Fog Lights Bulb Replacement

M

markie671

New member
Searched and Searched but no lead on what I am looking for.. So here it goes..

Hey Guys/Gals,

As much as I want to change my fog lights to LED bulbs and have the brightness factory.. I also want to know the functionality of it.. Read along the thread that led fog lights are bad against rain/snow..

Need your opinion on what route should I take? I am a snowboarder so when it is winter I will be up in the mountains..

Should I change my current halogen fog light bulb to leds/halogen bulb color?

Thank you!
 
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Halogen melts snow and ice off, LED does not. Simple as that. If I were to change anything it would be to go to yellow bulbs in the fogs.
 
the colour temperature that most LED's produce is not conducive to cutting through low visibility situations like fog or snow. you want something closer to the warmer, red end of the spectrum, whereas LED's produce a cooler blue-ish light.
your choice - fashion or function
 
Jono.ful said:
the colour temperature that most LED's produce is not conducive to cutting through low visibility situations like fog or snow. you want something closer to the warmer, red end of the spectrum, whereas LED's produce a cooler blue-ish light.

your choice - fashion or function
Click to expand...



It's a 4runner I'm about function.. so lower kelvin should help my choice?


Sent from my iPhone
 
Jono.ful said:
the colour temperature that most LED's produce is not conducive to cutting through low visibility situations like fog or snow. you want something closer to the warmer, red end of the spectrum, whereas LED's produce a cooler blue-ish light.
your choice - fashion or function
Click to expand...

i think you're confusing led for hid.......
 
markie671 said:
It's a 4runner I'm about function.. so lower kelvin should help my choice?


Sent from my iPhone
Click to expand...

yessir, yellow is the way to go IMO. I run a set of Lightforce 240s with yellow filters, they're not fog lights specifically, but when aimed low enough, they do a better job than my Rigid dually d2s
JVVCyjw.jpg
 
^^^^^ Awesome ^^^^^

I'm pretty sure you can get yellow LEDs.

Yellow light helps with vision in low contrast situations (i.e. fog, snow).

Walter-e1405453204436.jpg
 
Sound_SS said:
i think you're confusing led for hid.......
Click to expand...

nope. HID bulbs are available in several colour temps which range from warm to cool. I run 4100k in my headlights, but you can go anywhere from about 3000k (yellow), to above 10,000k (purple-ish). A few LED makers are starting to put out warmer colour LED's (ie. Rigid does cool ~6500k, natural ~4500k, or warm ~3500k in some models), but generally speaking, LED's are higher on the kelvin scale, meaning they produce more blue, or cooler, light.

hid-color-temperatures.jpg
 
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markie671 said:
Searched and Searched but no lead on what I am looking for.. So here it goes..

Hey Guys/Gals,

As much as I want to change my fog lights to LED bulbs and have the brightness factory.. I also want to know the functionality of it.. Read along the thread that led fog lights are bad against rain/snow..

Need your opinion on what route should I take? I am a snowboarder so when it is winter I will be up in the mountains..

Should I change my current halogen fog light bulb to leds/halogen bulb color?

Thank you!
Click to expand...

Doesn't seem like your questions were directly answered and this thread went on a tangent. I changed my fog lights out to LED (and low beams to HID), have had them for coming up on two years, and have been many places with them.

Changing out the low beams to HIDs were amazing. I can see so much better. I got the 50W HID kit from DDM Tuning. I should note, I originally got the DDM 55W HID kit, and after a year, the bulb color faded, the output level significantly dropped, and after I took the kit out, noticed there was corrosion on both ballast connectors only on the power wire side. DDM was pretty shitty about honoring their warranty on this claiming I had water damage, but it wasn't water damage. So I changed to the Ultra 55W HID kit and now they are so much better.

Swapping out the fog lights, I used these bulbs (I'm pretty sure). Anyway, the color of the bulb looks nice, however, the problem I'm having is the fog light housing on our 4Runners does not distribute the light straight out in a beam pattern, but more of a flood. So when I'm in the mountains driving on the dark roads, the HIDs illuminate the road very well (seriously, it's so nice). When I turn on the fog lights, I see the surround areas immediately in front of me illuminate (the tops of trees, the bushes to the sides, etc...). Over Christmas, I took a road trip from California to Colorado, passing through Utah. Driving through the Capitol Reef National Park, I hit a snow storm and was driving maybe 10mph max. The HIDs were helping, but the fog lights were not because they scattered everywhere. I believe the theory behind fog lights are that they are supposed to be a version of headlights that are lower to the ground, but it doesn't seem like there's enough engineering in the fog light housing to actually disperse the light straight out and down, rather than flood the area immediately in front of you. I still have the fog lights and use them on dark roads, but if I'm in snow (or ironically fog), I turn the fog lights off and just rely on the low beams. If you haven't already done so, I would highly recommend changing out your low beams to HIDs. What a significant difference they made. Hopefully this helps.
 
whiteblazer01 said:
Doesn't seem like your questions were directly answered and this thread went on a tangent. I changed my fog lights out to LED (and low beams to HID), have had them for coming up on two years, and have been many places with them.



Changing out the low beams to HIDs were amazing. I can see so much better. I got the 50W HID kit from DDM Tuning. I should note, I originally got the DDM 55W HID kit, and after a year, the bulb color faded, the output level significantly dropped, and after I took the kit out, noticed there was corrosion on both ballast connectors only on the power wire side. DDM was pretty shitty about honoring their warranty on this claiming I had water damage, but it wasn't water damage. So I changed to the Ultra 55W HID kit and now they are so much better.



Swapping out the fog lights, I used these bulbs (I'm pretty sure). Anyway, the color of the bulb looks nice, however, the problem I'm having is the fog light housing on our 4Runners does not distribute the light straight out in a beam pattern, but more of a flood. So when I'm in the mountains driving on the dark roads, the HIDs illuminate the road very well (seriously, it's so nice). When I turn on the fog lights, I see the surround areas immediately in front of me illuminate (the tops of trees, the bushes to the sides, etc...). Over Christmas, I took a road trip from California to Colorado, passing through Utah. Driving through the Capitol Reef National Park, I hit a snow storm and was driving maybe 10mph max. The HIDs were helping, but the fog lights were not because they scattered everywhere. I believe the theory behind fog lights are that they are supposed to be a version of headlights that are lower to the ground, but it doesn't seem like there's enough engineering in the fog light housing to actually disperse the light straight out and down, rather than flood the area immediately in front of you. I still have the fog lights and use them on dark roads, but if I'm in snow (or ironically fog), I turn the fog lights off and just rely on the low beams. If you haven't already done so, I would highly recommend changing out your low beams to HIDs. What a significant difference they made. Hopefully this helps.
Click to expand...



I already did the headlights, changed it to 4300k xenon depot Phillip bulbs.. love it


Sent from my iPhone
 
whiteblazer01 said:
Swapping out the fog lights, I used these bulbs (I'm pretty sure). Anyway, the color of the bulb looks nice, however, the problem I'm having is the fog light housing on our 4Runners does not distribute the light straight out in a beam pattern, but more of a flood. So when I'm in the mountains driving on the dark roads, the HIDs illuminate the road very well (seriously, it's so nice). When I turn on the fog lights, I see the surround areas immediately in front of me illuminate (the tops of trees, the bushes to the sides, etc...). Over Christmas, I took a road trip from California to Colorado, passing through Utah. Driving through the Capitol Reef National Park, I hit a snow storm and was driving maybe 10mph max. The HIDs were helping, but the fog lights were not because they scattered everywhere. I believe the theory behind fog lights are that they are supposed to be a version of headlights that are lower to the ground, but it doesn't seem like there's enough engineering in the fog light housing to actually disperse the light straight out and down, rather than flood the area immediately in front of you. I still have the fog lights and use them on dark roads, but if I'm in snow (or ironically fog), I turn the fog lights off and just rely on the low beams. If you haven't already done so, I would highly recommend changing out your low beams to HIDs. What a significant difference they made. Hopefully this helps.
Click to expand...

This may be less of a problem with the factory fog housing and more to do with that LED bulb. If the output pattern of that LED doesn't match a factory style halogen bulb which the reflector was designed for then you're likely going to get an unfocused or irregular light pattern.
 
JSparky said:
This may be less of a problem with the factory fog housing and more to do with that LED bulb. If the output pattern of that LED doesn't match a factory style halogen bulb which the reflector was designed for then you're likely going to get an unfocused or irregular light pattern.
Click to expand...

exactly the problem the guys who did the H11 swap were having....well, that, and melted lenses/housings. LED replacement bulbs, or even different halogens were not designed the same way as the OEM H16 fog bulbs, and conversely they do not cast light in the same pattern out of the OEM fog reflector.
 
Jono.ful said:
exactly the problem the guys who did the H11 swap were having....well, that, and melted lenses/housings. LED replacement bulbs, or even different halogens were not designed the same way as the OEM H16 fog bulbs, and conversely they do not cast light in the same pattern out of the OEM fog reflector.
Click to expand...

Should I stick to https://www.amazon.com/PIAA-13509-Y...TF8&qid=1501796304&sr=8-6&keywords=H16+yellow ?

Or Should I try out a LED bulb for my fog lights?

The fog lights uses H16 by the way..
 
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Jono.ful said:
do you have an output shot?
Click to expand...

No. It's just a bulb change but I feel they are a big improvement over stock. Several of us on here have them, maybe someone will post a shot. I'm sure they do not put out as much as a HID option but I am happy with them. If I needed more than what these bulbs put out I would probably go with the Baja Designs kit or similar. But after putting these bulbs in, I will save my money.
 
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