pableaux
New member
LEDS are NOT good in the T4R especially with the stock halogen projectors. The light scatters so much you don't get any visibility. You just blind everyone around you.
HIDs are driving me insane
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LEDS are NOT good in the T4R especially with the stock halogen projectors. The light scatters so much you don't get any visibility. You just blind everyone around you.
pableaux
New member
A quick google search could give you some insight.
david05111
New member
There's actually an excellent writeup over on the tacoma forum about that very subject. And I think the author of the thread is a lighting engineer, so he know's his stuff. He does loads of testing of different options with real equipment.
The TLDR of it is that LED bulbs in stock housings suck in every way possible.
Here's the thread
Mudballz
Member
I’m not trying to be a ball buster :director:but that article is for a 3rd gen different lights
also I would like someone or group give a definitive write up so we can make our own judgment for the 5th gen
I want better lighting performance I just don’t want to chase uninformed opinions
Mike
also I would like someone or group give a definitive write up so we can make our own judgment for the 5th gen
I want better lighting performance I just don’t want to chase uninformed opinions
Mike
david05111
New member
LMAO at "uninformed opinions". The guy literally is a lighting engineer.
He's talking about 3rd gen tacomas, which are the current ones produced from 2016-now. The 2020s have a factory LED option I think (with a housing designed for them), but his testing is based on modern toyota halogen housings. These aren't tests based on mid-90s 4runner lights.
You're not going to find a better write-up than that thread, in all likelihood. It's accurate, solid info backed by real data and science. You can choose to ignore it all you want, but it doesn't make it wrong. LEDs in halogen housings are a garbage solution with worse results than halogens and constitute a hazard to other drivers on the road. Read the first page of that thread; you'll get all the info you want. In short, the reason LEDs are crap in these housings is that they aren't omni-directional lights and the housings themselves can't focus them efficiently. The bulbs are really bright, but because the housings cant focus the light, all that happens is that the light bounces around in the housings and creates a blinding situation for drivers coming at your car. The LEDs result in really bright light in the first 20 feet in front of your car and then they bleed intensity exponentially beyond that point.
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Vultradamus
New member
Bump.
Curious about this as well, looking into aftermarket bulbs and unsure if I want to go the LED / HID route or even replace both housings.
Curious about this as well, looking into aftermarket bulbs and unsure if I want to go the LED / HID route or even replace both housings.
david05111
New member
No hard feelings dude. Just trying to get the best information out to people that I can get.
Totally agreed on the 2A. I don't know how you full-time NY guys do it. I've had property in northern NY for decades and having or getting guns up there is an entirely different reality to a place like FL. I have a transferable beltfed machinegun here in FL; I can't even have a mag with more than 10 rounds there.
Yeah, no. Real world tells me that they work fine with a tight sharp cutoff and good illumination. They’re still limited to the sides by the nature of the projectors but the proper set of engineered LEDs works just fine.
HID with the proper projectors is still the best solution but there’s nothing wrong with a set of properly aimed LED replacements in the stock projector housings.
Plenty of YouTube video demonstrating it if you actually cared to do the searching you’re espousing others do.
pableaux
New member
Not sure if you've done any research yourself. Aftermarket LEDs don't illuminate as far as HIDs. This is my experience int he "real world." If you're swapping lights for more visibility, why not get HIDs? LEDs don't reach as far as HID and I know you know this. No point in swapping to LEDs if they're not providing much difference vs stock and you're just blinding everyone.
Did you say YouTube? Lol
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8wvpBZCot0s
fubarovich
Member
I had the same issue with my XD HID on the passenger side, drove me insane. Tried fixing it by installing the relays, that didn’t help so I had XD mail me a replacement ballast under warranty, which so far seems to be holding up. Their customer support system is so broken that I ended up with 2 additional new ballasts sent to me and I have a feeling I’ll be needing both eventually! Good luck
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LEDs are better in the stock projectors than the factory nightlights. HIDs are better still but you don’t really get the most benefit from them unless you do a true retrofit with new projectors etc. In the interest of simplicity and true reversibility, LEDs fill a need.
All LED bulbs aren’t created alike. There are certain builds that scatter light everywhere, yes, but there are some bulbs that do a great job of simulating the size and placement of the halogen filament. Those bulbs play perfectly fine in the stock projectors and the 25 foot pattern and alignment is spot on.
I’m not blinding anyone. I don’t light up the inside of their cars when I’m behind them at a light and no one is flashing me coming the other way but there is definitely more light within the pattern than their was previously.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gU9NF3O1KcM&feature=youtu.be
mynameistory
New member
Drop-in LED bulbs don't scatter or glare other drivers much when they're used in projectors (like the 5th gen 4Runner), that is true. This is because the projectors are built with cutoff shields inside the housings that prevent this.
However, LED bulbs inside projector housings are always going to suck. LED lighting itself can be fantastic, when the housings and optics are designed for it from the start. But mashing them into a halogen bulb shape is just quackery. That's why they look so stupid.
Though the emitters can be brighter than halogen bulb filaments, their construction won't allow the opposing chipsets to exist on a thin enough plane to properly replicate a halogen filament. A halogen housing depends on this TINY point of light in order to focus and project light far into the distance, but LED chips cannot exist in a small enough area, at least yet.
What ultimately ends up happening is that you get a noticeable increase in foreground lighting, but your focus (and therefore distance projection) is considerably diminished. The first 40-50 feet in front of your car gets brighter, but then tapers off dangerously (you need distance projection to see far ahead at freeway speeds). This is the trade-off when trying to adapt LED bulbs into halogen housings.
Idiots that sell you LED bulbs have no problem shining them at a wall 25 feet away. What about a hundred feet away? Two hundred? The hotspot is lost and these lights wash away to be much dimmer than even your factory headlights bulbs. Believe me, I already went through the same process of buying LED bulbs and then reverting back to halogen.
I recommend the H9 and 9011 halogen upgrade. Easy to do and you can get both sets of bulbs from any auto parts store for less than $35 total, and it nearly doubles your stock output while still retaining distance projection. No need to email and call TRS or XD for two months trying to get replacement parts.
While HID bulbs are much better at imitating halogen filaments (the salt pill can be made in the same size and location), they have their own problems. Cheap ballasts, failure to ignite, difficulty ordering and receiving replacements etc... I've never met anyone that hasn't had at least one of these problems with these dumb Frankenstein HID kits.
