looking to replace my headlights need suggestions

I just put some tyc headlights and corner lights on mine 01 tacoma just a couple weeks ago. I also had to switch the brackets off the oem headlights casue the ball and sockets were loose like you have stated. I also dont really care for the way the light output looks. There is a very noticable dark spot almost center. Im hoping its just the cheap china bulbs that came in them but doubt it.

 

Ideally you should do one at a time, that way you can use the untouched OEM one as a reference point to align your new one. Then align the 2nd new one off the first correctly aligned one, instead of trying to align both blind. I do this in addition to tape lines as a way to double check the alignment.

 

Right. The old ones were aligned pretty well. I knew the new ones would be off, so I planned on doing a complete alignment off my garage doors at 25 feet, but not tonight.

 

Still have not adjusted these lights. It's raining now, so not happening tonight.



I had to take this one back out to try to tighten up the mount again. Although I have not driven at night yet, I don't like the spotty beam spread on the garage door. Actually, I don't have anything good to say about this brand. So far they've been too much trouble. Not plug and play (if you want a tight fit). I'm about ready to clean up my OEMs and put them back in. These were the $47.39 pair on Amazon.

 

In stock housings?

No, they are not.

 

Sounds to me like lesson learned... I'm pulling the trigger on some CAPA certified OEM housings this weekend from Rockauto.com. They're ~$80 a pair, so about twice the price you paid, but IMO, easily worth it. After your frustrations, you might consider it as well.

I'm going to get housings, side marker lights (mine are loose just like yours), a bunch of grill clips, and will also get the wiring harness mentioned a few pages back.

I understand if you want me to be the guinea pig and install these myself I'll be sure to post the results when it all comes in.

 

I want to hear how they work out, and how the side marker are. I second the CAPA certification. They can't suck as bad as these, and Amazon wants me to write a review.

 

Will do. I didn't get a chance to order parts last night, but I'll sit down tonight and order up. Because you know, Friday night! woo hoo!

I looked at rockauto for the side markers, and they don't have CAPA cert for those, but oddly the left costs $10, and the right costs $14. Weird. I'm just going to go black even though I've got a red truck. Considering blacking out my color matched grill at the same time...

 

I blacked out my grill a few years back when I replaced the rusted chrome piece on the front and the rusted rear bumper. Went black with everything.

Tuned my headlights last night. They are actually not as bad as I thought they were. The lights not horrible. I need to tweak them a little more though. The low beams are aimed a little to close to the truck, so the range is limited. High beams look OK.

 

Just pulled the trigger on housings and the ground switched harness. Waiting on doing the 80w Osram bulbs as I'm curious what just new housings and the harness will do with the bulbs come with the housings I got. So I guess I have some futzing around to do.

Here's a link to the housings I got if you're curious. Make sure you select the CAPA cert, though. I saw an earlier post about TCY housings not being that great of quality, but I'm fairly certain they were the CAPA ones. It's not out of the question that a single manufacturer would have two different production lines with vastly different quality. But I guess I'll have to wait and see...
http://www.rockauto.com/?carcode=1429084&parttype=10762

Might be a week or so depending on when the shipment(s) come in.

 

Shows left is NSF certified, $27.89 and right a choice of NSF or CAPA (1 remaining), $27.79 and $40.79, respectively

 

Here are the headlamp beam patterns for my OEM and aftermarket (Amazon $47.39 pair by Vision Auto Lamps) installations:

First - OEM (foggy lenses)


Second - OEM (foggy lenses)


Third - Aftermarket (before correcting aim)


Fourth - Aftermarket (After correcting aim - in the rain and fog)


There may be some differences in the exposures of each picture, but it's hard to say if there is a great improvement.

 

Actually looks like the aftermarket have a pretty decent cut off line. Appears to be some improvements.

 

I think it's qute good. Just compare the brightness above the cut off and compare it to the below. Your foggy lights where lighting the tree trunk and the garage door above the cut off much more than the new one.

 

To me it looks like the OEM still had way better coverage from left to right and at distance. The new ones look brighter in a couple hot spots but had no side coverage. Yes the OEM do not have I very visible cutoff from what I can see but a good cleaning or even swapping lenses with the new ones if that's possible could improve that.

 

Yeah, sorry about that... hehe

 

That's true. Because of that, I may have aimed them a little too close to the road. It feels that the low beam range is very short, so I will be adjusting them up just slightly.

If it were not for the PITA it was putting them in, I could possibly recommend them now that I have driven with them a few times.

 

Found the TYC CAPA headlights on Amazon. With my free shipping via Amazon Prime, it's only $2.54 more than Rock Auto and I'll have them by Fri.

Driver side TYC-20-6074-00-9 CAPA cert. (search TYC-20-6074-00-1 for NSF)

$40 TYC Left Headlight Assembly Compatible with 2001-2004 Toyota Tacoma

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004MQB31S/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER

Pax side TYC-20-6073-00-9 CAPA cert. (search TYC 20-6073-00-1 for NSF)

$52 TYC Right Headlight Assembly Compatible with 2001-2004 Toyota Tacoma

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004MQB30Y/ref=ox_sc_act_title_2?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER

 

Brown box fairy visited today - harness and bulbs to be delivered tomorrow!

 

Looking good so far.