2013 Replacment Headlight Recommendation

[Steve Owens]

Finally getting around to replacing my headlights. Any suggestion on direct replacement LED or HID complete lights?

Steve

 

[The Wiped Cam]

I'm not aware of any direct replacement complete units. HID or LED bulbs for your reflector housings would therefore seem like a tempting option, but they will blind oncoming traffic. No way around that.

Also, when it comes to your low beams, spread is more important than luminous intensity. HID and LED bulbs suppositoried inside a reflector will create hotspots right in the foreground, which will contract your pupils and significantly impact your distance vision.

In my experience, no aftermarket housing comes close to the performance offered by the OEM headlamps in our trucks (not sure about other vehicles.) The Spyder ones (with the projector low beam, and reflector HB) have a very nasty hotspot in the shape of a triangle that robs light from the outboard sides of the beam. Also, the only way you'd find the high beam on those Spyder style housings useful is when you shove a ~ 20,000LM LED bulb in them.

If you'd like to retrofit projectors in your headlamps, then here's some info you'd find useful:

- A decent bi-halogen setup can be put together if you're able to cheaply source the projectors from a ~ 2011 vintage Ford Edge. Use Vosla HIR2+ bulbs in those.

- A Bi-Xenon setup with the FX-R 3.0 will offer you a great low beam experience, but at the cost of high beam distance.

- A Bi-Xenon setup with the E55 AMG projectors (minus the Fresnel lens) will offer you a so so low beam experience, but with a fn savage high beam spread.

If I were you, I'd just stick on the OEM housings, and shove high output halogen bulbs in them.

Here's a glimpse of what headlight stuff I experiment on year round, which really does nothing but make me respect our OEM headlight units a lot more with the passage of time:

 

[Greg0197]

I put MoriMoto Turbo 2 LEDs in mine. I don’t get flashed by oncoming traffic and when I was following my buddy he said they’re not obnoxious at all.

low beams are much better, but there’s not a lot of difference between low and high.

I paid 135ish for mine from headlight revolution.

Greg

 

[The Wiped Cam]

I put MoriMoto Turbo 2 LEDs in mine. I don’t get flashed by oncoming traffic and when I was following my buddy he said they’re not obnoxious at all.

low beams are much better, but there’s not a lot of difference between low and high.

I paid 135ish for mine from headlight revolution.

Greg

Could you possibly post a small dash cam footage of you approaching and passing a street sign?

Auxbeam, Hikari, and Aukee have waaay too much bleed (yes, they were rotated correctly).

IMO, gen 1 GTR Lighting Ultra had the best cutoff among LED bulbs for our housing, but you can't get them anymore. Gen 2 has an insane bleed on an acquaintance's 4Runner with the H13 housing, so never bought them to test out on the Expy.

If the Morimoto LED passes the bleed test then that would a great development!

 

[07navi]

Could you possibly post a small dash cam footage of you approaching and passing a street sign?

Auxbeam, Hikari, and Aukee have waaay too much bleed (yes, they were rotated correctly).

IMO, gen 1 GTR Lighting Ultra had the best cutoff among LED bulbs for our housing, but you can't get them anymore. Gen 2 has an insane bleed on an acquaintance's 4Runner with the H13 housing, so never bought them to test out on the Expy.

If the Morimoto LED passes the bleed test then that would a great development!

I'm not aware of any direct replacement complete units. HID or LED bulbs for your reflector housings would therefore seem like a tempting option, but they will blind oncoming traffic. No way around that.

Also, when it comes to your low beams, spread is more important than luminous intensity. HID and LED bulbs suppositoried inside a reflector will create hotspots right in the foreground, which will contract your pupils and significantly impact your distance vision.

In my experience, no aftermarket housing comes close to the performance offered by the OEM headlamps in our trucks (not sure about other vehicles.) The Spyder ones (with the projector low beam, and reflector HB) have a very nasty hotspot in the shape of a triangle that robs light from the outboard sides of the beam. Also, the only way you'd find the high beam on those Spyder style housings useful is when you shove a ~ 20,000LM LED bulb in them.

If you'd like to retrofit projectors in your headlamps, then here's some info you'd find useful:

- A decent bi-halogen setup can be put together if you're able to cheaply source the projectors from a ~ 2011 vintage Ford Edge. Use Vosla HIR2+ bulbs in those.

- A Bi-Xenon setup with the FX-R 3.0 will offer you a great low beam experience, but at the cost of high beam distance.

- A Bi-Xenon setup with the E55 AMG projectors (minus the Fresnel lens) will offer you a so so low beam experience, but with a fn savage high beam spread.

If I were you, I'd just stick on the OEM housings, and shove high output halogen bulbs in them.

Here's a glimpse of what headlight stuff I experiment on year round, which really does nothing but make me respect our OEM headlight units a lot more with the passage of time:
View attachment 34906

Why do you do that?

 

[The Wiped Cam]

Why do you do that?

Retrofit crowd has always been around experimenting with aircraft lighting retrofit for offroad trucks, headlight transplantation from one vehicle to another etc. Matt just stepped in during the mid 2000s and capitalized on a very niche segment of this retrofit crowd. I'm just one of those enthusiasts from the late 80's/early 90's, and so we still refuse to make any money off of this hobby. To me, headlight modification is kind of like a guilty pleasure.

I'm currently working on a projector low beam+reflector highbeam retrofit for no apparent reason at all. lol

 

[07navi]

Retrofit crowd has always been around experimenting with aircraft lighting retrofit for offroad trucks, headlight transplantation from one vehicle to another etc. Matt just stepped in during the mid 2000s and capitalized on a very niche segment of this retrofit crowd. I'm just one of those enthusiasts from the late 80's/early 90's, and so we still refuse to make any money off of this hobby. To me, headlight modification is kind of like a guilty pleasure.

I'm currently working on a projector low beam+reflector highbeam retrofit for no apparent reason at all. lol

yeeeok

 

[TheRealMcL0VN]

I got the nineo led headlights from amazon. They are 54.99. By far the best headlights ive ever used in any vehicle. I got them in sept and ive never had an issue. I definitely recommend them

 

[JExpedition07]

The best light output you will get in these trucks’ stock setup is with Sylvania Silverstar Ultras or OSRAM Nightbreaker and a few other brands high output Halogens. These have stronger light output/better throw and cleaner cutoff than any LED or Xenon can do in a reflector. The latter don’t work well in reflector housings. The caveat is only expect 300-400 hours of bulb life which can be 1-3 years depending on your night driving. I use Sylvania Ultras.

 

[07navi]

I know the Expys don't use them but on the Navi's the bluer the HID xenon bulb the less powerful they are. These people that get the blue (above 5000 kelvin temp) ones think they look cool but they are only annoying others and cutting their visibility down. I got two 5000k bulbs online for $15 since one was out and sold the old stock 4300k one for $15 while the dealers wanted $300+- for them. They have been working fine for a month and I doubt if they will give any problems. Blue light scatters sooner which is why sunsets are yellow (but that's another program).