Picked up a set of 9011 HIR bulbs to replace the stock 9005 halogen bulbs last week.
For those that don't know, HIR (halogen infrared reflective) bulbs are an OEM bulb on some higher-end cars, on which there's a special coating that reflects the invisible infrared light from the bulb back towards the bulbs center. This heats the filament to higher temperatures and produces more light, by reusing wasted energy.
They were claimed to give about 110% more light , butsince 9005s are usually ONLY high-beam bulbs, those results are for high-beams conditions, and didn't reflect how well they'd do in the Astra with its dual-purpose bulb.
Normal bulbs are long and cylindrical, but as you can see below, the HIR bulb is spherical so as to reflect the infrared light towards the center:
In this photo with the flash, you can see the coating on the bulb:
The only modification to make these bulbs work is to trim one of the three mounting tabs. The first photo below shows the white part that was to be removed (used a nail clipper to slowly remove chunks of plastic), and the second photo shows the end result:
And now on to the light...
I took before and after photos, and using photoshop's luminosity histogram I will show the calculated amount of light in each photo. Sort of like a poor man's light meter
baseline photo - mean luminosity: 2.87
yellow foglights only - mean luminosity: 5.37
9005 lowbeams - mean luminosity: 11.94
9005 lows and foglights - mean luminosity: 12.24
9005 highbeams - mean luminosity: 10
That number was lower than the lowbeams because there was less foreground light in lue of further and higher lighting. That doesn't matter though, as we'll only be comparing the similar photos from before / after, not each one in each set.
9011 lowbeams - mean luminosity: 14.13
9011 lowbeams and foglights - mean luminosity: 15.49
9011 highbeams - mean luminosity: 14.53
9005 lows --> 9011 lows: increase of 2.19 (18% on this scale)
9005 lows and fogs --> 9011 lows and fogs: increase of 3.25 (26% on this scale)
9005 highs --> 9011 highs: increase of 5.49 (54% on this scale)
As you can see, there's not only more light, but the color temperature is also higher, with a whiter/bluer color.
The bulbs cost me about $28 per bulbs (pretty high), but I'm happy with the marked improvement in visible and useable light. I think they're a pretty good (and more legal) alternative to HIDs.
here's the before/after comparison photos next to each other, so you can compare without having to scroll as much:
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