3rd Gen HID vs LED vs Halogen H11 projector headlights

Does anyone have any experience with these projector headlight replacements with a black housing? They’re said to improve lighting with standard bulbs. I like the look of the black housing but I don’t want to downgrade my stock ones just to get a black housing.
https://www.extremeterrain.com/tacoma-projector-headlights-black-2lhp-tac16jm-go.html

Quote from sales page:
Increased Function and Style. Improve your Tacoma’s front end style while also increasing illumination with these Black Projector Headlights. These headlights feature a factory-inspired design with a modern all-black housing style to give your truck a sportier front end. Moreover, these headlight assemblies utilize specially designed projector lenses. These lenses produce more focused beams of light, helping improve vision when driving at night or in low light conditions.

OE Style Lighting. These headlights are designed to reuse your truck’s factory halogen bulbs for both the high and low beams. This helps prevent any compatibility issues you may encounter when using different bulbs.

 

Guaranteed to be a performance loss from stock, don’t fall for the marketing pitch. Price alone should be a great hint. If wanting a more blacked out appearance while retaining stock performance, check out the early 3rd Gen halogen TRD Pro assemblies.

 

That’s exactly what I was afraid of. Thanks for the heads up. I’ll look into those early TRD pro assemblies.

 

Hit up @no vtec 4me if you desire BHLM halogen assemblies for 3rd gen. Personally I'd go OEM LED but if you desire a darkened look, he has a pair of mine which can be sold to you for a reasonable price if you so desire.

 

He also does great work on the OEM LED headlights to make them look a little better and get rid of some too the chrome.

 

There will be a rematch with the RX350s comparing Osram's D2S Night Breaker Laser +200s to Philips D2S Xtreme +150s. Coming soon.

 

So for S&Gs, I downloaded an app called Lux Light Meter. No idea how accurate it is but thought it could be used to compare different high been bulbs in a Lexus GX470. Which has projectors for high and low beams. I measured out 6 feet and tried to find the sweet spot for the different bulbs to get the highest reading (roughly).
Standard Sylvania 9005 = 13,000 lux
Wagner 9011 = 15,400 lux
Sylvania Basic 9011 w/HIR coating = 24,000 lux

Honestly I think the Wagners would have read higher had I played with it more. But Sylvania Basic 9011s was the clear winner in this very unscientific test. My friend with the same GX as me had LEDs on the high and low beams. I convinced him to switch to H9s. He was blown away and is a believer now. His LED high beams only read 5,000 lux. They seemed brightish but a very spread out pattern.
There was no hot spot.
Also spend way too much time tonight trying to get different shots with my phone's camera on manual mode. Trying to compare the 9005 to the Wagner 9011 and the Wagner 9011 to the Sylvania 9011. But they all came out sorta looking the same. Lol

 

Those app meters are really just toys, but interesting to have some sort of metric. While they might have some value in testing the same type of light source (halogens) you really need better equipment to compare numbers from different light sources as the spectrum slopes are completely different. Even halogen light meters cannot do it accurately, you need special LED calibrated meters. Covered in post #13 here, and the following posts. I realize this was just for S&G though. Regardless of the actual numbers, I have no doubt the results of using H9 or HIRs vs LEDs. Lack of focus is a major issue in replacement LEDs and that causes loss of hotspot and lack of beam intensity. Unfortunately people are often mislead by increases in whiter foreground light. Awesome job converting someone to the better path.

Keep in mind the bulb designation has a +/- 15% output allowance. A good +15% 1700 lumen 9005 would come close in output to a bad -15% 2350 lumen 9011. But even so the numbers do seem low for the Wagner vs the Sylvania, as there should be a max 30% spread, assuming the bulbs actually meet their specs (not guaranteed) and I'm not sure without digging into it who makes bulbs for Wagner.

One of the tricky issues in lighting photography is any automatic camera/phone wants to correct the picture light intensity to a standard, so if you take output pics of 2 different lights separately, the camera is going to work against you to make them look more the same. This is one of the reasons I do my photos side-by-side as that camera processing is applied to both sources identically, so the camera will not correct one more than the other.

But the real question! Is that a real Sylvania 9011 bulb made is Asia, (not a German Osram in a Sylvania package) and if so, where did you get it? I'd be very interested to compare those to the 9011 Toshibas I have.

 

Not sure who makes the Wagners but they do say made in Germany. The Sylvania's I went out of my way to make sure they were made in Korea. I ended up finding them in stock at 2 different Auto Zones. They were $30 each. Roughly the same price as Amazon but didn't wasn't to wait on non prime shipping.

 

With Amazon I’m never sure what you’ll get, as the pictures for something like a bulb don’t always match the exact product shipped. Example being the Philips H9s that might be from China or Germany.

Sounds like I’m going to Autozone tomorrow.

 

I'm gong to be really interested in official testing numbers! I went to 3 O'Reilly's and 3 Auto Zones to find 2 bulbs! One Auto Zone by my work had 1. So I didn't buy it. Went to another Auto Zone by my house to find they only had 1 so I bought that one. Went to a 3rd Auto Zone who had 2 but those were made in Germany. So the next morning went back to the original Auto Zone to buy the 1 they had. It was an adventure. Haha

 

Btw, the LED friend I converted to H9s, now realizes he can't see his LED high beams because the H9s are brighter! He's going to upgrade to 9011s now.

 

I visited 3 different auto parts stores on lunch, 2 Oriley's didn't stock 9011s and the 1 Auto Zone had a single Sylvania 9011 and it was a German Osram bulb.

 

Ugh that's frustrating!

 

sorry I tried reading this a few times and researching other threads before asking, so forgive me if dumb questions: can one use an 9011 in the high beam without modification or a harness? is it a better option than the stock H9?

 

No. For 3rd Gen you need an H9. A 9011 is only a little more than 10% higher in output vs an H9. The 9011s are an upgrade for vehicles that use a 9005 high beam, like the 4Runner.

 

thank you for the clarification. now i see why i was confused. very much appreciated, as always.

 

What sucks is I bought the rx350 projectors and a few years later realizing I should have went led
No led bulbs for the rx projectors

 

And for the record there is no HIR H9 compatible bulb option, yes?

 

Correct. Only 9011 and 9012s.

Then there is this interesting 100w HIR light, available with different vehicle mounts. Supposedly a 50 cal spot light. Specs have it at ~160,000 Cd. Used to look interesting a while back, but LED assemblies have advanced enough that they outperform this unit, at least by spec. KC Pro 6 Spot for example specs 215,000 Cd.
https://www.amazon.com/100W-Sealed-Beam-Spotlight-Handle/dp/B072KFP2R1