almost hit somebody last night. Need suggestion for lights
- Thread starter sweaty
- Start date
RysiuM
New member
I had the same issue and disliked the light output from my stock halogens headlights from my 13 4Runner. I ended up doing a projector retrofit with big LS projectors with HIDs and it made an unbelievable difference. Here are a couple comparison shots from years ago.
Thanks for posting. That's great comparison. I do have reflectors too (2012 4Runner) and I guess at some point I maybe forced to do projectors if during annual inspection someone decided that my "American low beams" are not acceptable anymore (in Poland the required light pattern is a bit different).
I did have very similar occurrence when in total darkness I was driving out of the driveway into gravel road and small boy wearing black cloths zoomed just few feet of me almost "across my hood" on unlighted bicycle. I driving maybe 2mph when it happened. I think I activated a "panic breaking" system. Neither me or my wife did not see that boy. By the way using fog lights is illegal in Poland if there is no fog. Stupid law IMHO. I think this is because of old fog lights (without low cut-off) are still legal here.
IanB
New member
HID lowbeams give a nice, bright, wide beam of light, they are a huge improvement over the stock lowbeams. I went with 9011 high beams, and they have been a great improvement over stock as well, at very low cost. I'd like to try a set of the 2700K LED foglight bulbs down the road, but I'm very happy with the improvements so far.
mtnbiker49
New member
If you do HIDs, do it the highway-use, legal way by doing a retrofit. That involves opening the headlight.
IanB
New member
A 2018 will have the facelift headlights with projectors for the lowbeams already. A plug and play kit is all that's needed, it takes about 45 min or so to do a nice tidy install.
While it does have projectors, it does not have HID specific projectors and the HID bulbs utilized in those projectors are not "perfectly" placed...
I'm guilty of this (running LED drop-ins), but there is a legitimate difference in light output between a set of drop-in HIDs in projector housings and HID specific projector housings using a true HID bulb
IanB
New member
That's fair, but how does that difference compare to HID's dropped in a projector vs. the stock halogen bulbs in those same projectors? Because the difference is huge, and well worth the money and effort to install.
mtnbiker49
New member
I think I’ll choose the setup that “exceeds DOT requirements” over the one that is for “off-road use only”.
I would believe this if our projectors accepted actual HID bulbs (D1S/D2S/D4S/etc), not ones that had been adapted to new bases (H11).
Will a drop-in meet the personal desires of 80% of people? Probably. But I would be shocked if anyone with an actual retrofit ever said "ehh, stock projectors had just as much light output with just as clean of a cut off".
rayofsi
New member
no the stock projectors are not good for hid bulbs.. and yes there are hid specific projectors.
halogen based projectors have squirrel finders which leak out some light upwards to light up street signs etc. when you put in a bulb that is twice as bright and with a slightly different filament, it still causes glare.
i am guilty of running hid kit in oem headlights, but i have since moved on to actual projectors. the difference is huge, and i don't get flashed now like back then, even when lights are aimed exactly the same.
J.F. Sebastian
New member
Objects in your headlight beams are not the only ones that exist in our 3D reality at night. Don't know how any lights would make a difference with lateral recognition of objects if you don't look and/or your vision is poor. If you put HIDs in and start blinding people you still need to turn your head.
