My headlights suck

The headlights on my 17 TRD OR really sucks that upper horizontal lines seems way to low can It be adjusted up about four feet. I can't hardly see street signs at night. I'm definitely getting different bulbs but will that help?

 

LED would help tremendously. That’s what ima get next. I wouldn’t try to adjust it higher cause they are projector beams. I leveled my silverado that had projector beams which in turn angled my headlights up and I would always get flashed. Of course it was a bit fun when I flash em back making it seem like daylight, but it gets tiring a while.

 

I think they need to be adjusted up. Back up 25' from wall and level. Top of cutoff should be about level with hood. I just put retro projectors in Tundra. Think yours suck try a Tundra with halogens. I thought the projectors all had LEDs. If not get LED bulbs. Try Headlight Revolution. Lots of good stuff. Might get cheaper on Amazon. Tundras have leveling motors which are nice when hauling loads.

 

He lives in Illinois. If he gets LEDs then they produce no heat to melt off the snow and ice that will accumulate on the lens in the winter. Bad idea in snow country.

 

Oh, didn’t pay attention to it. I haven’t lived in states that gets much snow or ice so I never heard of that problem before

 

It is a real problem unless they are OEM LEDs with heated lens or wipers.

 

Interesting. I’ve been up to mountains for snowboarding but never had a bad weather where it iced up my headlights. Guess I just get lucky with weather. Good to know for my next trip.

 

Interstate driving while snowing. It's scary losing your headlights at 60 mph at night.

 

The OEM fog lights help...a bit with that. Or consider adding extra driving lights. I'm contemplating putting my extra set of incandescent driving lights on the front (7” Cibie halogen 45’s) that I can mount to a step (I have a front receiver hitch) with a waterproof plug so I can take them off when not needed.

 

With all due respect sir, you have no idea about sucky headlights until you've experienced 1st gen headlights, might as well have 2 candles in front..

 

With foggy lens glass!!!

 

There was a thread a while back about adjusting the headlights. Adjusting upwards was a significant improvement for me. Tools needed: long handled Phillips screw driver

 

Sure, you can adjust them and be a terrible person and blind everyone else on the road.

Unless you got into an accident or have tinkered with the headlights before, they’re aimed correctly

 

A long time ago, I just picked up a brand new pair of Gen III night vision googles for work , it was dark out and I couldn’t wait to try them out so I drove for at least 4 miles on a deserted road I usually take home with them on with all the lights turned off in my Gen 1. I forgot I was wearing them when I passed a CHP parked on the side of the road and when he stopped me for driving with my lights off he couldn’t believe I made it past him in the curves without lights in the dark. Well, I let him try the goggles out and he walked around for about 5 minutes with them on in the dark and finally gave them back saying, “neato, I’ve got to get some of those!” Then he said, “thanks for letting me try them out, please drive with your lights on because you scared the crap out of me when you passed by. Have a nice evening”. So I turned on my headlights, and immediately realized how much better I could see the roadway with the googles on than with my crappy Gen 1 headlights! They were really bad.

 

Tiring and illegal. Sooner or latter your going to do that to a cop.

 

I have and if they initiated it, they won’t do anything to ya since flashers can be used as communication (have friends that are cops). Never got pulled over or received ticket before so don’t know if I’m lucky or what and I normally drive thru different states at least once every couple months at night (no traffic at that time =]). If you flash at them first then it’s a different story. On top of that I had projector beams (similar to 3rd gen tacoma), so if they pulled you over, just show them around the front end. Projector beams only blinds when you are directly front of it, but if you are slightly off, it looks like dimmer than old oem headlights.

 

If there's one bed I have to say about my Tacoma is the archaic lighting system. A 40k truck and it's got halogen lights. I did xenon retrofit and helped immensely

 

Thinking about going xenon vs LED, was it simple swap?

 

Super simple, I think it took me longer to route the harness than it was too swap out the bulbs. I did so much research and find that unless you change out your projectors and get proper LED bulbs you'll get the brightness but your throw will not be as good. Xenon's works best for our stock projectors

 

I hoped that with the IIHS testing headlights now and giving almost everything a poor rating Toyota would update them on the 18s and I could $wap them out. I just checked IIHS.com and the 18s have 'earned' a marginal rating; but, apparently only because of the auto high beam feature. (The measurements are identical to the 16/17s.)