3rd Gen HID vs LED vs Halogen H11 projector headlights

And to add, I’m not against LED’s; I’m just in it for performance. I think it’s silly to be for or against any given technology. Halogens work better in our OE housings and are far more cost effective to upgrade. Even if I end up replacing H9’s yearly, that’s $14 per year for my low beams. That’s cheaper than even the cheapest blade style LED on Amazon, with much greater performance.

 

I threw some H9s in last night and it made a pretty noticeable difference. For $12 I can’t complain. I have Baja Designs light bar and fog lights hooked up to my brights so I really didn’t need any extra distance lighting but the brighter lows are nice around town and when I can’t have the LEDs on.

 

It makes me cold just to look at those pictures. Brrr...

I agree about the H9 low beams. It's a no brainer.

 

Hey @crashnburn80 , do you have any insight on how to improve headlight performance in my wife's 2017 Rav4 XLE? It's got the 9012 halogens, and they are basically useless at night. I think without the H16 fogs it would be undriveable, and the fogs aren't great either.

 

Where'd you get the data?

Wipers man! Gotta change those!

9012s are actually an awesome bulb, as the brightest low beam halogen bulb on the market, so it is surprising the performance is poor. You might check the aim to start. This is the best 9012 in existence, which is what I would recommend:
https://store.candlepower.com/bvohi93subrl.html

 

I have not tested the RX350s, yet.

I do have plans to comparison test the new Tacoma LED headlights soon.

Those are great pics! I think one of the qualities of a performance halogen light is what I refer to as saturation of the pattern, where the pattern is saturated with light vs replacement LEDs in a halogen reflector that can cause a very inconsistent intensity distribution in the pattern.

 

Glad to see the 2020's have an LED option (with fixture assemblies designed for them) that improves the poor performance I got from my 2019 Tacoma low beams. In all of my years of driving, I thought the OEM factory low beams were the worst of any car I've driven. A subjective opinion to be sure, but also backed up by the "Marginal" IIHS ratings:
https://www.iihs.org/ratings/vehicle/toyota/tacoma-crew-cab-pickup/2019#headlights

Finding high recommendations from Crashnburn80 and others here on the forum, I bought and installed the GE Megalight Ultra 130+ H11 bulbs:

GE Megalight Ultra H11 +130% Light Car Headlight Bulbs (Twin) 53110XNU

https://www.amazon.com/GE-Megalight-Ultra-Headlight-53110XNU/dp/B06XRS9LBR
A noticeable improvement, but initially not as much as I had hoped, so I ordered these (also recommended) Philips H9's to modify for use in the H11 low beam projectors:

$11 Philips 12361B1 H9 Standard Halogen Replacement Headlight Bulb, 1 Pack

https://www.amazon.com/Philips-12361B1-Standard-Replacement-Headlight/dp/B003YMPN3A/

The Philips I received were the real deal, made in Germany. However since that time I've driven several weeks at night with the GE 130+ bulbs, and now have the opinion they provide very good low beam visibility. I have yet to drive in anything more than a light night rain however. So for now I am keeping the Philips H9 in reserve. If I do put them in, I intend to do temperature tests using a thermocouple probe and compare the Philips H9 to the GE 130+, measuring both the aluminum back mounting collar temperature after say a 10 minute idle, and the front of the headlight assembly, and perhaps wire temp as well, though not expecting much difference there due to the relatively small current increase. The engineer in me wants to see first hand, I've read one account saying little temperature difference, and another account saying higher temps.
I've only had my first Tacoma a couple of months and love it, I've already done a few other cheap mods I've found in the forum:
3rd Gen Mods & Tips

 

It’s been pointed out to me that I’m wrong here. I’ll try to grab some photos for you to see.

 

Do the Philips H9’s only run the low beams? I am looking for increased hi beam performance. It was my understanding that they did both lol

 

Your understanding is right, Philips H9's are a drop in replacement for the OEM H9 high beams. I don't know how they compare to the OEM OSRAM H9's that I have in my 2019 (and perhaps you have as well). I'm quite satisfied with my OEM OSRAM high beams. To use H9's in the H11 low beams, you have to modify them, several threads in the forum for that, but I like this video:

H11 to H9 Headlight Conversion video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sY1kaMRVz8o(start watching at 2:33, the first part is how to reach headlight bulbs on an F150, far easier for my Tacoma 3rd gen).

 

Oh shit this whole time I’ve been misunderstanding, so the 3rd gen Tacoma’s use H9’s already for high beams and H11’s for low beams? I know some vehicles use the same bulbs for both just different filaments, I thought this was the case for me lol. I don’t have any problem with my low beams, if I need more visibility I turn on high beams.

When discussing with crash I was under the impression that the Philips H9’s would be a major improvement over stock high beams, but if they already are H9’s for high beams I don’t know if it’s even worth it to change.

So what is my best option to improve the distance I get out of my high beams

 

@Bradg93 You’ll get much better high beam performance from a slight re-aim up of the headlights. See the data above, and my thoughts below, and my earlier post in this thread on how to aim them. Otherwise, your best best is to add driving lights. I went with Hella 700ff’s with 100w bulbs mounted on a N-Fab bumper bar.

Data came straight from the IIHS site. Doesn’t show on mobile, only on the desktop. It’s part of how I figured out to re-aim the 3rd gen headlights for better distance performance; they’re obviously aimed in to the ground from the factory when you look at the data; It’s especially apparent when you add a HID kit and have the cutoff illuminated hard in the ground 200ft or so in front of the truck; it’s much more apparent than with halogens which are much softer.

The wipers are fine once they thaw, it was 0F and blowing and snowing hard this morning!

 

I'll try em, thanks! They seemed aimed ok, but I did aim them up a little and it helped a little.

 

For H9’s

is the recommendation for the Phillips or Hella?

Is this the Hella bulb that is recommended?

HELLA 2.0TB HP2.0-65W High Performance H9 Bulbs, 12V, 65W, 2 Pack

$31 HELLA H9 2.0TB High Performance Bulb, 12V, 65W, 2 Pack

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B078SHPZWQ/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_Kic0DbW0QTJNH

 

If I aim the

So the stock H9 high beam bulbs are pretty good quality and not worth upgrading? My only hesitation with re aiming my headlights is that will also make my low beams brighter for other drivers as it will raise my cut offs right?

 

The Phillips h9 that’s stock in our lights is the best performing h9 available yes.

The goal is to aim your headlights up slightly; this improves low beam coverage and high beam distance. With the truck parked 10ft away from a wall, I moved the low beam cutoff up 1/2”. This is easily within the Toyota spec I posted earlier in this thread. Going off the IIHS data and my experience running an HID kit it’s my opinion that Toyota aims the headlights down severely from optimal to keep them legal and safe when there’s a load in Or on the bed, for example towing a heavy trailer or putting 500-1000 pounds in the bed.

 

great timing I was about to ask about the 9012 bulbs in the Rav 4. I went ahead and order those and looking forward to see how they perform. As far as the Tacoma I have a 2019 TRD PRO and after looking through much of this thread I have decided to go with the GE nightbreaker xenon +120. Only question I have is when I plug in my Tacoma info. into amazon it says"does not fit your vehicle" when I select the H11 bulb. I thought the H11 bulb is what I should be ordering. Wrong info. on Amazons end or am I not selecting the correct one? thanks

 

Ok maybe I will give that a shot before trying anything else, thanks for your help!

 

Hey all, I'm new here, but not new to Toyota's. Always disliked Tacomas because I bought my first Toyota in the 80's. It was an 85 4x4 PU.

About a year ago had heart failure(8% EF), and I can no longer do much in the way of mechanical work. So last week I bought a 2020 Tacoma SR 4x4.

Today I bought some Sylvania LED Fog(not really just fog)Lamps. Installed in the low beams, and they look perfect! zero glare, better than stock cut off.
They do not seem to be much brighter. They do have built in CAN support, and cost $99. from O’Reilly Auto Parts. Nothing really special, but meet stock specs.

The Philips H4 LED's I had in my Scion were twice as bright, but had I much larger reflector.

https://www.osram.co.uk/ecat/LEDriv.../GPS01_3143600/PP_EUROPE_UK_eCat/ZMP_4059098/