Review: Amazing Philips Ultinon Pro9000 LED headlight bulbs

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TLDR: the Philips Ultinon Pro9000 LED bulbs produce a similar (and excellent) level of brightness, colour and beam pattern as the earlier Philips Gen2 LED bulbs. Now with CANbus compatibility and a smaller and simpler bulb package the new bulbs are a heck of a lot easier to install (although still not entirely hassle free).

Even newer Update: I’ve just received a set of the newer Philips Ultinon Pro9100 HL and will be reviewing these soon. They claim up to 350% brighter light at 5800k – November 2022

Update: The Pro9000 HL bulbs are now listed on Amazon (you can preorder for when they will be back in stock on the 19th of December 2020).

Clearly the Philips marketing team seems to have shown a little more restraint/smoked less crack when naming these, but at least the product design and engineering team have been hard at work. After I had some issues with the second generation of Philips LED headlight bulbs (the “Philips X-tremeultinon Gen2” ) Philips customer support sent me a set of their yet to be released 3rd generation Ultinon Pro9000 bulbs (hence why I got a plain blue box). I’ve shot a quick video to compare these new LED bulbs with their predecessors and to show you how to install them. You can find that video below.

The retail box for the Pro9000 bulbs is a little more like you would expect from the Philips Ultinon range, and it looks like these are now becoming available to buy:

Philips Ultinon 9000 LEDs

First off, they don’t come with a control unit or any resistors to try and make them OBDII compliant. Just a headlamp bulb and a short cable. Philips claim that these new bulbs should be OBDII compliant and no longer produce a bulb-out or other fault warning light and/or message on the dashboard – not that I had this error previously on the Mondeo Mk5, but I know a lot of other customers did. Crucially, this new form factor now makes them far easier to install than previous generations of LED headlight bulbs. No more do you have to try and cram inches of cabling along with resistors and control boxes inside of your car headlamps!

Philips Ultinon Pro9000

Secondly, the LED headlight bulb, heat sink and fan is now one solid piece, with a mounting ring that detaches for installation. This contrasts with older versions where the base of the bulb, which is a combined fan and heatsink, would unscrew. Potentially this older screw design could compromise the rate of conduction of heat from the LEDs down to the heatsink. This new construction of the bulb further reduces complexity – the old bulbs had a second power cable to power the fan in the detachable heat sinks. That is now retained inside the new bulb design.

My issue with the old 2nd generation of these lamps (that Philips customer support replaced by sending me the new Pro9000 bulbs) was that, after approximately 15 minutes of operation, the near side headlamp would turn off. Switching the car’s lights off and on again would get me roughly another 15 minutes operation. Reading the error codes from the car would show a short circuit warning for the bulb. After checking the wiring I believe that the old bulb or control unit was either over-heating, or was defective in some way. I had the variant of the Gen2 that had black plastic LED control units, but later(?) versions were manufactured with a silver, metal-bodied control unit. Perhaps this engineering change was made to address a potential overheating issue? Who knows. Not my issue any more.

Philips Ultinon Pro9000

The design of the new Pro9000 LED bulb features two lugs that hold the mounting ring in place, and which twists off for installation. The idea is to place the mounting ring into the car headlamp, secure it into place with the spring clamp on the back of the headlamp, and then insert the LED bulb and twist to lock it securely in place. That’s the idea anyway, but reality got in the way of that….

I found that they were still a little fiddly to install. Once the mounting ring was clipped into the headlight and the bulb placed into the mounting ring, I found I couldn’t twist the bulb to lock it in place in the mounting ring. Instead I had to undo the spring clamp holding the mounting ring in place and withdraw the ring and bulb by one or two millimetres to allow me to twist and lock the LED bulb in to the mounting ring. For some reason, when the mounting ring was properly secured, the construction of my H7 headlamps on the Mondeo Mk5 prevented the LED bulb from being twisted and locked into place. A little fiddly, but with the bulb twisted and locked in place, it could be pushed all the way back down and then the spring clamp could be clipped back to hold it firmly in place. On other cars, your mileage may vary.

Checkout the Philips Pro9000 Led Bulbs at Amazon

I did notice that it might be possible to install the bulb into the headlight in two different ways, 180 degrees apart – I’m not sure if the orientation will affect the light output or bulb pattern. I did ask Philips support about this and they are yet to get back to me. Update: Philips tech support just said that the bulb had to be ‘perpendicular’. Perpendicular to the ground I assume, but they didn’t specify! So I assume it doesn’t matter which way up you install it.

Update – Thanks to Marco who left a comment to say that he found that having the “LED contacts facing up” produces a light pattern close to a standard bulb in their Yaris (which I believe has projector headlamps). By “LED contacts” I believe he means the cut out section.

On a final note for the Ultinon pro9000 LED bulbs, the two light emitting diodes on each side of the top of the bulb now make up a more compact light source than the 2nd generation bulbs (which used three diodes per side) . In theory this smaller, more compact light source should produce a better beam pattern, although I didn’t really notice any difference in the projector headlamps of the mk5 Mondeo – the beam pattern was just about as good and pretty-well defined. Philips claim that the light output and colour is the same and I couldn’t really notice any difference in the brightness and colour of these bulbs over the Philips X-tremeultinon Gen2 LED bulbs. It seems they justify the increase in price of the Pro9000 bulbs almost entirely by the increased ease of installation (and they are much easier!!)

Installation and comparison of the new Philips Pro900 LED H7 bulbs and the earlier X-tremeultinon Gen2 H7 LED bulbs.

For reference, the below video shows the performance of the X-tremeUltinon Gen2 bulbs on a dark lane on a mid-summer night. I would say that the Pro9000 bubs are just about as good – the light output is similar to the previous generation of bulbs, but the beam pattern doesn’t seem as well defined to me.

The light output of the Philips Xtremeultinon Gen2 bulbs

Checkout the Philips Pro9000 Led Bulbs at Amazon


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18 responses to “Review: Amazing Philips Ultinon Pro9000 LED headlight bulbs”

  1. LED interested avatar

    Are you worried about the new MOT regs that came into force Jan 2021?

    “Existing halogen headlamp units should not be converted to be used with high intensity discharge (HID) or light emitting diode (LED) bulbs. If such a conversion has been done, you must fail the headlamp.”

    Also, is the insurance company happy with this?

    Just asking as I’m considering changing to this bulb in projector headlights, but I’m unsure about whether it will pass the MOT…Would be an expensive mistake!

  2. Oliver Jobson avatar

    How would an MOT tester know?

  3. mark avatar

    Hi mate I have been tech LED bulbs in my car is it worth paying out the extra for the Phillip ones many thanks for your advice

  4. Oliver Jobson avatar

    I’m not familiar with the LED bulbs you have. I suppose it comes down to whether or not you are happy with the light output of your current bulbs? Have you checked/adjusted the alignment?
    My thinking behind Philips bulbs came down to reliability – I thought if I spent the extra money (originally I bought the gen2 bulbs) then I would be less likely to run into issues. Turns out I was wrong about that! I’m happy with the performance of these latest bulbs though, but I think the gen2 were marginally brighter. The big advantage with these new ones is the ease of installation – definitely a significant improvement.

  5. mark avatar

    Thank you for your reply one of the local internet shops will do them for £127 this is the new set of course it’s like what you said it’s reliability the ones that are in there have no fan just a heat sink it’s just being brave to handover that sort of money

  6. Marco avatar

    Hello Oliver, I recently bought Ultinon Pro5000 LED and I have the same question about the orientation of the bulb. I asked italian Philips support and they told me that it has to stay perpendicular to the road but then its 180° orientation is unimportant because the led are in the middle of the bulb. On my 2019 Toyota Yaris I found that mounting bulb with the led contacts facing up produce a light pattern projection on a wall equal to the normal halogen bulb. Kind regards. Marco

  7. Oliver Jobson avatar

    Hi Marco – thanks for you comment – I believe I’m correct in saying the 2019 Yaris has projector headlights and the physical dimensions of the Pro5000 bulbs look very similar to the P9000 – so, in theory that would be the best way to install these in all projector housings. I’ll have to go and check mine and possibly switch them around to see what works best! I’ve never been completely happy with the light pattern so far, so I suspect I may have installed them the other way around…

  8. mark avatar

    Received my pro9000 the other day and was to be fair quite disappointed the light seems to be very scatty on the road I had beamtech LED lights before and I would honestly sad and very little difference other than price

  9. Oliver Jobson avatar

    Yes, I think I agree, having lived with them for a little while now, that the Pro9000 doesn’t seem to have as nice a beam pattern as Philips Gen2 bulbs or indeed some of the other brands. However, it’s still a big improvement over the standard bulbs which were rubbish. I opted for the Philips brand as I had concerns over the quality or reliability of other cheaper bulbs – it’s not a small or quick job to change the headlight bulbs on my car (wheels and front bumper off job, what a joke!!).

  10. 5 series nut job avatar

    In response to MOT tests you need self levelling and headlight washers after 2009 for LED or HID equipped cars. I have Aftermarket HIDs on my 2002 5 series and it’s never been failed for the HID lights, but when the adjusters broke the self levelling no longer worked so I got a fail. Most backstreet garages will pass aftermarket LED bulbs as long as the beam pattern is correct, so no putting them in a reflector headlight unit. Would have to be a projector lens with the cut off plates installed. I’ve just bought a 2012 5 series and I badly want the Pro9000 as the standard bulbs are shockingly bad (same as the 2002, come on BMW!!!) fortunately the car has self levelling, washers and projector lenses installed. Can’t wait to see the difference!

  11. Edel Santos avatar

    Hello Oliver,
    Have you switched the bulb position inside the housing so that the cut off part with connectors is facing up instead? What are the results for the beam pattern? Thank you very much.

  12. Edel Santos avatar

    Hello Oliver,
    Did you rotate your bulbs around so that the cut off section would face up? What were the results? I Than you very much.

  13. Oliver Jobson avatar

    No, I didn’t try rotating the bulbs. Having thought about it more the bulb pattern was always rubbish with halogen bulbs – with bright and dark patches. As the darker months arrived, and it was a bit easier to test the bulbs on a really dark night, I found that both bulbs gave a really clear cut-off and kick up to the offside and we’re no issue with the MOT.
    I think the Mondeo headlights are just a bit rubbish.
    Having lived with them for a while now I am really glad I switched to these bulbs – they are fantastic in contrast to Osram performance halogen bulbs.

  14. Allan Nielsen avatar

    Hi.
    Just rotated mine in my Opel Astra K with lens headlights and the result is better when the pins point upwards.

  15. Oliver Jobson avatar

    Oh awesome, thanks for the update. – I still haven’t got round to it yet – when the evenings start to get darker again I will look at it.
    Cheers!

  16. Manny avatar

    The Hong Kong / Japan market set from Phillips are clocked in the correct position from factory with the contacts facing up. Just an FYI in case but even if clocked incorrectly it’s easy to switch around

  17. Ramon avatar

    Hi Oliver,
    Did you also compare the Pro9100? Are they better?

    Thank!

  18. Oliver Jobson avatar

    Hi – I finally got round to installing the Pro9100 last week (it’s been a busy year, moving house etc). I can confirm the Pro9100 are MUCH improved. The light output is fantastic and finally something that is similar to OEM LED headlights.

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