LED headlights and snow

I see someone else is buying cheap Chinese LED headlights! 🤣

To be fair, The dude might just be frustrated by all the other assholes that buy cheap Chinese lights that scatter all over the place. If I had a dime for every JK mallcrawler that has dazzled me at night with his/her misaligned, garbage cutoff amazon specials....
 
To be fair, The dude might just be frustrated by all the other assholes that buy cheap Chinese lights that scatter all over the place. If I had a dime for every JK mallcrawler that has dazzled me at night with his/her misaligned, garbage cutoff amazon specials....

Well, it’s not just JKs. Have you, ahhh, read this thread Mike?

🙂
 
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I would like to clear up a few things. First, apologies are in order. I apologize first to those who I offended or insulted in this thread. That’s a bit out of character for me, and I’m sorry I took the bait. I reacted poorly, and I apologize for that. I am normally a bigger person than that, and you can take that or leave it as you wish. I really don’t give a rat’s ass at this point.

Secondly, I’d like to apologize to Chris. It’s evidently his blog, and he can do whatever he wants with it. It was certainly not my intent to come here and start trouble. So, I apologize to Chris for that.

Mostly, I’d like to apologize to Jerry, who suggested I come here. My intent was also not to come here and embarrass Jerry. You have offered sage advice on a lot of topics concerning the Jeep. I’ve taken some and passed on others, for reasons I will get to in a moment. But your advice is always given with a helpful mindset, and I appreciate that. When I passed on taking your advice, it was never because it was bad advice. It was always because there were other priorities which forced themselves to dictate the choice.

Which brings me to the next portion. If you notice, the thread went just fine for 36 comments, and that included some thoughtful attempts to help, and even some quite legitimate criticisms. All fair, and I genuinely thank those who made them. This whole thing gets sideways for me at comment # 37, where my choice was insulted, despite my answer to his earlier question, which he neglected to bother with. Instead, he assumed. I have seen it before, and somebody assumes the mantle of authority which belongs to a few, and their form of assistance is to first insult the choice of the OP. What the purpose is, I can only speculate. But what I can say is that the approach alienates and belittles the OP, especially when this is that person’s very first suggestion. And it IS the condescending part. OP defends their choice, and the flame war begins. Sometimes, choices are made ignorantly. Sometimes, thought goes into them. In those cases, the one making the choice often has made their choice based on priorities. I have priorities. Putting 400-700 into the headlights of my Jeep is not very high on that list. Your mileage may vary. But currently, my wife no longer works, and we are essentially on one income. I make good money, but there are limits, and there are a lot of obligations. For instance, house payment, one car payment for her truck, I spend 500 bucks every month just in fuel to drive to Ca to care for my disabled father, we occasionally travel to Ca to visit our children and grandchildren, recent upgrades to my search and rescue gear have been shockingly expensive, and I’ve recently been forced to install a generator in the motorhome to the tune of $9500.00. We have a barn fund, which needs to grow a bit before we can begin, and I have landscaping expenses to get a 2 acre semi-rural ranch in shape and still a bit in startup mode from the recent move. As you can see, we have obligations. Most of those are a significantly higher priority than $400-700 headlights for the Jeep. I’m truly sorry my Jeep is not as high a priority as some Jeeps are to their owners, but that’s the way it has to go sometimes. I can’t justify that sort of money for that sort of thing, any more than I can justify a $3700 lift kit or $2000 beadlock wheels. Sorry I neglected to explain this, but the suggestions for more expensive headlights and heated headlights, while quite simple, are not in the cards at this time. I was looking for suggestions on how my present LED headlights can be treated or modified for that one or two night per year circumstance. Some got that, some didn’t. Again, my bad for not fully explaining that. I’ll take that blame.

As for the “cheap Chinese crap”, these WHDZ led headlights actually work very well. The cutoff is amazingly good on MY set. Your mileage may have varied, but mine are great. Except in wet snow. I’ll attach a photo of the Jeep about an hour after I returned home that night. That is WET snow. Mashed potatoes. Skiers in the group would know precisely what I’m talking about. Dry powder snow is not the issue. Wet snow is. There’s a difference. If you don’t know about it, then don’t mock those who do. It’s only a problem once in a few years. But when it’s a problem, it’s a pain in the ass. I’ll solve it. Likely, it will be from a suggestion here from someone who is NOT among those who mocked and facepalmed. Those who mocked were of no help whatsoever. In fact, they are the reason the thread turned bad. But, again, I get it. They may be monetary supporters of the forum, and I am not. Loud and clear.

As for the snarky direction this thread took, I’ll take MY blame for that also. I completely disagree that I’m the only one to blame. But I’m the new guy. There are some who are fully permitted to be snarky, and who can insult the OP and their choices, and I’m not among them. I get that. Won’t take the blame for nearly all, though. I didn’t start the dumpster fire, but will be happy to take the blame for helping to fan the flames, starting at comment #45 on page 3. Then, there are the pile jumpers. The moment they sense their guy is now in insult-flinging mode, they begin with the mocking and facepalming in order to help pile on the “new guy who must be insulted for making such a stupid choice”. I get that, too. I have no respect for these guys, but I get it. They earned my disdain. I reacted badly to that, and that’s what I’m apologizing for. I took the bait, and take full responsibility for my own actions. As you may also have missed, I tried to curtail the dogpile on comment #65. In fact, I tried to deflect the direction on 45 also, but I paired it with an insult. My bad for retaliating. Once I exposed the Truck-lites for the “cheap Chinese crap” that was being insulted in the other comments, the crap really hit the fan. That’s when it became personal. Comment #65. It’s one thing to insult someone else’s choice when yours is truly superior. But when you’re standing on the same pile of cow$#!+ and pointing fingers, that’s truly worthy of mocking. So, I did. Sorry for that now, but it won’t matter to most here. Handing someone their own crap often escalates hard feelings. It’s not an admirable trait, but sometimes a good offense is the best defense. Unfortunately, I took that bait too. Again, apologies for stooping to that level. Go right ahead and mock and facepalm now if it makes you feel better. But you show your own shortcomings when you do. And like I said, I don’t give a rat’s ass now, as I know the sort of people who do that and I don’t care to associate with them anyway.

Now for the hard part. A couple of those who I insulted truly deserved it. But some of those who commented did so with a full intent of helping rather than insulting or punishing. I applaud them and thank them for their concern and effort. Some of those comments did show some effort to think outside the box and lend their own experience without insults attached. I’m the new guy and I came in with expectations of a better experience. I got just precisely the same thing I’ve seen elsewhere. A dogpile on someone who may have significant general knowledge, but needs some specific information to solve a Jeep problem. Please don’t approach it this way in the future with other new guys. They are just asking for help, not insults for their past decisions. Again, those decisions may have been made after significant thought and arrangement of priorities that are truly more important than anything to do with Jeep upgrades. Not everyone places Jeep upgrades at the top of their priority list. Jerry blames me for this dumpster fire. Apparently, Chris agrees. That’s fine, entirely their prerogative. As I said, I’ll take full blame for my part. Not the part of others. I’d suggest leaving this thread up as an example of how bad behavior from both sides can turn new people away from a forum. Delete if you wish. But it won’t matter in the long run to me. I will not be returning here. This experience was just like some others I have watched from a distance in many forums of various topics. Can’t say how many new guys have left because they were treated this way, but it’s a lot. Many just never bothered to ask a question again, because of the way they were treated by people who ought to be more mature than that. It’s schoolyard crap. The toughest kid in the schoolyard is rarely the bully. It’s the one who PRETENDS to be the toughest who ends up being the bully. I hope you all enjoy your forum and enjoy your Jeeps, and listen carefully to Jerry. He’s the toughest kid, not the bully.

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