2019 JL Rubicon - Blinded in medium snow conditions - Help!

[atxrickyricky]

Hello everyone!

I had the pleasure of picking up my 2019 Rubicon and driving home from Colorado Springs to Denver last night while 4 inches of snow fell in between the two cities.

I have LED lights on my model, and while the snow was coming down nice, I wouldn't consider it a whiteout or blizzard conditions at all.

I experience the worst snow blindness from reflected light off of the snow last night I had ever experience in my life. I quite literally had to slow down to 30 MPH, while little KIAs and Hondas were wizzing by me.

I never had issues with my JK in snowy conditions like that and was very surprised to have this issue with the Rubi.

I'm guessing I need to check the alignment of my headlights and lower them, but is there anything else I need to check into? Since this is the end of the snow season here, it seems like any changes I make won't be really "testable" until I'm stuck in a similar situation, which sucks.

Thanks for any help and advice.

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[spurly]

Your headlights are fine. Unfortunately, the whiter the light (higher Kelvin on the color scale), the more it reflects off snow, rain, and fog. Your JK probably had halogen lights which were a more yellow color (lower number on Kelvin scale).

I'd suggest a few things:
1. Yellow tint over the fogs, cheapest and easiest route and still remaining legal
2. Replace factory fog LEDs with DOT approved fogs with yellow or amber lens
3. Add additional lights, yellow or amber to the bumper to help cut through the snow

 

[atxrickyricky]

Thank you for the info. While I DID have aftermarket HIDs on my Jeep, I never experienced a snowstorm while they were on.

Is this a known issue? I searched the forum here but didn't see anyone else even mention it. I can't be the first person to experience this!

Your headlights are fine. Unfortunately, the whiter the light (higher Kelvin on the color scale), the more it reflects off snow, rain, and fog. Your JK probably had halogen lights which were a more yellow color (lower number on Kelvin scale).

I'd suggest a few things:
1. Yellow tint over the fogs, cheapest and easiest route and still remaining legal
2. Replace factory fog LEDs with DOT approved fogs with yellow or amber lens
3. Add additional lights, yellow or amber to the bumper to help cut through the snow

 

[spurly]

Thank you for the info. While I DID have aftermarket HIDs on my Jeep, I never experienced a snowstorm while they were on.

Is this a known issue? I searched the forum here but didn't see anyone else even mention it. I can't be the first person to experience this!

This is a pretty common compliant, there have been a few threads about the same issue. The LED headlights also don't produce enough heat to melt any snow or ice build up on the lens. I also have the LED headlights on my JLUR and while it may suck to drive in snowstorm and be blinded, you're more likely going to encounter more good weather days than bad.

 

[atxrickyricky]

Fortunately, or unfortunately, I live in Denver and plan on taking quite a few trips to the mountain in the snow! I have to take advantage of that Colorado life while I'm here =)

I'll plan for the bad weather days while enjoying the good ones, for sure... Thanks again for the help.

 

[Arterius2]

You can technically turn the headlights off (if it just made the situation worse) and turn on only the fog lights if that helps out the situation better. Have the knob set at the 2nd position from the left.

 

[jasonatQuake]

You are needing an amber light to cut through the snow. Go to our www.quakeled.com website and look at our Magma series. The Magma series offer white or amber light. That will help for sure!

 

[shekmark]

I had a similar experience this past Saturday. Worst visibility I have ever experienced in a snow storm. I have aftermarket LED. I thoight maybe it was them, but then it was snowing huge flakes. I could not see anything. I tried my halogen fogs but they dis not make a difference. So is it true? LED headlights suck in snow storms?

 

[00Sebby]

Yep, a few weeks ago we had some snow and I headed out about 5am while it was still dark. As I got up into the mountains, the snow was really falling and I could barely see anything. Fortunately, I know the road and could keep up the speed but it was truly blinding. I never experienced that with halogens or HIDs. In fair weather and rain, the LEDs are great, though.

 

[paffemt]

Twice now my LED headlights and fog lights were covered by snow. I added Hella Halogen lights to the front bumper to at least add light to the road.

 

[shekmark]

I added KC Hilites (halogen) to Try and help if my LED headlights froze over.

 

[Pruitts]

This is our first winter in a Jeep. I have aftermarket LED headlights and foglights. I have driven in 2 snow storms. The first was pretty cold, lots of snow, roads terrible and had a blast!!! No issue seeing the road. The second was warmer with large flakes and I had no visibility! My wife and I couldn't understand why we were having such a hard time seeing the road. We pulled over and found the headlights and foglights caked with snow. We cleaned them out. When they weren't caked, the reflection was bad. Before we got home we couldn't see again. It was the worst driving situation I had ever been in. All that said, outside of that storm, I absolutely love the LED's... but I hope not to be caught in that situation again...

 

[Jeep Generation]

Hello everyone!

I had the pleasure of picking up my 2019 Rubicon and driving home from Colorado Springs to Denver last night while 4 inches of snow fell in between the two cities.

I have LED lights on my model, and while the snow was coming down nice, I wouldn't consider it a whiteout or blizzard conditions at all.

I experience the worst snow blindness from reflected light off of the snow last night I had ever experience in my life. I quite literally had to slow down to 30 MPH, while little KIAs and Hondas were wizzing by me.

I never had issues with my JK in snowy conditions like that and was very surprised to have this issue with the Rubi.

I'm guessing I need to check the alignment of my headlights and lower them, but is there anything else I need to check into? Since this is the end of the snow season here, it seems like any changes I make won't be really "testable" until I'm stuck in a similar situation, which sucks.

Thanks for any help and advice.

Hi @atxrickyricky , you might want to get some Amber lights to help cut through the snow. White Light, especially White LEDs, reflect back from the snow. Amber light helps cut through that. I installed some Amber LED fogs and they work really well for rain, fog, snow dust, etc.

IS AN AMBER OR WHITE LIGHT BETTER?
In some conditions, and amber light will perform better but in other conditions a white light will perform better. This question really comes down to if you’re ever off-roading in the conditions where an amber light could prove beneficial. Generally speaking, an amber light will excel in dusty, foggy, rainy, or snowy conditions as they appear to cut through airborne particles much better than a more intense, white light does. However, a white light often appears much brighter even if they have the same power output.

Amber and white lights are different simply in their color temperature, which is how the perceived color of light is measured. Color temperature is most commonly measured in terms of degrees Kelvin (K). Lower values of around 2500-4000K appear more yellow/amber (warm) and higher values of 4000-7000K begin to appear white and even into the blue/violet range at the upper end (cool). Higher color temperatures have shorter wavelengths, which results in light bouncing off/reflecting off of particles in the air causing poorer visibility in dust, fog, rain, or snow.

For the most balanced lighting setup, a combination of amber lights and white lights is best — or at least having the option to turn your white light into an amber light with a clip-on transparent cover, etc.

https://www.kchilites.com/blog/2018/04/29/how-to-choose-off-road-lights/

 

[Nikko2020]

So what's the easiest way to make the factory LED Fogs amber?

 

[jludave]

So what's the easiest way to make the factory LED Fogs amber?

Yellow tint on the lenses or replace the bulbs with amber LEDs.

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