LED lights

[bkrama0314]

hey guys, so now that the brush guard has been removed from my the front of my truck, i am debating on upgrading the lights to LED bulbs. i found some fog lights on amazon and am going to check them out this weekend, but i wanted to get some advice about them all together. i have seen some forums and know that LEDs are not necessarily praised in the community because they don’t work well with OEM housing but i feel like they would be an AWESOME upgrade. pops is against it because when he upgraded his 2006 MDX to LED’s something happened that caused the electrical wiring in the car to not work properly anymore, but i want to get some advice from every one first.

 

[Trunk Monkey]

Given the number of first hand accounts I've heard of people having major, not minor, electrical problems caused by LED issues, I never would. Do the full upgrade to like the Morimoto lenses.

 

[bkrama0314]

Given the number of first hand accounts I've heard of people having major, not minor, electrical problems caused by LED issues, I never would. Do the full upgrade to like the Morimoto lenses.

for sure man, i got one of those light restoration kits, and i am going to clean up the lights and see what that does, and i will come back on here and share my results with everyone.

 

[prickly]

for sure man, i got one of those light restoration kits, and i am going to clean up the lights and see what that does, and i will come back on here and share my results with everyone.

I went the Chinese route and bought LED projectors and light bracket from a seller on there and did a full retrofit and I have to say, I'm very very satisfied with the result. The LED projector I bought are LASER high beam and low beam has sharp cut off, with result better if not the same than more expensive options, 2 year on still strong. Slapping on some LED Bulbs into factory housing isn't going to do anything to your light output. the reflector inside are probably dull and chipping out, like mine which i found out when I was doing the retrofit.

I'm in fact contemplating adding laser projectors to high beam also but I'm just too lazy to bother with it since it's not really needed.

 

[Malleus]

I installed the LasFit LEDs (supposedly CANBus compatible) on my son's 2000 LX470 last month. No problems (yet) and they made a significant difference. I'm very pleased with them, the fact that they were made in China, notwithstanding.

 

[RockDriver]

I am so envious of this. In Europe we aren't even allowed to use LED bulbs, much less swapping out entire headlights for aftermarket HID ones. This wouldn't fly with mandatory annual/biannual technical inspection, police and in some countries even invalidates insurance.

 

[Trunk Monkey]

They're not legal in the US either and can be pretty blinding to oncoming drivers since they're not made for the factory reflectors.

 

[RockDriver]

They're not legal in the US either and can be pretty blinding to oncoming drivers since they're not made for the factory reflectors.

Yeah, makes sense. By the way, what about those so-called "street legal" bulbs by Osram and Phillips? Like these ones: LED high and low beam lamps (street legal) | OSRAM Automotive - https://www.osram.com/ecat/LED%20high%20and%20low%20beam%20lamps%20(street%20legal)-Car%20lighting-Automotive/com/en/GPS01_3574187/

There's so much conflicting information online it's hard to understand what's what.

 

[Malleus]

Not legal where?

 

[Blue Phoenix]

There is indeed merit to the points people have about retro-fitting LED's (which generally have a different light pattern than stock halogens in the same projector), HOWEVER, I would say the technology is changing.

I retro-fitted my 2006 LC with Diode Dynamics SL2 Pro Low Beam

The LED itself as you can see is kept very thin and according to DD website is as close to perfect positioning as you can get without going with another Halogen.

My cutoff is pretty much the same from a side-by-side eyeball test on my garage, sharper if anything with the LED's. The light fills in better up front but I feel like LED's in general have less saturation the farther out you get compared with Halogen. I haven't been flashed a single time and I'm the type to try and be as conscientious as I can when it comes to this sort of thing because I also hate being blinded by aftermarket lights.

Of note I also have the DD SS3 Sport Fogs and my light output now is phenomenal I feel. I live in Upper Michigan and between the dark roads and snow I'm very happy.