3rd Gen HID vs LED vs Halogen H11 projector headlights

On the third gen Tacomas with the Low beam projector headlight will help with the extra glare because it has a sharp cutoff (it stays when you swap h11 for h9) in the case of a second gen it would be a different story.. but I am not an expert... it is just my experience....

 

Is there some sort of TL;DR or summary for this thread? Looks like a mountain of amazing information, but 114 pages...

I'm looking to upgrade my bulbs. I want better road visibility without BLASTING the person in front of me on city streets. (I always hated that person when I drove my s00baru).

 

The first half a dozen pages of Crashes work are where the facts are. He keeps editing them to keep them up to date and current.

 

Nice, thanks I didn't realize that. Time to grab a coffee and do some reading.

 

As mentioned posts #2 and #3 have all the relevant updates.

Post #2 has the summarized recommendations.

Post #3 has all the updated LED info. For LED the best performing by far are the Morimoto replacement assemblies, though quite expensive. The only drop in LED I would recommend is the Hikari Ultras, but the best halogens have better focus with higher peak intensity output than the Hikari LEDs.

 

@crashnburn80 Got it, much appreciated. You're a smart man, appreciate you sharing so much with this community.

You should start an online store btw

 

The low-beam LED on the RAV4 has either two or three "modules" while the new Tacoma light has five just for the lows. Maybe it's a space thing, I don't know, but it's inexcusable to put shitty lights on any car these days. As far as my gf's new Forester goes, the lights are excellent. I drove it back from Loma Linda to Culver City in the rain and they were fab. No fatigue. Very effective. She's been driving home from Disneyland, where she's been playing music, and simply raves that she can finally see again, driving at night - and in the rain. Now that I finally have Mike Egger's harness, which I photographed and posted in the LED 2020 thread, I think New Year's Day will be a good, rainless day to do the swap. I'll bring home a white seamless and shoot you some projection images then too.

 

How do you like the ecotechne? Have heard about some QC and finish issues but love how they look.

 

I love it, but I did know about the fit and finish issues others had before I purchased it. That's why I ordered it bare-metal and then addressed all of the problems before having a local powdercoater do their thing. Take a look at my thread here if you're interested:

https://www.4runners.com/threads/ecotechne-roof-rack-installation-5th-gen.7090/

 

Hey guys,

Super noob here looking for a modest upgrade to my halogen headlights.

Just to confirm, I need to get a set of low beam AND high beam H11 sets, correct?

I don't wanna go LED after reading a lot of the reviews regarding output etc but Im3not ready to shell out hundreds on HIDs either.

Diode dynamics looks pretty official but 150x2 (for low and high) is just too much right now.

Looking at the Phillips extreme vision on Amazon.. I had the crystal vision on my 2011 ford edge projector housing and was satisfied.

 

You would NOT want the Crystal Vision if they're the ones that are fully blue tinted. You'd want the Xtreme Vision instead.

 

Low beams and fog lights are H11. High beams are H9.
You can do an H9 conversion for the low beams as noted in earlier posts.

 

See the recommendations in post #2 of this thread below. Crystal vision has a blue coating that will give you whiter light but the coating filters out output, meaning while the light is whiter, there is less of it, which is not good. The bulbs I tested were all for peak performance, I did not test the Philips Xtreme +100s, which is more of a middle of the road performance bulb. It won't give as bright of an output as some of the others, but it also has a much longer lifespan as well. It would still be a good improvement over stock.

The best plug and play for the H11s is the GE Xenon +120, followed closely by the GE Megalight +130. The Megalight are quite a bit less expensive than the Xenons, which is the only reason I mention them as some are turned away by the Xenons price. Doing the Philips H9 swap is very cheap by comparison and provides the highest intensity output, but you do need to trim a plastic tab on the bulb for it to fit, and it is a bit tricker to seat in the mount, but completely doable.

As for the high beam, the German Philips H9 (stock bulb) is already the best halogen bulb available for that location.

 

Quick question on this, as I did the H9 conversion yesterday. Will one notice dimming in the H9's if the battery is below 12.4 volts? I noticed the H9's flicker more than my H11's did when I start the truck. I can't imagine a 10 watt difference could do that, but perhaps i'm reaching a wattage threshold for the battery and it is nearing its death...

 

I could potentially see that. Keep in mind the Philips H9s max out the +/-15% legal wattage allotment, so they are actually just over 74w, not the labeled 65w. 65w x 1.15 = 74.75w legal max. With significantly higher output and higher power draw, I could see the bulbs appearing to flicker more when starting the truck.

 

Will the light output while driving still be higher (than the H11's) if the draw is higher on a lower voltage (than stock) battery?

 

Halogens increase output exponentially to the power of 3.4 with voltage increase, meaning the opposite is true for a voltage decrease. Example running some basic math (example taken from another one of my posts):

Calculated: (14.65v/14.02v)^3.4=1.16 aka a 16% increase for the ~.6v change.

So you will get a loss in output if not running at proper voltage. That said the percentage loss with be equivalent with the stock bulb or the H9, it just might be more noticeable on the H9 since the actual loss will be greater since the H9s are higher in output.

But, all that aside, once your truck is running you should be running off alternator power, not battery power. If your voltage is low when the truck is running, then your alternator is failing. Toyota seems to have put very poor batteries in the Tacomas though, seems they fail right around year 3-4. I was pretty shocked to have mine die so early. So being you have a 2106 I'm betting your stock battery is about to die.

I'd suggest a Northstar 24F battery as the ultimate replacement. You can get rebranded versions from Batteries Plus Bulbs under the X2 Power by NorthStar label, buy online and pickup in store for 10-20% off. However being an AGM battery and having a 3rd Gen where the charge voltage is not adjustable does mean for ideal battery operation it would need to be wall charged occasionally, which may make it not suitable for all 3rd Gen owners. More info here:
https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/the-northstar-agm-battery-voltage-booster-upgrade.604478/

 

Right those are the ones with the blue coating. The extreme vision doesn't have them but still good output I suppose.

 

Thank you. I am surprised my battery has lasted this long. I do not think it is the alternator.

 

Thanks for the detailed response! I'm gonna check out those GEs.

I think it would be weird to keep halogens for the high beams so will look for some better looking H9s.