Choosing lights for 2019

Hi there!

Hit a deer pretty good last night and so insurance is on it.

I want to upgrade lighting and spent a lot of today sifting through endless pages of info.

Thinking of diode dynamics SS3 whites for the fogs. I’d like to have the brightest and don’t care about blinding people with beams as I only use them for country roads and turn off if there’s a vehicle approaching.

I am also wondering which are the brightest long range option for headlights. If I can find some 2020 led headlights and grab that harness “aftermarket OEM” harness to make it work. It’s sort of all time sensitive as I want to get the parts while it’s in the shop for a couple of week.

Looking for your opinions on the brights fog and headlights. I’m up near Toronto Canada so things are difficult to get in the current world situation.

thank you

 

Morimoto XB LED headlights are nice. I also like the BajaDesigns Squadron SAE Fog Light because they are bright but not bright enough to blind someone.

Here are some links:
BajaDesigns Squadron SAE Fog Lights - $430 USD
Morimoto XB LED Headlights - $1,150 USD
AlphaRex TRD Pro Style LED Headlights - $1,050 USD

 

https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/3rd-gen-hid-vs-led-vs-halogen-h11-projector-headlights.589465/

https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/the-led-sae-j583-fog-pod-fog-light-review.554813/

These two threads will tell you everything you need to know.

 

Thanks for the info and it’s appreciated home timely it comes in. Great forum

I have the TRD pro and wondered if I got a hold of some 2020 OEM LED’s if that plug and play harness they sell for $160 online would do the job.

 

Oh

Yes, harness is all you need. And the DD SS3 is a great choice for fog

 

Sorry it autocorrected to TRD pro since I type it so much

I meant to say it’s a straight trd off road.
Not sure if the harness is different.

 

Nope, you are good

 

As someone whose has collected many years on this planet and is beginning to experience the reduction in my eyes ability to adjust on oncoming lights, I have a problem with OP's statement. It has been my experience that far too many drivers turn their fog lights on and never turn them off when not needed. The switch for the fogs is on the same stalk as the headlight switch, and it's too easy to turn both headlights and fog lights on. Worse yet are those who rely on the Auto setting. Whether intentional or not, the fogs remain on. Even worse, when driving with the high beams (fogs off) and then dimming for an oncoming vehicle, the fogs come back on. Whether directed at my face or not, the sudden rush of intense light is a challenge for my eyes. Younger drivers may not experience this, but I suspect many other drivers of my vintage do.

I would caution OP about the potential effect this will have on oncoming drivers when/if killing the fog lights gets forgotten or done way too late.

 

I'm cheap and don't need lights thaaat often. I upgraded my low and high beams to whatever highest lumen LED's I could find on Amazon, then added the cali raised ditch lights, pointed out a bit and fairly level since they bleed a lot of light out and down to still see a "ditch". My high beams project pretty damn far, the ditch lights cover my corners for those pesky deer hanging out on the shoulder. That might be a better start before dropping 300 bucks on fog lights.

FWIW, I do actually have the SS3 pro's in the SAE fog configuration and amber. They're stupid bright, cast a very wide beam, so much so that I usually don't need to flip on the ditch lights on those dark back roads and can still see with enough contrast into the shoulders. I imagine the actual SAE driving spot will be insane from those little pods

These are the LED's in my high and low beams:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07FK5QKL4/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Low beams only:


High Beam Only:


High Beams + Ditch Lights:



High Beams + Ditch Lights With some more distance:

 

I’ve got the DD SS3 fogs in amber as well. They’re awesome!

 

If your really cheap you’ll grab a set of H9 halogens and put those in for twenty bucks and blow those LEDs out of the water.

 

Follow this two threads. This are lighting bibles. Don’t listen to anyone telling you to put in drop in LEDs into your stock housing.

 

If you can recommend a set of H9 halogens that will throw more light, I'm all ears. Everything I've come up on have been disappointing.

 

https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads...and-baja-designs-inside.695501/#post-24594817

 

Follow the posted thread. The bright LEDs are just throwing bright foreground light and tricking your eye. LEDs don’t throw light like the halogen h9

 

I've seen that thread before actually, and remember exactly what my thought process was at the time. I was interested until I read you have to trim tabs on your housings to fit the h9 bulbs, kept reading for a solution, decided this was too much reading for drop in headlights, then just bought what I linked above. My set up has thrown light further than I can actually see down some dark mountain roads. I guess if I cared to throw more of a hot spot beam even further I'd start looking into other solutions, and would make more of an effort to do the H9 swap to compare.

 

I think you misunderstood. You only need to trim a plastic tab on the bulb, takes less than a minute with a small knife. No modifications to the housing are needed. There are also plug and play conversion harnesses linked in the thread so no modifications at all are required. Output is significantly better than any replacement LEDs as documented with data in the thread.

 

The H9 trimming isn't too bad. I bought this harness on Amazon for 10 bucks and just trimmed one side of that. So now when I need to swap a bulb I don't have to trim anything, the harness is already modified.
https://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/B01FLY26ZQ/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Nice thing with running H9s everywhere is I always have two spares, if a bulb burns out I can just pull a highbeam bulb and throw it in until I can get home.

 

To the OP:
I recently put H9 halogens in the low beams (I used the best option I could find locally-Canadian Tire branded-“Osram H9 Made in Germany”). I trimmed them to fit, which I’ll admit was a bit of a pain but it worked.
The bulbs have made a positive difference driving the back roads and fields at harvest and hunting seasons.
I do look at the vaunted DD SS3 fogs and a DD grill light bar and will likely do those upgrades come warmer weather.
I have modded a number of hand held lights to LEDs and have a great respect for a quality built product. I will watch Crashes review of the new 2mm H11s coming, but I won’t waste the time or money on putting low quality/tech into a projector housing without a positive benefit (which most don’t do right now).
Hope you find something that works for you!
Cheers, Wullie

 

I just spoke to my Toyota dealer up here. They priced my 2019 TRD offroad headlights at $1500 each, then priced 2020 full LEDs at $1100 each. Did the Toyota parts guy make a mistake? I asked him to verify twice and he did.

Does that make sense?