After 15 years of use, finally had to replace my bulbs.

Shortly after buying my 1997 Tacoma 4x4 access cab, I had a custom pre-runner bar made for it and put 4 Piaa 80 racing series off road lights on it.



I was told that at the time, they were the brightest off road light made. The low beams put out 95 watts and the high beams put out 135 watts. On my old truck, the off road lights did great. In 4 years, I put 218,000 miles on the truck. During that time, my old truck was in climate from well below 0 up to 130 degrees. The truck was also off roaded quite a bit with anywhere from baja style of off roading to mud bogging to dunes to rock crawling. The lights were used in altitudes from below sea level to in excess of 10,000 feet above it. They were also used for several hours at a time. One of those being an off road run consisting of the entire night being used. The lights have also been completely submerges before in both fresh and salt water for brief periods. After I had to get rid of my 97' Tacoma because the lease expired on it and Toyota lied to me about being able to purchase it outright, the lights sat in storage until I bought my 2007 Tacoma 4x4 access cab TRD Off Road Series. I think within a month or maybe 2 months after buying the truck, I got a Randy Ellis Design light bar and put the Piaa lights on my new truck.



Piaa was also very good to me in standing by their life time warranty on everything but the bulbs. The switches and wiring harnesses had warn out and were in horrible shape from having to remove the lights from my old truck quickly. I also wasn't sure about the relays? Piaa sent me out all new relays, wiring harnesses, and switches for free even though it was 10 years later and I had no receipt. Well, on this truck, I have also used these lights quite a bit. Maybe not as much off roading but I use them all the time going to my kids' school at night because it is out on the plains of Colorado in major deer area. In fact my wife hit a 9 point buck in September in her Corolla and it did about 16k in damages to it.




I have used these lights though in a little bit of off roading on the 07' but my opportunities to off road are not as much as they used to be because I no longer live in Southern California, but instead, live in the the North East corner of Colorado now. Well, a few months back, one of the bulbs finally burnt out. I was bummed but considering how much use these lights have gotten and in all the various types of terrain and climate they have been in, I could not complain. When I went to inquire about new bulbs, I found out the original bulbs were no longer made but Piaa was now selling for my lights an even brighter bulb that put out 100 watts on low beam and 150 watts on high beam. I was pretty stoked so I I bought 4 new bulbs last week and got them delivered yesterday. It rained last night so I couldn't switch them out but this morning it was clear. The replacement job was super easy too. I basically had to remove 1 screw holding the bulb and front piece from the housing assembly. I then had to remove the 3 wires that plug directly into the bulbs. From there, the entire front piece removes and there is a metal wire that hold the bulbs in the house. You undo it and the bulbs lift right out. You basically reverse the steps and everything is back to normal. I then tested the bulbs on both low and high beam and they all worked great! Tonight, when it is dark out, I am going to do some driving on some back county roads and test these things out to see if they appear to be noticeably brighter or not? I will also take a few pics of everything and post them on here.
Jay

 

Nice.

 

Holy crap these new bulbs are much brighter! Took the truck on a country back road tonight and I instantly noticed a few things. First, the new bulbs are noticeably brighter and more whiter. Also, they go a touch further. On a certain area, I was able to have them hit an object in the distance and when I drove to it, it was right at a mile away so I was impressed!

Here are pics of the truck with the different lights on with both low and high beams.

Just fog lights only, no headlights on (I have the fog light mod done to my truck.)


Headlights on low beam.


Headlights on high beam. (They seem a lot brighter in person. Pictures don't really show up that well.)


Off road lights on low beam.


Off road lights on high beam.


Outer off road lights on low beam and inner off road lights on high beam.


Here are some shots with the truck lights on blinding me. A few are with them on low beam, high beam and then the outers off road lights on low beam and inner ones on high beam but I don't think you can tell all that well with the camera. All it knew was it was being blinded.

 

thats crazy, i've never even heard of offroad lights that had low/high beam. cool post OP, those look super bright

 

Just a note: Lights put out Lumens. Wattage is power consumed, and does not always equal brightness.

Happen to know what Lumen rating you're workin with there? Looks like plenty.

 

Let me do some research and find out. I know it is a lot though because when I bought the lights in 97' it had the Lumens rating on them then.

 

Here us part of an article written on the lights. The older ones were producing 300,000 candlepower but I am not sure what the new ones are doing but they are a heck of a lot brighter.

http://www.4x4wire.com/isuzu/randii/womb_PIAA.html

Distance

The first thing we needed was a drastic increase in frontal illumination. The factory high beams fall woefully short on darkened, high-speed trails. With deer, ruts, downed trees, and other surprises lurking just outside the range of factory lighting, powerful driving patterned lamps are a must. Aftermarket driving lamps project a cone of illumination similar to or slightly narrower than factory high beams, but that pattern stretches much farther than stock. Efficient bulbs and single-purpose lens patterns allow significantly extended illumination patterns; but on-road use still must be friendly to oncoming traffic. As a result, even the best lamps built for any degree of on-road use and DOT (Department of Transportation) legality produce little more than 100,000-candlepower.
The 80 Series has a crystal clear hardened prism-cut lens. Each 80 Series lamp has a 7.75 inch diameter and 5.5 inch depth.
Because we were focusing primary on trail driving, rather than street driving, DOT approval was unimportant. PIAA considered all of these factors and suggested their time- and race-proven 80 Series lamps. Producing an incredible 300,000-candlepower, the 80 Series lamp can be ordered as the dual-beam 80 Racing lamp and the thinner-profile single beam 80 Pro XT Racing lamp. Their massive 7" reflectors, rock-solid housings, and hardened prism-cut lenses all speak to their no-holds-barred designs.

Using Garvin's standard light mount on the Wilderness Accessories rack, no depth restriction existed. PIAA markets this lamp with an extremely tight-pattern, long-throw pencil beam, and also with a fog pattern, but we selected the driving pattern. This lamp comes with a clear lens, 135/90 H-4 bulb, and stout plastic cover. Although sold individually, we elected to use a pair of the versatile, dual-beam 80s. Unlike other PIAA lamps, the 80 Racing lamp's wiring harness must be ordered separately, to best match bulb and harness capacities. While PIAA offers H-4 bulbs up to the 180/135 watt, we chose a more conservative 150 watt harness with dual switches that allow separate control of on/off and high/low beam.