What LED bulbs?
 

If to can't afford to do it the right way then why not save another week or so, that way you'll be able to do it the right way and only do it once. Depending on the budget, there was a set of Qtec LED's on eBay (2 separate listings) for $100 each, which would set you at $200 as opposed to $50 for really high end halogen bulbs that will not do much. Alternatively, check your local CL. I sold my stock headlights and bulbs (low hours, excellent condition) for $30 installed. Guy got a great deal and it was cold that day.

The problem is really the factory housing in general. You can drop a Silverstar bulb in and it's not much better, just a different color of light. I would presume that even if you could find an LED drop in bulb that played nice with the CanBUS, it would be the same crappy light pattern overall, just white. If you really can't afford a proper light that is DOT approved, it seems many folks have had decent luck with the come cheap LED models that are the full lens. The ones that come to mind are the honeycomb looking ones. I agree with Karl though that it would be better to save until you could buy a quality light. Often times the cheap housings look ok at first, but just don't hold up the same way as the real models.

Like karls10jk and resharp001 said. The LED bulbs tend to be disappointing. If you have a bit of electrical know-how, another option is to run your own wiring harness for the headlamps. The JK has the same/similar problem that the TJ and YJ had. The actual wires used to drive the headlamps are under-sized and so don't carry enough current. I built a harness that used 12ga wire to drive the headlamps and was triggered by relays that used the signal from the factory harness. This produced MUCH brighter light from the same headlamps and bulbs. I think I may still have the diagram that I used to build the harness. If you're interested, I can dig it up and post it. Basically takes two 40A relays, three colors of 12ga wire, 3 colors of 16ga wire, two plugs to mate to the headlamps, and one plug to mate to one of the Jeep harness headlamp plugs. I think I had like $50 total in it all.

^^^that's pretty interesting. I don't think I'd ever run across the logic that it was a power issue.

I didn't realize it would be either until a friend of mine did it. I knew it was an issue on YJ and TJ (and XJ)... I've built the harnesses for each of the YJ/TJ/XJ jeeps I've owned and it made a huge difference. The JK, apparently, suffers from the same problem... it's running 16ga wire... and while, technically, it works, it won't carry the current required to actually drive the headlamps at full capacity. I forgot to say, that while I didn't suffer from relay chatter (from the CANBUS) the fellow that I copied this from did. Mine was a 2011 and his was a 2010. I think he eventually added a capacitor in the signal wires for the high and low beam relays to solve that.

Hella E Codes are a nice cheap option as well

just a swap in bulb?

Will it improve noticeably in the stock housing for now?

https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.jk-...20a849576e.png
$77 not bad

curious if those bulbs are whiter than stock.