[E90ROXS]

Here is a post I found on another forum.

FYI

80% of "Philips" bulbs in the aftermarket are counterfeits / fakes
Buyer beware.With rare exception, 80% or more of the "Philips" bulbs listings for new bulbs on eBay and other locations are fake, Counterfeit look alike bulbs made in China. The Chinese have done a very "good" job to closely duplicate the labeling and the construction of the real Philips HID bulbs when making the fakes. 99.9% of people cannot tell the difference, in terms of appearance. We have purchased some of the fakes and will soon add some photos (High Resolution), comparing real with fakes. We will show you what to look for. This will help you determine that you are buying the real thing. This comparison will help all buyers and sellers to know what is a real Philips bulb. If we did not know what to look for we could be fooled too, the fakes are that "good" in appearance. HID bulbs claiming to be Philips and they come from China or some broker in USA (marked made in Germany), they are fakes. Likely some do not know that they are really selling fakes.
There are at least 2 companies in China making these fakes. We have been approached by them to switch over and greatly change our profit levels. The Chinese copied Philips can be purchased labeled as D2S 85122, 85122+, 85122 CM and 85122 WX, also D2R 85126, 85126+, 85126 CM and 85126 WX, All of these fake bulbs can be purchased from China for about $8.00 each (in quantity) with a very good (tempting) profit margin. They are also making fake D1S, D1R, D3S, D3R, D4S and D4R bulbs as well and offering them for less than $10 each.

So far we have not seen any copies of the Philips DL50/740 The market for them is so small I doubt the Chinese would bother to even copy the labeling for this model.


A true 6000K Ultinon bulb from Philips will always have red colored salts in the arc chamber not yellow colored salts. Wholesale (not retail) from Philips the Ultinon is about $80.00 for 1 bulb. If you are paying less than $90.00 plus shipping for 1 Philips 6000K bulb it is most likely fake or used. Also, the ceramic tube will be blueish purple colored not brown or other colors. We do not sell any of the higher color temperature bulbs including 6000K Philips Ultinon (they are not DOT legal to use in USA) so you will need to look for another seller for those.

We only offer the standard Philips 85122 and 85126 4200/4300K color (yellow colored salts), These are the standard bulbs the car typically comes with from the car factories.
We purchase our bulbs directly from Philips USA. In the last 6 months we have seen a significant increase of the fake Philips copies coming from China, land of the fakes. Fair competition is fine, but this is not ok. We and the customer are the losers in this. The fakes are being sold in many cases for more than the real bulbs. In most cases the prices are about the same, real or fake. The fake bulbs will not have the same life (2000 - 3000 hours+) as real Philips bulbs. Chinese HID bulbs typically last 500-1000 hours and frequently much less. This is NOT a good deal for the buyer. They will damage your plastic headlight lenses and reflectors inside. UV light will yellow clear lenses over time. The fake bulbs do not have good UV (ultraviolet) light filtration by the outer glass tube on the bulb. Philips uses high quality UV stop quartz glass. You the customers should be upset about this and make sure you are getting what you were promised and paid for.
In many or even most of the fakes, the arc chamber (where the light comes from) is off position front to back on the bulb length axis. This means the light beam from your headlight will not be accurate compared to an OEM authentic bulb. From the many samples of fakes we got recently, some of them were off by as much as 2 or more millimeters. 1/2 were off by at least 1 mm. Even 1 mm is a lot in this technology. For this reason alone, all of these bulbs would be considered rejects by Philips and destroyed. Philips bulbs are made with very tight computer controlled tolerances (precision). Each one is optically tested at the factory to be within very tight optical specs and others.

We know the origins of our bulbs so we know 100% they are real there are no 3rd party brokers involved in our Philips bulb purchases. We also have ethics and would never knowingly sell fakes as real. We get our invoices from Philips USA. Because we buy bulk in trays we do not have Philips individual bulb boxes, we do our own single packaging.

Post URL: http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb/...e-Counterfeits

[E90ROXS]

Here a link for comparison between fake and real.
http://www.hidbulbzrus.com/vs.pdf

[LocDawgg]

good info thanks