Changing the headlight wires from 2008 to 2012 (1 Viewer)

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Hello everyone,


My old headlights are so beat up and old and have been polished many times and are currently cracking. The OEM headlights are expensive so I am going after market.

The problem is all the aftermarket headlights I could find are the 2012-2015 style, with different headlight wiring, so they will not plug and play.

What I want to do is upgrade my wires from 2008 to 2012 style so in the future if I want to replace my headlights I can just plug and play any 2012-2015 headlight.

If anyone has any information on how to do this correctly please let me know. (Most shops here do a nasty thing where they just cut the connectors off and butt-joint all the wires without connectors 😬, not happening)

Thank you,
 
Some images that might help

harness2.jpg


hlwiring.png
 
Thank you for the contribution but this thread only discusses aftermarket vs OEM. I am trying to find out what I need to do to change a 2008 harness to fit 2013 lights.

I thought that was the thread that also mentioned doing a swap. I believe @Cruisin911 did an upgrade from old to new style?
 
I did the swap. Its super simple. I couldn't find the details I needed to plan it out so I just dug in and spliced the old harness to the new lights. It was really much easier than I anticipated. In fact, that was the easiest part of the whole thing. Once you have it apart you'll see what I mean. If you need help, PM me and I'll give you my phone number and walk you through it.
 
I did the swap. Its super simple. I couldn't find the details I needed to plan it out so I just dug in and spliced the old harness to the new lights. It was really much easier than I anticipated. In fact, that was the easiest part of the whole thing. Once you have it apart you'll see what I mean. If you need help, PM me and I'll give you my phone number and walk you through it.
Thank you so much for your help. Which harness did you splice? The harness from the old headlights or the harness from the vehicle itself? I am thinking of modifying the vehicle itself to have 2012 connectors and also chaging the bumper to do a conversion to 2012.
 
Thank you so much for your help. Which harness did you splice? The harness from the old headlights or the harness from the vehicle itself? I am thinking of modifying the vehicle itself to have 2012 connectors and also chaging the bumper to do a conversion to 2012.
I spliced the new connectors onto the old harness such that if I wanted to swap in OEM headlight now, all the connectors would mate up. They were all the same gauge and I verified the fuse amperages for all the wires. Ive been running them for a little more than 2 years now and have had no issues with wiring. If you do decide to go aftermarket on a pre-2013 for headlights, you will also have to trim a little off of the bottom outside corners. There is a tab that interferes with the headlight washers. I am taking off the bumper this weekend for a hidden winch install and can take pictures if you need.
 
I spliced the new connectors onto the old harness such that if I wanted to swap in OEM headlight now, all the connectors would mate up. They were all the same gauge and I verified the fuse amperages for all the wires. Ive been running them for a little more than 2 years now and have had no issues with wiring. If you do decide to go aftermarket on a pre-2013 for headlights, you will also have to trim a little off of the bottom outside corners. There is a tab that interferes with the headlight washers. I am taking off the bumper this weekend for a hidden winch install and can take pictures if you need.
Please, pictures would be so much help!
I deleted my headlight washers, I had an accident in the dunes and I ended up breaking one washer which made all my washer fluid leak out. I don't use them anyway so I got a bumper without washer holes or parking sensor holes. The car is also having a complete paint job and almost everything has been taken out of the car for painting. It's an opportunity to make changes now.
A question about the new connectors, where did you get them from? It seems (I am not sure) that the lc200 has like a mini harness/cord for the headlights like the image I posted. Did you buy something like that for the 2013 and then splice it?
Thank you
 
This is what the back of mine looked like when they arrived and what I spliced into. Of course, headlight leveling does not work (didn't think I needed it.) I got mine from Ebay. Not a solid move, but they were on uber sale and thought it was worth a shot. Ive been pretty vocal about going with OEM. There are ZERO aftermarket options that are of acceptable quality.

s-l1600-3.jpg
 

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