Upgraded Headlight recommendation for 2016 Tacoma

Money wasn’t a factor for me so I wasn’t looking so save money. I wanted the best looking lights that improved over stock.

The funniest part of this post is a guy from Hawaii saying what looks good is subjective.. that’s pretty obvious for HI trucks since they tend to be the laughing stock of the truck world

 

Keep in mind if you live where it gets below freezing in winter, the halogens get hot enough to de-ice your headlights by themselves. The LEDs will get iced-over once in a while since they don't run nearly as hot.

 

Well, good for you. Haha

Do you even know what subjective means?
“Based on personal influences, thoughts opinions”.
See the word “personal” there?

What’s me being from Hawaii gotta do with anything? I’m curious

Ahhhhh…just seen your profile is a troll guy. I’m done here

 

Typically it means that you have shitty taste and have to pay for shipping.

 

you bought a Tacoma. Just like me. You too ma’am have shitty taste.

 

Unfortunately your photo, like about 99 percent of any other lighting photo posted on TW is useless in using it to judge anything about the quality of your lighting. It does, however, say something about the quality of the camera. It's almost impossible to shoot effective photos to demonstrate this which is why it's so seldom done. At the same time, it takes a long time to learn how to look at and analyze light visually and to know what to look for and just how to "see".

I don't go out and shoot these kind of photos as a rule because they take up way too much of my time, but as a long time high end commercial photographer, I can tell you that you need better equipment, controlled circumstances and fairly advanced Photoshop skills (read: inverted gradated masking) in order to manipulate the image into a Perceptual representation of what we're seeing with our eyes. They say that a photo is worth a thousand words, but if all those words are misrepresentations (lies) then what do they mean.

I could go on a long technical explanation of how to do this right but it would be long and technical and quite frankly, I have a bicycle waiting to be ridden this afternoon. Maybe one day I'll get around to it but not while the sun is shining and the weather is cool.

 

I would call this comment completely uncalled for, unnecessary and just plain rude.

 

@Sasquatchian - the photo was from an iPhone in a moving vehicle. I will NOT defend my photographer or photography one bit

As for home skillet’s comment. Yepppp lol. But that’s the kinda comments us “Hawaiians” get all the time. Pretty messed up

 

Anyone trying to justify Morimoto having better output, beam pattern, quality and cutoff than OEM LED will always be defensive. It is a design that is over engineered and underwhelming at best.

 

You're right, the projector retrofit can't be best. (sorry man, couldn't resist )

...but I did post a picture of the cutoffs, from my OEM LEDs, just a couple days ago.

https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads...3rd-gen-today.399305/page-12696#post-28394171

 

I'm not arguing for or against your points, in fact I did an HID projector retrofit for my old scion iA using Morimoto Mini D2s 5.0s 4cyears back. The headlights were a massive improvement from the stock h4 reflectors and they were just great headlights in general, especially with osram cbb bulbs.

The biggest issue with a retrofit/aftermarket projectors is reliability. I had several issues with my setup that reared its ugly face over the 3 years I had them, nothing with the projectors themselves. The switchback projector shroud on my driver side stopped working because the led driver was properly weatherproofed, fortunately the shop that did my install was able to swap the driver over.

One of the ballasts I got didn't fully warm up the bulb so it was a dimmer, bluer light.

The wiring harness was acting up which caused one of the lights to not light up. I happened twice but the first time, it was a bad ground.

If anyone does consider a proper projector retrofit, it's highly, highly recommended that you buy the parts from a reputable vendor because you most likely will need to use that warranty (I bought mine from The Retrofit Source.) and it's mainly the reason I'm so happy that the Tacoma has an oem option because sticking the oem LEDs in, even with an aftermarket adapter, is much simpler and more reliable than aftermarket. It's much less of a headache.

Edit: I forgot to mention, 90% of my driving was done at night when I had the scion because I worked delivery night shifts so a decent, reliable set of headlights mattered. Unfortunately my retrofits only had 1 of the 2 attributes.

 

Lol I know you’re joking dude don’t worry.

what fogs you running?


Look - this doesn’t just pertain to you or in anyone out there in particular. I’ve been doing retros for about 11 years now. Some of them have been utilizing projectors from factory vehicles (just retuned). My favorite has had to have been Nissan Muranos. For the price to do it, it seriously should be considered a contender

 

I think lighting has got to be the touchiest subject on TW by far. I always enjoy reading the endless takes for the comedy content alone...

 

Everything is touchy here lol. I don’t even dare tread waters in the subforum “lighting”

 

Those are the Diode Dynamics 'Elite' fogs.

You're not wrong on the OEM retrofits, so far as being considered a contender. A lot of people assume that all retrofits have to be cheap, knock-off garbage. It's simply not the case. It's also not a common or well-supported mod in this community, these days anyway. With the continued love of LEDs over the past few years, it feels like the HID retrofit craze is dying off. Not a bad thing, with regards to the cheap/garbage HID kits. But there are a lot of really nice OEM projector setups out there that could be repurposed into other rides.

 

couldn’t have said it better

 

1. Buy two of these:

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

https://www.amazon.com/Philips-12361B1-Standard-Replacement-Headlight/dp/B003YMPN3A
2. Remove green adapters like this: https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads...ctor-headlights.589465/page-300#post-28111591
3. Profit

 

Have you ever run LED's in the snow? If so, what is your work around to clear the lens? I've got the Morimoto lights and love them but 90% of my driving is below the snow line. If I get caught in any sort of storm, my headlights get fouled with snow and I've got to manually clean my headlights every 5-10 minutes. My LED foglights and lightbar all do the same. Not enough heat output.

 

Yes, Hella Valuefit 500 LED Driving lights on the Tacoma and on the TJ Wrangler. I don’t use them when there are particulates, snow, rain, dust, in the air. I personally prefer the warmer kelvin temps if a halogen bulb and the fact they melt snow/ice build up. It’s only a matter of time where all OEM LED lights, front and rear, will have heating elements in the lens/covers.

 

I like my alpharex headlights