Black & Tan 332iT

[IamFODI]

I’m not exactly a headlight expert, but glare might be the right word to describe it. They’re so damn bright, but the brightness is a little jarring, especially when combined with the cutoff that you CANNOT get into a good spot. The light coming off of reflective signs is very intense, and generally the light coming off of other objects is also intense. I tried a few level adjustments and either you’re blinding cars in front of you, or the cutoff is dropping into the road because of the height of the step in the cutoff. They’d be worlds better if the cutoff was just flat.

My wife’s and my prior Porsches both have/had LED headlights and didn’t experience either of these issues, so I was unpleasantly surprised. These are just as bright, if not brighter, but the execution isn’t fantastic.

I'm no headlight expert either, but the experience you described of light from reflective signs and other objects is what I understand glare means. That was exactly my experience with high color temp headlights. If I ever found myself on an empty highway at night and flicked on my high beams, a good sized sign would be hard to see past.

Not surprised that Porsche's OE headlights mitigate these issues. I'm sure that's an example of the benefits of something that's engineered more-or-less as a whole from the ground up. Higher color temps will always cause more glare and eyestrain, all else equal – but I'm sure managing the beam pattern can do a lot to compensate.