2020 Tacoma OEM LED Headlight Megathread

that’s what I thought so basically if the leds of dtrl burn out or die out gotta fork put a outer 6-700 per headlamp?

anyone know what the life expectancy of these lights are before they crap out?

 

LED’s last up to 50,000 hours. About 5.5 years of continuous use (24hrs a day).
(5 hrs a day would last 27 years)

 

Yes.

 

There's no reason to think that these new lights are going to last any longer than the old ones in regard to their polycarbonate lenses. When the lenses degrade you have to replace them whether they are the new LED models or the older halogens. There's no point in just replacing the bulb if the lens is hosed even though that's what most people seem to do, and while some people claim you can polish them to be as good as new, the stats really say that you only get to about 70-75 percent of what a new pristine lens is. The LED's are only slightly more expensive to buy when it gets to that point. At least there's no discernible UV (yeah, I've got a meter for that too) and quite a bit less heat in the LED's, both of which are factors in polycarbonate degradation. Having to replace entire lighting assemblies every eight or ten years is just part of the price of admission these days. At least we have this as an option at all right now. I'm also thinking that since most people (not me) lease their cars and turn them in every four or five years, it's likely a non-issue for them. If you're like me, your truck will be fully paid off long before the lights need attention and all you have to do is squirrel away two or three monthly payments to plan for that.

 

My 2006 Gen 2 @ 11 years of age. Once they hit a certain age you can polish the headlights all you want and they'll look good for a few days and get foggy pretty quick. At least that's my experience. Never changed a bulb on those suckers though. I hope my Gen 3 LED's behave just as good.

 

Most people still don't lease vehicles. The percentage has risen in recent years, but currently only about 1 in 4 buyers lease.

 

You need to apply a UV stabilizer after polishing to prevent that. Otherwise polishing leads to rapid fogging/clouding.

 

Maybe the lease to buy ratio is higher in certain regions. I was surprised to see the national average at just around 31% for leasing, so that's closer to one in three. I've bought two new vehicles in the last year and a half, one Toyota and one Subaru and every sales person at every dealer I shopped at - Ford, Chevy, Toyota, Subaru, Honda, Mazda - down to a person, assumed I would be leasing and seemed almost shocked that I was not. That actually threw them for a loop as they likely saw a huge profit opportunity going away fast.

When I polished the crappiest headlights in the world on my gf's old '05 Sentra, I used a UV filtering clear paint (Miniwax Helmsman Clear Gloss Urethane thinned down 50 percent) after the polish, which lasted maybe six months at best. But yes, if you're going to try and polish, you need to finish the job, but never ever expect too much. In the end you'll need to buck it up and buy new lights.

 

I had PPF professionally applied to both headlight lenses. I am hoping the film will avoid stone pitting and slow down the aging process of the polycarbonate lenses.

 

First time poster and trying to get caught up on the Tacoma headlight situation. I originally thought all 2020's had the LED lights but now see that isn't the case. I have a dealer telling me the 2020 I looked at yesterday had LED's because "all the TRD Off-Road cars we have seen have them"

Now looking at the pics of the vehicle on the website, he is very very wrong. Has anyone had any success getting a dealer to cut them a deal on LED headlights when buying a new car or having them install (not sure how they handle the need to change the wiring)?

Also wondering if there is anyone in the Denver area that would be super excited to help a novice out with doing the swap on their own?

Great info on this site so thank you to everyone for the details.

 

I bought my truck in Golden. The dealer here was clueless regarding the new headlights although this was a few months ago so maybe they're a bit more up to speed now. A lot of these sales guys/girls see the "LED DRL" on the spec sheet and think they all have "LED headlights". I had to actually take my sales guy out onto the lot to point out the difference to him. lol

I ended up just ordering the LED headlights online and installing them myself. It's not a tough install. Just use the proper tools and take your time. There are a lot of great posts here and on YT that can help you through it.

I would be surprised if any dealer would be willing to swap the lights for you. I mean, maybe if they were straight plug and play I could see it, but the swap requires an aftermarket wiring harness which dealers would balk at using. It's either that or they would need to manually rewire them or build a harness themselves. I'm guessing that would be a potential liability issue for them, especially regarding something critical like headlights. I think you would have better luck trying to negotiate a discount on the ordering of the LED headlights/fogs.

 

The LED factory headlight option is a steal at $485. I would not consider any 2020 Tacoma that didn’t have them.

 

From my experience when buying I couldn’t find a 2020 Tacoma with the LED’s and not much else on it.
It’s almost as if it at least required upgrading to the 2k+ Tech dual climate control and premium Entune to be able to see the $485 led package on the sticker.

 

Even after watching the appropriate youtube vids about how to do the swap, there were things not fully covered like how to separate the front piece from the fender after the fender flare was free. Finally figured that out and then the other side went quickly. What WAS surprising was that the hi-beam and lo-beam harness connectors were identical and not marked for which was which, which meant that the first time I hooked it up nothing worked. Swapping out those two connections and everything was fine. These lights are brighter but more importantly have fewer shadows in the beam pattern than the projectors did and are also broader in their projection with more light on the ground in places that actually matter all without over-lighting the foreground, something you'll easily see in the wall projection image here as well. What you see is, more or less, the brightest portion of the hot-spot right at the top of the beam and a smooth gradation dropping off as you go down. That's exactly what you want to see in a well designed headlight. These measured approximately 6400-6500 Kelvin in color temperature depending on where it was measured, and at ten feet, the brightest part of the hot spot was approximately 4800 Lux.

 

I should add that in the beam pattern image, I'm ten feet away from a 12 ft wide seamless paper in front of my garage with fomecore on either side adding up to close to twenty feet wide at a ten foot distance. Not bad.

 

Did mine this weekend and swapped out fender flares at the same time. Worthwhile upgrade.

 

Installing TRD Pro headlights on a OR/Sport is false advertising

 

No offense but your Pro is no different from a standard OR. You can preach all you want but only 1% really do care if you're driving a pro or not.

 

It's all about form following function. I know I don't care a whit what someone thinks. If I can make my night driving safer and more comfortable - legally - then I could give a shit about the headlight saying Pro on it. But who knows what the smiley face with the above comment means. Hard to tell in this type of use.

 

It’s just seems a bit cheesy to me. It reminds me of BMW owners who put “M” series badges on their non M model.