LED HEADLIGHTS

Very much believe in climate change, myself and my children are vaccinated, I believe the earth is round. Look man if you can’t handle that someone disagree with what’s better for their standards then so be it. I’m not taking this post political. But cool story bro

 

I appreciate your research and lighting dedication to the community. I’m not denying your testing or science. This is where I struggle with science in this scenario. Your science is telling me the stock halogens are functionally better than a plethora of LED bulbs. I’ve ran both the morimoto 2stroke 2.0s and now the supernova sv4. I thought the 2strokes were not very good. I have found the sv4s to be much better. With that said I live around dark country backroads. With my stock halogens I could not see 5 feet in front of me. I didn’t see the light on the road and it was painful to drive. Fast forward to my lights that are deemed inferior and I can see FAR down the road with plenty of clarity. I’m not going to pretend that I have any real understanding of foreground light etc and how it’s proven scientifically that the human eye sees it as good. With that said with the halogen I could not see an ounce. With my Sv4 I see everything in front of me and quite a bit down the road. I fundamentally do not understand how a scientifically proven bulb leaves me not seeing the road and a bulb that is scientifically proven worse leaves me comfortably driving at night?

 

you can continue to try to get your point across by starting your assertions with insults. Your first response to this thread was “they all suck go HID”. I will not be responding to you any further. Have a blessed day sir

 

The only thing I want to know is how the OEM LED headlights compare to the TRS LED housing drop ins...

 

A nice article from Jalopnik on drop in LED lighting.
@crashnburn80 you’re now famous

https://jalopnik.com/why-most-led-headlight-upgrades-dont-really-work-an-ex-1843070472/amp

 

I just wanted to post my experience with LED headlights. I really wanted the "white light" look on my 2016 TRD Sport so after reading a lot of posts a few years ago, I purchased XenonDepot's LED drop-in bulbs with the aluminium heat sinks for the H11 halogen projectors. They gave me the look that I wanted and I also complemented them by swapping out my fog light bulbs with LED H9's that I had bought at a Don Quijote (drug store) in Japan. I also replaced my reverse-light bulbs with LEDs that I had found on Amazon. I had achieved the "bright-white-light-look" that I had thought would be great . . . until I had to drive in the rain at night in a place with no street lights. All I can say is that LEDs really suck in the wet darkness. LED bulbs in non-LED housings make them work like a Flood Light, not a headlight. After experiencing that, I came across Crashburn80's multiple postings and testing about this issue and wised-up. First of all, I took the fully-wrapped-around-by-LEDs H9 bulbs out of the foglight housings and I swtiched the housing totally out with Morimoto XB's (furthermore, my stock fog light housing lenses were all foggy on the inside of the lens and Toyota service wouldn't do a thing about that). Although the XB's don't put out that much usable light (I only use them in dark parking lots for the most part now), their blacked-out look and their straight-as-hell cutoffs make me happy. I also swapped the XenonDepot bulbs into my high-lights (which I never use) and clocked them at weird angles to try to avert possibly blinding oncoming traffic. I replaced them with halogen GE Megalights that have a better beam pattern. In my younger days (before I had a child) I was the type of person who would always buy PIAA or CATZ blue lens bulbs whenever I went to Japan, but I finally realized that I was degrading the light quality to achieve the "look" I wanted (thanks Crashburn80). I also took Crashburn80's advice and replaced the reverse lights with Garden Illumination Bulbs (forgot the brand and product name) and found them to be so much brighter too. Those bulbs took quite a while to ship from Europe.

All I can say is that LEDs look bright and nice while standing still but they sure don't brighten up the road when you're driving (particularly in the wet). Save the LEDs for your interior lights.

 

Not all of us need/want/require the best of the best and the biggest, baddest, and brightest out there. Some of us just don't like the look of yellow halogens, myself included. If you have super high standards and you want the absolute brightest lights out there then that's cool. My standards just simply aren't the same as yours and I'm cool with what I'm running right now. As I said in an earlier post, as long as I'm not blinding others on the road I'm not too worried. You can keep running your setup (whatever it may be) which sounds to me like it values brightness above all if that's what you're after. And I'll keep running my setup which values aesthetics while still maintaining decent performance. If you go read @crashnburn80's post #10 of this thread he stated himself that the performance of my DD SL1s are right on par with the stock bulbs, just brighter. I never had an issue with the brightness of the stock bulbs. By my standards I think they're plenty bright. I simply wanted white light which now I have. It's not like I'm racing mach 3 through baja. For what I do which is 95% daily driving my bulbs have left me more than happy.
White light. Check.
No major drop in performance. Check.
I'm not blinding others. Check.
Satisfactory performance for my needs. Check.
I'll stick with what I'm running, thank you very much. And if the need ever arises that I feel like I need more output I'll be sure to let you know since it sounds like that's what you're after.

 

Did I ever say my LEDs were better than your setup? No. At no point did I ever say that. Yes, I agree that the H9 conversion is a better option if absolute raw brightness is your priority. However that is not my priority. I like the white light of LEDs and the performance of my drop ins have satisfied me to the point where I don't see a need to switch to a different option. Now if the performance of my LEDs were absolutely abysmal shit, that is not a compromise I would be willing to make just for white light. But that is not the case. Yes I'm aware there's brighter options out there but my setup is satisfactory enough for me and that's all that matters.

 

Right on and I feel the same way. I mean I have been down these back ass country roads for years and I know damn good and well that my DD SL1s out perform my OEM bulbs and the GE mega 130s. I understand that there may be better bulbs, halogen or hid but for me I'm completely satisfied with the drop in leds and I do value the test and reviews. But I know what works for me, and after cutting my work schedule back I don't even drive after dark.

 

2020 OEM’s looks amazing, in function and aesthetics. Tacomas with the LED option are pretty hard to find right now though with the shortage and all. Last month, I bought the one of only 3 TRD Sports with LED headlights within 300 miles of my home.