LED LIGHTS - Educate me

I see a lot of posts about headlights/fog lights etc. I have the led daylight running lights and see the benefits of the bright white color for easy DRL visibility.

I'm interested in LEDs for the headlights IF they will make things easier to see FOR ME when driving at night. I'm not interested in making my truck "look cool". If the benefit is only (or mostly) just looks then I will stick with the current bulbs in the truck.

I don't know a thing about installing LEDs. What modifications are needed? What are the costs to "do it right"? What are the real world benefits? I'm sure some of you have done this "upgrade" and would appreciate your input.

Feel free to link to other posts on this topic or link to outside sources you think are helpful.

Please link to products you have used or plan to use.

Thanks

 

There are at least (2) informative threads here that will prove very helpful for you. A simple search will find them.

But the short story is that our headlights are engineered to work well with Halogen or HID lighting. Those who have installed LEDs as headlights have found that, although there are lots and lots of lumens, the projection of those lumens is poor. You see 'down the road' less well with LEDs than with the OEM lighting.

Frank

 

LEDs are easy plug 'n play but from what I've read the visibility is poor. The technology just isn't quite up to par yet. HIDs are best for visibility but require a bit more installation time and a HID relay harness is recommended for longevity but isn't required. If you don't care about looks, and don't want to deal with the hassle, I would recommend that you just go buy some Sylvania Silverstar Ultras. Direct OE replacement and a lot brighter than original bulbs.

 

You won't find a decent LED bulb that fits into the low beams anyway, not enough space behind the headlight.

I REALLY REALLY wanted to go with LED's anyway, but encountered that problem. So I gave in and went with HID's, and picked up a morimoto hid kit. It's a 35w 6k temp and looks great (see my avatar)

I went with LED's in my foglights.

 

Actually the new Phillips uses a metal mesh as a heatsink that fit very nicely from pictures posted

http://www.xenondepot.com/H11-LED-headlight-kit-p/h11-led-hl.htm

 

Tacoma led headlights. Type that into Google and start reading. Then your wife or girlfriend can get mad at you for spending to much time reading about mods on your truck and not spending time with them. Since I bought my Tacoma my craper time has tripled but on the brighter side it takes more than 30 minutes for my legs to fall asleep. No Sir. You too need to stay up late at night with boughts of insomnia thinking about mods on your Tacoma. Around here mods are earned not given. OK enough ball busting. You need to read the pros and cons of LEDs,retros,or new style bulbs with good low beam cutoffs. Welcome to TW. Let the mods begin.

 

yup, and good luck making it fit

 

I've read the exact same thing. LED has come a long way in the last 2 years but its not quite there yet to be comparable to HID or Halogen. Give it another year or 2 and I bet something will come along. It'll just be super expensive. What I'm considering is buying a set of Acura "Jewel Eyes" headlights, stripping out the modules and mounting them in a Tacoma housing.

 

I have the XenonDepots and also the VLED lights. The problem is that the LED's are on 2 sides whereas a bulb light 360 degrees. So the LED puts light to only 2 points of the reflector where the bulb puts direct light to the entire reflector. In the projector housing the LED causes a spread of light where the bulb hitting all points of the reflector causes a beam of light. HID's are perfect for a projector. I put the VLED's in the high beam and again there is a spread but it lights up a large area. The XenonDepots in the fogs are great.

 

Zackly!!!!

 

lol, Thanks for the welcome. Rest assured I went the "extended crapper time" and Google "Tacoma {instert mod or accessory}" route. The wife has long since figured out why I spend so much time in the crapper.

I realized a long time ago that googling things is the same as "cat hunting". As long as one is willing to endure the "we posted this already" comments on forums... You can set out the proverbial "bowl of milk" with a thread like this and let the cats come to you.

 

I think you have pretty much gotten the info you need for these, if you want a set, I have a brand new spare set of Philips H11's that are of no use to me as they didn't fit my girlfriend's car to my disappointment. I just put the thread up. Use them in your fog light housings or your headlights if you desire.

https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/philips-h8-h11-h16-fog-light-headlight-led-bulbs.407968/

 

This photo (from Amazon and I assume provided by Philips) seems to support the idea that the LEDs are visible when looking at them... But don't provide better visibility for the driver. Looking at the ground in front of the vehicle... You see more ground on the halogen side.

The frustrating part is I carry a LED flashlight at work and it is far superior to my older halogen version.

 

I had a rental '16 Corolla with factory LED low beams, and they looked great. Tons of throw, even lighting, I honestly thought they were HID until I looked it up online.

It has everything to do with the projector/housing being designed for LED. If it is you get excellent performance. If it isn't, not so much, as lots of people on here have attested to.

However, the '16 Tacoma stock projectors seem to work pretty great with HID from what I've seen browsing this forum. I plan on replacing the halogen bulbs as soon as my truck gets here.

 

You can use Google to do site specific searches. For example...

Enter in the Google search bar (without quotations):

"site:https://www.tacomaworld.com/ LED headlights"

This returns a search of the www.tacomaworld.com domain for "LED headlights" ... honestly works better than the search feature on most forums

Also, this same syntax works with most browsers, so feel free to try with your favorite.

 

Oh I'm well aware... But then what would we all do? Read all the old posts? Not argue about oil/headlights/wheels?? No sir, I won't have it. And I encoruage "google it" posts as that bumps the thread and many people don't read beyond the OP anyway... So they reply to the first few posts or even read down and find a post they don't agree with.

 

So LED seems like it isn't quite right for our trucks... Let's talk HIDs then. I looked at a few companies. Which are you looking at?

 

This appears the be the best option: https://www.theretrofitsource.com/h...lite-hid-system-2016-tacoma.html#.VoM12_krLix

 

There is currently a LED crisis. Everyone is trying to cram LEDs into every part of the car that is supposed to light up. LED interior. LED exterior.

HIDs are the way to go. You spend less and get more than what LEDs have to offer, and like everyone has said LEDs dont work well when dropped in. LED headlights have multiple LEDs to give good output.

It's too bad you're a little late, I recently ran a group buy and we got 26% off from the retrofit source for the 16' taco HID conversion. I personally did it and have not looked back. Best money spent. I always recommend morimoto stuff, because they are good quality. You can pick up HIDs for less, but the quality wont be guaranteed and customer service of other companies seems to be shitty. When you call TRS they pick up and talk to you, and they are quick with the emails.

 

After 2-3 weeks, my morimoto kit shit out a ballast... waiting for a new one to arrive.