HID or LED

First post here and need some input. I just purchased a '18 Taco TRD sport. The lighting kinda sucks. Just looking for a input as to what most of you guys are running. LED or HID and which you think is better. Ive have sour experiences in the past with "pulsating" LED kits in my wrangler and HID kits where the ballast would just intermittently shut off. Any good LED kits out there? Also looking at "The retrofit source" Taco HID kit for $155, is anyone running this? If so whats your experience and is it reliable


Thanks

 

HID. It's more work but the results are much better. I have HID's in my truck and my wife's rav came with LEDs. They both are pretty good in clear weather, but in rain or snow the LEDs wash out more.

 

There are plenty of great LED bulbs out there now. Go check out the LED Lighting Conversion thread. Lots of great info there.
Only downfall with LEDs is they don't usually get warm enough to melt ice/snow.

 

Yeah I did read that LED lighting post. However the low beam kit he used is not available anymore on Amazon. I'm just trying to get a good consensus on what is working for people. I'd hate to drop the money and have another crappy experience as in the past.

 

Appreciate it! Ill check them out!

 

Look at this writeup here. This is the latest and greatest LED bulb that's been discussed.
https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/led-lighting-conversion.436865/page-147#post-17958035

 

Wow excellent, I'll read up. This helps alot.

 

Congrats on your new Tacoma! Since the new generation ones have projector headlights then you can go with either an H11 HID Kit or H11 LED Kit. Of the two, HID would be the brightest option but not everyone needs that while LED would still be a 30-40% improvement over your stock halogen bulbs.

Take a look at the review and install guide that @RobP62 posted on the Xtreme LED kits and let us know if you have any other questions about either setup.

- Danny

 

I'm a huge fan of the xenon depot kit with phillips bulbs. Been running them hard for almost 2 years now.

I also wasted $ on OPT7 LED bulbs before realizing they were total crap and although did a great job illuminating whats immediately in front of you they do not penetrate at all in stormy or desert conditions, the throw fades out QUICK.

 

Do you have any real night time pictures comparing the different kelvin options? I'm now looking at maybe switching to HIDs to see how they compared to my LEDs. But I'm not sure if I wanna do 4300k or 5000k. Also, what is the life expectancy of your HID bulbs?

 

My XenonDepot HID Phillips 4300k are to yellow for my likes, to close in appearance to halogen bulbs. Wish I'd gone with 5000k to get a hint of blue in it.

 

That's what I was thinking..but just wanted to see some pictures to confirm. I just wanna get the brightest light, have the white LED look without getting into the blueish color. I think 5000k will be just that if you say 4300k looks close to halogen.

 

Having had stock HID's in several Audi's these (4300k) look nothing like what I had in those.

 

Take a look at this brightness and color comparison chart featuring our Philips 4300K HID bulbs and 5000K HID bulbs vs a few other brands.

HID bulbs are rated for 2500-3000 hours.

A true 5000 Kelvin rated bulb won't have any blue in it. You'll have to go above 6000K to get a hint of blue in the light color.

- Danny

 

Well I can see just how yellow 4300k is in that comparison and even mentioned it in another thread. But someone said other wise and unfortunately I took there advise.
I would say Brand A 5500k/Brand B 5000k looks the best to me and what you would expect stock from most high end car companies.

 

I wish Xenon had a 5500k HID light. I agree, that one looks good.

Now curious to see how well the 5000k matches the DRLs...

 

It wont.

 

I have the XenonDepot 5000 installed on my Low Beam. the 4300 will definitely still look yellow.

My 5000 will probably look closest to real HID from cars like BMW, Audi, etc. Unfortunately at certain angles, you can still see a little bit of yellow. But when I'm at my garage at work which is pitch black, you can see that Blue cut off like you do in those german luxury cars.

If you don't like the super blue like a lot of ricer cars have, definitely stay below 6000. Just my 2 cents.

 

Will 6500k match the DRL's?

 

With HID's they will be more blue than white. Had Morimoto HID kit in my other truck with 6500k bulbs and they were to blue to be useful.