Headlights suck

[Eowade]

Hikari Ultra LEDs for me

We were also underwhelmed by the stock lighting. I researched replacements, wanting high quality, legal, long-lasting, reliable LEDs. We decided to go with Hikari Ultra 6K LEDs for both DRL/brights as well as dims (9005's and H11's appropriately).

These Eyes of Megatron LEDs accurately address the location of the filaments in the reflectors and projectors to provide lighting the way Toyota designed them to work. That means bright lights that are not going to blind oncoming traffic. Respect! Nobody has flashed their lights at us out of frustration for miss-aimed, glaring lighting, leaving all of us much safer.

These 12000Lm bulbs are a nice bright white 6000 kelvin range. This produces a well-lit road/path to our satisfaction. If you get these, keep in mind that they are finicky when it comes to polarity (if the DRLs don't work, flip the connector over).

We decided to go with Alla lighting 3K fog LEDs for a pleasant amber tint that really penetrates the fog for us.

 

[Black-X]

Everything fit inside the dust cover?

 

[ForRun]

Everything fit inside the dust cover?

Found this review on Amazon

 

[monstarmike]

Everything fit inside the dust cover?

The Hikari's fit fine in my 2020 TRD ORP. I decided to go with Xenon Depot for the high beam since I couldn't verify if other brands would work with the DRL mode. Everything fits fine and works great. May end up going to some GTR lighting Ultras from Headlight Revolution but that's some coin I could spend elsewhere.

 

[Senorlechero]

Stock headlights are OK. Do I wish they were better, yes.
Am I going to go out and put in aftermarket bulbs and blind other drivers, no.

You guys running night splitters, super bright LED's, plasma retina searing 5K ultras, Morimotos that require boosters and fans or whatever they're called... please tell me what you go when others flash their brights at you, do flip them off, do you blast that other driver with your brights or your light bar? Do you laugh at them?

If you get brighted by others you suck, even once a week is too much. Remember that for every one driver that has the balls to flash you, there are dozens that are blinded and don't know why or what to do, they're just trying to stay on the road get past you so their eyes can recover.
Sure some of you re-aim your lights a bit lower, do you still get flashed on occasion?
Is your safety, when you light up the road WAY more than stock, more important than that soccer mom who has to shield her eyes from your blinding lights?

If you've re-aimed your night splitters to the point that you no longer get flashed, that's good. If you still get flashed and say "F-it loser!" you're a first class A-hole.

A jeep yesterday had insanely bright fogs and searing aftermarket headlights, I couldn't bright that chump because I was trying to block the light with my hand and I literally couldn't see a damn thing.
F-150 guy in the AM drop off line at school has his blinding behind the grill light bar on all the time, gotta show off that sweet mod!!

So yes I'm highly annoyed.

DOT legal- HA! You say F&#* that it's my safety first screw the other drivers, police and inspection stations right?

Again those of you that don't get flashed, and re-aim- thanks for the effort.

Uh, wow. You seem to have a serious bias on this and specific issues that aren’t really what anyone here is talking about.

Maybe if you need headlights on public roads that are brighter than everyone else, you possibly shouldn't be driving at night.

Sent from my SM-G955U using Tapatalk

Brighter than everyone else? How about just bright?
Base corollas come with better headlights.
I live in a small town, it’s dark. I’m glad you think you know what’s best for me. But if Toyota doesn’t put LEDs in the 4Runner and we get another it will be getting full LED retrofits so that it has ADEQUATE lighting for MY environment.

 

[Axix23]

According to the preachers here, using your fogs makes you one of the bad men.

If the headlights were adequate, you wouldn’t need the fogs except in...wait for it...fog.

well, they came stock with foglights, why not use them? this is my first car that came with foglights too. Are you saying the factory foglights blind people?

Every car that came stock with foglights that I seen on the roadway has them on?

 

[ForRun]

The Hikari's fit fine in my 2020 TRD ORP. I decided to go with Xenon Depot for the high beam since I couldn't verify if other brands would work with the DRL mode. Everything fits fine and works great. May end up going to some GTR lighting Ultras from Headlight Revolution but that's some coin I could spend elsewhere.

Yeah high beam is wide open, low beams are behind a dust cover enclosed. Others were saying the Hikaris got really hot and worried they would melt the housing

 

[monstarmike]

Yeah high beam is wide open, low beams are behind a dust cover enclosed. Others were saying the Hikaris got really hot and worried they would melt the housing

Hmm I only felt min after letting them run for a couple of minutes. Mine did come with a fan on them.

I've always kinda wondered about the worry over heat. The heat those halogens give off is not trivial. Is it because how the heatsink draws the heat to the base instead of leaving it at the bulb that has people concerned about melting?

My main concern is over the longevity of the LED with regards to heat.

 

[classicinjection]

Sorry, gotta agree with JohnNC night driving home on 460 was painful, constantly being blinded by other drives is no longer just an occasional thing and not just Jeeps or trucks the tuner imports cars aren't much better(and I’m lifted) It’s the norm. Put in cool lights for safety, got it now spend the few extra minutes aiming them for others safety!!!

Uh, wow. You seem to have a serious bias on this and specific issues that aren’t really what anyone here is talking about.


Brighter than everyone else? How about just bright?
Base corollas come with better headlights.
I live in a small town, it’s dark. I’m glad you think you know what’s best for me. But if Toyota doesn’t put LEDs in the 4Runner and we get another it will be getting full LED retrofits so that it has ADEQUATE lighting for MY environment.

 

[Chris In Milwaukee]

Sorry, gotta agree with JohnNC night driving home on 460 was painful, constantly being blinded by other drives is no longer just an occasional thing and not just Jeeps or trucks the tuner imports cars aren't much better(and I’m lifted) It’s the norm. Put in cool lights for safety, got it now spend the few extra minutes aiming them for others safety!!!

Ditto. I made a downward adjustment, but it may have been a little too far. I’ll compare it to my wife’s car and see if there’s any wiggle room. Her car is lower to the ground than mine, though, so it may be apples to oranges.

 

[thennen]

Uh, wow. You seem to have a serious bias on this and specific issues that aren’t really what anyone here is talking about.


Brighter than everyone else? How about just bright?
Base corollas come with better headlights.
I live in a small town, it’s dark. I’m glad you think you know what’s best for me. But if Toyota doesn’t put LEDs in the 4Runner and we get another it will be getting full LED retrofits so that it has ADEQUATE lighting for MY environment.

I think one of the things to keep in mind here is that eyesight is not equal. We all know someone who has a bit more trouble driving at night than we do, or in the rain, or whatever. Or maybe you have a bit of trouble yourself. The very earliest stages of cataracts may not be noticeable to someone in their day-to-day, and may only manifest under certain conditions, such as extra-bright oncoming lighting at night. Before you jump on the "then they should quit driving" argument, remember that the vast majority of people have eyesight that's imperfect (glasses, anyone?). And cataracts is just one example. Age is another, since pretty much everyone's eyesight deteriorates a little as they age.

I wear glasses, but don't particularly have trouble seeing at night. However, when I'm acclimated to night driving after being out for awhile, someone headed my way on a dark 2-lane with super-bright, poorly-aimed lights (plus fogs on a clear night, wth?) presents a danger to me. Ditto for maybe millions of others.

I'm all for someone having as much light as they wish, as long as they use it responsibly. We have insanely bright lighting options today that we've never had before, and that's a good thing. But when someone is coming the other way, you need to have the option of switching to properly-aimed normal levels of lighting until they pass. You don't know how well they can see when the sun suddenly rises right in front of them. Keep in mind that in some cases, bright lights are used SPECIFICALLY to disorient people. So lighting can be a powerful thing. People need to give people a break, and I think it's much easier to remember if I keep in mind that I may have an eyesight advantage over them.

 

[Senorlechero]

Jeebus guys.

HIDs in a non HID housing is bad.
LEDs in a non LED housing is bad.
Improperly aimed headlights are bad.

Better lights in the 4runner that don't fall under the above 3 statements are good.

Everyone happy now?

Seriously, the $40,000-$50,000 SUV has worse lights than the $20,000 Corolla. That's ridiculous.

 

[Trail4me]

Just do low beam conversion to H9 bulb. It will give you adequate light. Yes, the stock low beam is not great, I couldn't believe how bad it was when I first drove the truck on the overcast night in the boonies. After going H9 it's much better. I also changed the high beams to 9011b bulb and now night turns into day. H9's x2 is $7 and 9011b x2 is $46.

 

[thennen]

I'm Happy

Thanks.

 

[baldrik78]

We were also underwhelmed by the stock lighting. I researched replacements, wanting high quality, legal, long-lasting, reliable LEDs. We decided to go with Hikari Ultra 6K LEDs for both DRL/brights as well as dims (9005's and H11's appropriately).

These Eyes of Megatron LEDs accurately address the location of the filaments in the reflectors and projectors to provide lighting the way Toyota designed them to work. That means bright lights that are not going to blind oncoming traffic. Respect! Nobody has flashed their lights at us out of frustration for miss-aimed, glaring lighting, leaving all of us much safer.

These 12000Lm bulbs are a nice bright white 6000 kelvin range. This produces a well-lit road/path to our satisfaction. If you get these, keep in mind that they are finicky when it comes to polarity (if the DRLs don't work, flip the connector over).

We decided to go with Alla lighting 3K fog LEDs for a pleasant amber tint that really penetrates the fog for us.

While the position of the diode may be in the correct place for those LEDs, the actual width of the light source is larger and that plays a huge part in the halogen projector housing. Crashnburn80 gives a really good analysis in this thread @ TW.

3rd Gen HID vs LED vs Halogen H11 projector headlights | Tacoma World

Crashnburn80 does some testing on the Hikari lights below. While much brighter than stock, the Hikari are still less bright than the $15 H9 conversion. I do believe they are the best LEDs he has tested though.

3rd Gen HID vs LED vs Halogen H11 projector headlights | Page 81 | Tacoma World

 

[Runner4Randy]

Bright LEDs but not in the housing

OK... So I've read a lot of the back and forth on this thread about LED vs. HID headlights. I bought what I thought was a nice LED H11 conversion kit. I hooked everything up outside the housing first (laid out the wiring on the hood) to make sure everything worked. Two beautiful bright LED lights, IN THE DAYTIME! I was very impressed, so I went ahead with the install. However, the bulbs are almost infinitely brighter when they are outside the housing. Once they are locked into the stock housing, there's very little noticeable output. I can barely see them in the bumper of the car in front of me. In the rain, forget it. It's very hard to see! Any help would be great.

 

[Ripper238]

I'm not quite sure why LED's have become so popular. HID's are so much better.

 

[NW.OH.T4R]

I'm not quite sure why LED's have become so popular. HID's are so much better.

Because most modern projectors are designed for LED's. Also, between bulbs and ballasts the lifespan of HID's is much shorter than LED's. LED's are cheaper to manufacture as well. They have their place, but the supporting components need to be designed appropriately to maximize their utilization.

 

[Ripper238]

Because most modern projectors are designed for LED's. Also, between bulbs and ballasts the lifespan of HID's is much shorter than LED's. LED's are cheaper to manufacture as well. They have their place, but the supporting components need to be designed appropriately to maximize their utilization.

Have LED headlights been that widely embraced? I wouldn't think many cars use LED's. HID's seem to be the go to far many and reliability is excellent. I had 300k on my Acura TL HID's no issues.

LED for normal lighting seems good, but a headlight i am still not sold. 100% supporting components need to be designed appropriately to maximize their utilization.

 

[Ripper238]

I just ordered a set of Philips H9's for my headlight replacement and a set of JDM ASTAR for the rear backup lights.

Hopefully it will help resolve the issue for now.