Have Toyota’s Engineers Ever Driven at Night Before?

@crashnburn80 I think your services are needed here.

 

IIHS does headlight testing and the 3g LED reflector headlights have just about the same low beam performance but better high beam performance. The 4g has projector based LED's. See below

3rd gen

4th gen

 

Wow fantastic chart, I completely forgot they published these.

This perfectly illustrates how the high beams do literally nothing in corners.

 

I live in elk country. With my third-gen, I installed an LED light bar in the grill. It works great, but it only activates when the high beams are on. When I get my new OR, I'll install Cali Raised ditch lights.

 

Had a '22 Nissan Frontier SV that I traded for my Tacoma. Those come with old school halogen headlights. The headlights on the Tacoma are incredible in my opinion - maybe the best headlights I've ever had on a vehicle (and nice that they can be aimed down when towing or hauling so they don't blind oncoming traffic). Guess its all a matter of perspective and comparison to other vehicles a person has driven before.

 

I haven’t yet tested the 4th gen LED assemblies yet, but IIHS charts are a decent data source. 3rd Gen low beams are slightly better by the IIHS numbers, but significantly better for high beam. This isn’t very surprising looking at the lamp design. 4th Gen uses a bi-led projector whereas 3rd Gen uses a dedicated high beam reflector. Not only are reflectors more efficient but they are also more capable in design freedom to illuminate a much larger area than a drop shield in a bi-LED projector. Bi-projectors using drop shields have a very narrowly focused high beam illumination area, which is less than ideal. Personally I strongly dislike bi-projectors for this reason without an additional supporting high beam optic.

But why would Toyota do this? Styling seems to have taken precedence over functionality in some headlight designs and Toyota isn’t the only one. 2nd Gen’s headlights are significantly superior to 3rd Gen, but they were massive reflectors that didn’t look very modern. 3rd gen migrated to a projector low beam with reflector high to have a smaller lamp assembly and more modern look. Here we see the reflector high was eliminated and combined to use a bi-projector instead, shrinking the assembly further for an even more modernized look, but further reduced performance.

If there is an upside, it is that weak high beams are an easy fix, which is not the case for poor low beams. You just need to tie aux driving lights into the high beam circuit to automatically activate with the high beams. Lots of SAE compliant (street legal) high beam options available. This thread covers many:
https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/the-sae-j581-aux-high-beam-thread.696597/

It’s unfortunate that such a new expensive vehicle has poor lighting, but at least there is something that can be done to improve it.

 

People in general now don’t have a clue how cars and trucks were back then . No anti lock brakes , no traction control , power windows was a major option . And Horse power lol . A 6 cylinder in general was a dog . The way people drive now is wreckless and rude and the complaints I Hear about vehicles now is insane

 

I’ve always been happy with the OEM LED’s in my 2021 OR. It was one of the reasons I bought it. Sad to see the 2024 lights aren’t quite as good.

The enclosures on the 2024 Pro and Trailhunter seem different. I hope they are better.

 

Amazing info. I'm guessing the TH grill light bar isn't going to fall into the helpful high beam category. I know nothing about the offerings below but it would be interesting to see if a light bar could integrate some kind of high beam pattern to help. I'm picturing part of the bar producing high beam style lighting and the rest doing a normal light bar pattern.

 

I had to do an extended commute tonight. The headlights in general are good, I was perhaps overly critical of their performance just based on sharp corners at night. I've also had the steering responsive headlights for 5 years now so perhaps I had just forgotten what headlights were like without those. I would augment the high beams with some street legal aux lamps.

The bar comes on with the high beams when the switch for the bar is flipped on, I would think it will be a big help.

 

But I still want my manual lock out hubs, lever action transfer case, and wing vents, new fangled gizmos be darned.

 

I’m unsure what you are referring to by “TH grill bar”. There are many products that produce SAE J581 compliant high beam patterns, a few light bars though not many. Most light bars that advertise themselves as “driving” do not actually meat the standards of a driving light and instead labeled broadly by marketing with no adherence to a lighting standard. Diode Dynamics, KC, Rigid and many others make products that suit what you are looking for in an aux high beam light. When referring to a partial high beam and “normal” style pattern, there is no normal style. Patterns vary by brand/product/optic. There are countless choices.

 

If I end up with a 4th gen, and they make the provisions to add a 30” light bar, I’d 100% do the Rigid SAE bar again. Thing is freakin awesome when triggered by the high beam. I don’t know where a 4th gen would have room for it though. Maybe would need to swap the grille to a different trim.

 

X2

 

It’s comical really.

First world problems…

 

Trail Hunter grill

https://raveoffroad.com/products/2024-tacoma-complete-trd-pro-trailhunter-heritage-grille-kit

And looking at those options they have the diode dynamic combo light that does exactly what I was thinking haha. Thanks for all the info. I have never really looked into light bars or aux lighting

 

If you didn't already. Check the headlight adjustment to the left of steering wheel. mine go alot higher than that

 

Note that the combo bar is not an SAE pattern bar. Combo is Driving + Flood. Flood is not an SAE pattern. That said based on your specific complaint that you are looking to remedy, including flood with driving will give you a much broader area of illumination vs a more focused Driving only bar (which will still be much larger area of coverage than what you have now).

The grill bar is ideal from a functionality standpoint. Aux high beams should be positioned near the headlights, using a distance light closer to the ground like with the lower valence mount is not ideal. Being lower to the ground does not illuminate the roadway as well and is more easily disrupted when driving on even slightly hilly terrain.

 

Yep, "anti-lock brakes" was pumping them if you started to skid.
ATRAC? Tap the breaks yourself if a wheel is slipping (had completely forgotten about that).
Power windows were something I avoided like the plague (pro-tip from the old days, always carry a plastic trash bag and some plastic tape for when they stop closing on a rainy day).
Air conditioning was an added cost option.
Cars routinely overheated if you ran the AC while going up a hill on a hot day.

 

Other drivers be damned…