Morimoto Elite HID System and LED Fogs for your '16+ Tacoma

been on the phone with retrofit source for an hour, something is defective, not sure what yet, he is sending me a new harness.

AND now my driver's headlight is no longer getting power.....are the headlights fused individually? This is really pissing me off.

 

I had issues with my high beams. Plugged unplugged several times got it to work. High low and fogs all working. And in my new headlights.

Have you plugged you old bulb back in and seen if those still work?

 

we spent a large amount of time checking everything. basically I could tell I was getting 12v into the ballast, but couldn't verify power out of the ballast, the passenger side light would light up for an instant then turn off, the driver's light would not even do that.

He had me connect the ballast directly to the battery and that lit up the lights, so confirmed the ballast work even though before that I got 12 volts to the input on the ballast.... so it could be that the molex plug is on backwards from the factory, but at this point, I now lost power from my driver's side headlight harness, and the fuse blew in the morimoto harness.

I replaced the fuse, and connected the morimoto harness to the passenger bulb, and at this point, not even getting power to the ballasts which means the 12 v is not getting into / out of the relays.


*** edit*** it did blow a fuse for my driver's headlight and they are fused separately in the fuse box behind the battery, in case this happens to anyone else.

I bet it blew b/c he had me reverse polarity of the wiring going into the ballast and going into the factory harness...bet that caused either a short or surge in power.

 

OK I regrouped my thoughts after hanging up and started from scratch and found the problem.

The factory that made the harness, put the molex for the intermediary harness which connects to the factory harness on backwards, which reversed the polarity.

I can cheat it for now by flipping the plug upside down, but that prevents if from locking in, so they'll need to send me that portion of the harness so I can make this a good install...after I got that figured out, the input to the ballasts is VERY finicky if you just plug it in, they don't work, I had to slightly plug it in, wait for the bulb to stay lit for a minute then slowly connect it the rest of the way, and after a few failed attempts I had to switch ballasts sides in order to make it work but it's all working for now. Haven't really installed it, just wired up temp for testing

 

The notch to lock into the factory harness should be at the edge with the orientation this way



and should be at the back of the plug with the orientation this way

 

What a pain in the ass....finally got it all put in, cleaned up the wiring, mounted the ballasts....lights don't work, but rather then guessing I went straight to the connector for input and unplugged, and re plugged, about 15 times before it worked.... it really shouldn't be that bad to get them to work.

I really hope driving down the road that those connectors don't lose connection. when I fiddle with them while the lights are working, they don't flicker or have any problem, it's getting them to seat properly seems to the problem

 

So the top picture is the correct orientation for the factory to relay harness connection?

 

Neither pic are correct, I took the pic from the front and the back to show the tab at the end of the black plastic connector.

So drove the truck and after 10 minutes my drivers light shut off. The connectors that go into the ballasts, are as best I can explain, crap. Even the tech said they cause problems. I'm pretty disappointed with the connectors on the harness, wasted a large amount of my time today, and not resolved. For buying a premium kit I would expect properly set up connectors. I'm a magnet for bad products though, if 1 in 1000 is defective I am always the recipient so it's something I'm accustomed to.

 

What was that saying on every page of there website?
Best ballast best bulbs best everything... Proven to be quite the opposite...

 

To be completely fair it seems all the failures are harness related, based on what the tech eluded to someone else makes them not in house.....I imagine a 7 year old Chinese kid is probably putting them together lol

 

Did you retrofit your headlights? How hard was it to open them up? What did you use to open them? oven, heat gun?
I'm planing to retrofit with Rx350 projectors.

 

So, I posted before that only one side of my kit worked, and after contacting TRS, they sent me a new bulb harness. Well, I got everything hooked up with the new harness, and the same damn thing happened!!

However, I didn't panic and just started up the truck and turned the lights on and voila!! Both sides worked just fine! Apparently just turning the lights on without the truck running didn't produce enough juice to power them up.

Here are a few pics of the locations I decided to mount the ballasts and relay. The driver side ballast location isn't the greatest, but it was all i could find.

 

No retail fit just the hid it for the Tacoma, led highs and fogs. Oven to open them.

 

I'm back on the phone with them as it's just not working for me. I've connected my ballast to the battery and it will "pop" the light then it shuts off, about 5 times before it lights.

he is also claiming it sounds like it's the bulb wires...Honestly I think the whole kit is just not QC'd and it's bad.

You should be able to run your lights with the truck off....My bet is your lights are going to stop working again shortly, but I hope I am wrong as this is just very annoying.

OK just finished the call, he's sending new bulbs, new bulb wires, which are different then the black / white ones I have now, a new harness, so the only thing I'll have from the original kit is the ballasts and amps.

 

silver60 -- I Have the same problem with my kit and tested combination and found the wire from the light bulb to the igniter caused the issue.

 

thanks for chiming in, it gives me HOPE! They looked great when they worked for 10 minutes At least the fog lights worked without any issues

 

Silver60- No problem. I had a unique case where all of my back lights and the led driving light went out after I installed the hid kit. My license plate light shorted due to water condensation and it caused the led driving lights to short. ( fuse popped as well ). I should get my truck back this week.

 

Couple of questions here.
1. Are these Chinese ballasts and light kits?
2. Are these H11 or H11B kits? I saw somewhere there was a pic and difference is the 3 tabs had a different tab size, the B was larger than the A or regular H11, this may be why some are loose and some are tight.

Im leary about pulling the trigger on these with so may issues. I have seen Osram/Phillips that are German made and have lifetime warranty, but they are about $280.

 

I first bought the H11B 4500k bulbs - they fit GREAT. Very tight and solid. I then decided to switch to H11B 5500k bulbs - they fit much more loosely. These were both shipped from TRS during the past two weeks. You will want H11B bulbs though to eliminate shadowing. I even swapped the rubber seal from the 4500k bulb onto the 5500k bulb and it didn't make any difference. So it seems it's the actual construction of the bulb that is slightly different.

 

Has anyone else received H8 bulbs when they ordered their kit? I emailed TRS and they claim that their H8 is the same as their H11b. I don't really believe them for some reason. Why would the bulb box have a place to mark H8 and H11b if they're both the same bulb? FYI...I ordered thru the group buy and bought a 35w 5500k kit.