Video: See It to Believe It! Our Ford F-250 LED Headlight Upgrade Made Us See Stars

Can a top-shelf headlights upgrade do away with the need for aux lights? These LEDs can.

The generous guys at F150LEDs.com heard our complaints about the dismal firepower of the stock headlights that came on our F-250 XLT edition Super Tremor project truck. To rectify the situation, they sent us their top-shelf MKV headlights system and replacement Mark II fog lights. The headlamps retail for $300 and the fog lights go for $85. That’s a ton of money for what’s essentially a light bulb, but F150LEDs are not just any old bulb. Heck, they’re not just any random LED. They mean it when they say “system.”

F150LEDs MKV
The F150LEDs MKV bulb sits atop an aluminum holder complete with heat sink and cooling fan.

F150LEDs.com MKV CREE Headlight System

The headlight starts with a bulb that produces a 1,000 lumen rating. By comparison, most standard halogen headlights emit around 500 lumens. To keep that light protected, F150LEDs’ features aluminum construction, a copper heat sink, and a working FAN, yes, a fan, to cool the bulb. Each bulb also comes with its own ballast and voltage control module — and a lot of zip-ties to secure everything to the truck.

F150LEDs fan
The cooling fan inside the F150LEDs headlight system.

2020 F-250 Headlight Replacement

For this installation, André set a timer and he and Kase got to work. Unfortunately, Ford did not make something as basic as replacing a headlight easy. The process involved removing the truck’s grill and the entire headlight assembly on both sides. Once that was done, the new headlights snapped right into place. The harder part was finding a place for and securing the voltage control box and ballast box.

With the foglights, the job was a little easier, except for one step: securing a voltage control box for the new LED lights somewhere on the truck’s bumper or nearby, places that don’t come with obvious spots to easily hold a finger-sized plastic box. Click on the video up top to see the duo go through the entire process.

F150LEDs before after

Final Result: OH MY GOD!

Altogether the job took André and Kase an hour and 40 minutes. That’s a long time to replace six bulbs, but the end result was worth it. We ended up with a light system that has us reconsidering the need for auxiliary lights on the grill. The F150LEDs are that strong. If we have any disappointments, it’s that we waited nine months to do it.

F150LEDs light beam
The new lights put out a crisp, white light that turns night into day.