So the 4runner fails headlight tests with a "poor" rating

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Not a shocker, halogen lights suck by comparison. My first HID equipped car was my S2000 and I haven't been able to tolerate halogens since that point. The first thing I changed on my 4Runner was to get new headlights. My BMW has adaptive lights which are nice to have but I don't miss the feature much on my 4Runner. You can just do HID bulbs and it will improve lighting a good bit but I have IS projector housings and you can't tell they're not factory HIDs.
 
zonzin said:
4runner is rated dead last in non-luxury SUV's. I don't know, for me they seem adequate, but I don't drive anything else for comparison. They are rated worse on curves that straights. Can anything (inexpensively) be done to improve them?


Full review list here.

4runner review here.



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I have HIDs in mine, improved visibility a great deal. The do have a tiny bit of glare from squirrel spotters that are in halogen projectors. But its nothing that i would get high beamed over.
 
"4runner is rated dead last in non-luxury SUV's"

I looked at the list. It's alphabetical. That puts Toyota at the end.

Speaking of poor, the article stated that many of the vehicles could have had their lighting - and scores - improved by adjusting the headlights, BUT, since most owners won't touch the adjustments, the testers didn't correct the adjustment errors before testing.
 
johnbt said:
"4runner is rated dead last in non-luxury SUV's"

I looked at the list. It's alphabetical. That puts Toyota at the end.

Speaking of poor, the article stated that many of the vehicles could have had their lighting - and scores - improved by adjusting the headlights, BUT, since most owners won't touch the adjustments, the testers didn't correct the adjustment errors before testing.
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truth about the alignment of the headlights.

my passenger was way off. It was slightly better after fixing it, but HID still made a world of difference.
 
rayofsi said:
truth about the alignment of the headlights.

my passenger was way off. It was slightly better after fixing it, but HID still made a world of difference.
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Ya mine are dead on but the turning coverage is lacking. May switch to HID,,pondering.



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zonzin said:
Ya mine are dead on but the turning coverage is lacking. May switch to HID,,pondering.



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The first thing i noticed was how bad the headlights were when i picked this up in Georgia. Drove back to NYC, so going through all those rural areas with 0 highway lighting was really tough hah.

World of difference with HID
 
zonzin said:
So after doing some more reading it looks like I will need ballasts as well. Staring to add $$ up.


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You can just purchase an HID kit from xenondepot, I just ordered the 4300k kit with the phillips bulbs. This is my first non luxury car in 14 years and I'm getting used to not having all the features I used to have. However audio and HID's are a must, luckily both are easy to address.
 
arehman11 said:
You can just purchase an HID kit from xenondepot, I just ordered the 4300k kit with the phillips bulbs. This is my first non luxury car in 14 years and I'm getting used to not having all the features I used to have. However audio and HID's are a must, luckily both are easy to address.
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Did you get the "xtreme" kit or the "volt" kit? And do I need the CANbus option?




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For those of us who have retrofitted our rigs, we say, "yeah, so? Anyway........"

LOL

The US department of Transportation guidelines to manufactures on headlights is piss poor. Something needs to change, hopefully with reports like this, this will make them change. So many advanced headlights available in Europe (Audi, Merc, etc) are not allowed in the U.S.
 
There's no magic in lighting, really. The H11 incandescent bulbs that come in the OEM projectors are 55w, and fairly yellow color temperature. When we "upgrade" lighting, everything is a trade off just like upgrading any other part of your truck. Lighting upgrades usually come in the form of swapping in a brighter (by whatever definition of "brighter" you like: color temperature, lumens, etc.) bulb into the projector resulting in a difference in output.

FWIW, there have been a few recent reports about headlight functionality in the news (the Toyota Prius tops the list on one of them). But keep in mind that most "better" headlight functionality comes at the cost of putting what amount to high beam bulbs (3000-4000 lumens for HBs vs 1200-1500 lumens for standard LBs) in the low beam spot.

You should do a LOT of reading before you start swapping anything out in your truck. I've tried to gather a lot of the wisdom on this forum into the thread linked in my sig. Hopefully there's some decent information for you there, save money and headache.
 
Funny thing is the reflector headlight on the 10-13 4Runner's performs much better than the projector housings on the current year trucks. The projector halogens on the new Tacomas are also better than the 4Runner.. can't explain why they did this.
 
zonzin said:
So after doing some more reading it looks like I will need ballasts as well. Staring to add $$ up.
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Xenon Depot and The Retrofit Source sell the entire low beam HID kit for around $150. There's no reason you should be piece mealing it together.

Xenon Depot H11 low beam kit: H11 Xenon Conversion | XenonDepot Xtreme H11 HID Kit

The Retrofit Source: https://www.theretrofitsource.com/all-products/h11-morimoto-elite.html

Video of installation:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wYiGTwCRDbQ
 
As others have said, go with the [MENTION=12905]XenonDepot[/MENTION] kit, they make it easy. However, if you are patient for a couple weeks, they should have a sale either at the end of the month or probably for July 4th. Save you a bit of money.
 
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