Sylvania Silverstars
from Europe. They are not the same as the Silverstars
sold here in the US. The European Silverstars have NO
tint on the glass at all. Therefore, it provides maximum
actual light output onto the road.

I ordered a pair from www.powerbulbs.com and they came
within a week from the UK. While they do not make a
drastic difference on the G (since the G uses them for fog
lights), I suspect they should show greater improvement
over stock when used as main headlights on another car.

The color of the light is the same as regular halogen.

 

Hey, I have an Explorer also, and it isn't really the bulb, its our shitty lights! I went the route of upgrading the harness and running a higher watt bulb, and running xenarc xenon fog lights. That combo gave me lots of light!

 

<<(since the G uses them for fog lights)>>

Joey, Joey, Joey. j/k, but not everyone lives in the city. I use my highbeams every single night driving to my nice home in the country from work. I think I've used the "fog" lights 3-4 times.

From the city limit I have an 8 mile drive of 4 lane divided road with ZERO street lights and tons of deer. I don't care what color the lights are to stand in front of the car and look at. I want DISTANCE! That said, I'm going with the Silverstars for color, because I think the high beams on our G's are pretty good. (I'm disappointed in the height of the HID"S)

I used to have an '87 Monte Carlo SS and could see that deer standing in the road a mile away. I could even see the possum in the road (they live in the middle of roads, ya know!) at 3/4 of a mile.

Whoa, is this thread from August? Must be the change over. Oh, well. A topic that needs repeating.

 

my MTEC's went out and its only been less than 2 monthes

 

ditto, one of mine blew out already (only the foglight filament, highbeam still works)

the MTECs are not all they were cracked up to be

 

I personally didn't really care about the brightness since the fog lights don't really light up the road anyway and I rarely use the high beams. So I'm happy with my MTEC's so far... it's been about 5 weeks since I installed it and no blew out bulbs yet... *knock on wood*

If they happen to blow out, I'm just gonna go with PIAA bulbs or something.