Headlight Suggestions for a Headlight "Challenged" person

I'd like to upgrade the lights on my 2016 Tacoma, but reading the board dealing with this just confused me even more! I've moved from the city to a rural area and the stock lighting just doesn't work out very well for me. It's REALLY dark out here not like the big city well lit streets.
I'd like brighter low beams when on the "main" roads then something much brighter when traveling on the back roads to be able to see, with my "Old Man Eyes," the "Wild Life" before I have to take evasive maneuvers! I'd like to do both headlights and the fogs.

 

You and me both!

In short look at changing your factory low beam bulbs (H11) to the same bulb your high beam uses (H9). This swap is very easy and can double the output of your low beams without being blinding to other traffic. The only modification you need to do is to pop a little green cap off the wiring of the truck. There are other options but they don't really work much better than the H9's and are a LOT more expensive.

Fog lights actually work against you on clear days. By their very nature they put a lot of light down on the road in front of you but none out at a distance, this makes it "feel" like there is more light because the pavement is bright but that actually makes seeing at a distance more difficult. Basically, any light they put out doesn't reach far enough to be useful for any speed. Its strongly recommend to NOT use FOG lights unless conditions have slowed you down and you need to see the edges of the road RIGHT in front of you.

For high beams the best bet is to add accessory lights. Nothing out there really improves the factory high beam so you need accessory lights to give you more effective lighting.

 

This thread tells the long tale of headlight replacements: https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/3rd-gen-hid-vs-led-vs-halogen-h11-projector-headlights.589465/. Giant bucket of popcorn needed even for the first post, but interesting.

Key point in that first post ... H9 bulbs have more output and all required to make the H9 fit is to remove the green plastic insert from the headlight plug. Also the "blue coating" in H11 to manipulate the illumination color band and the coated tip to reflect light back into the reflector actually kill light output. You want bulbs with clear coating and no tip coloring.

Many go to amoz for Phillips H9. I bought some at NAPA ... H9, clear coat no tip coloring (PN BP1265/H9-N) because I do not support that galactic empire.

 

As others have already said, the H9 swap is probably the easiest and biggest bang for the buck upgrade you can make - and it's easy.

Moving up the difficulty (and cost) scales a bit, I'd highly recommend adding a set of Diode Dynamics SS3 Sport or Elite fogs for peripheral vision in poor weather. A fog beam is not designed for long distance illumination, but rather near field and off to the sides illumination. This helps you see the sides of the road in inclement weather.

Finally, if you really want so long-distance lighting, add some driving or spot beams. Here's what a set of Diode Dynamics SS5 spot beams (along with my high beams) look like on a back road. That's pretty close to a half mile of reach there.

 

I’ve got a question on this, I replaced my H11 bulbs with the H9 and gently pryed out the green insert and just kept them out. The new H9 bulb popped in the place and everything was good. Is this bad to run without the green insert? I kept seeing videos and post about people doing elaborate Dremel and grinding etc. Or adding a new yellow H9 insert.

Why???

Thanks!

 

No, it's fine without it. The insert is meant to prevent you from using the wrong bulb type, dremeling/clipping the tabs on the bulb or swapping or just removing the insert sccomplishes the same thing.

 

Cool! Thanks! Figured as much

 

No issues at all with running without the insert.

For most vehicles the socket itself is different (no insert) and so you have to modify the socket or the bulb. Here Toyota uses the same socket and just changes inserts, I assume because it's cheaper. That works in our favor. The insert itself exists ONLY to prevent the "wrong" bulb from being used, but we are knowingly bypassing that already.