Really? WTH, and yet Toyota puts LED on the 20k Corolla. Only Toyota does dumb things like that. It's like how the crap box CHR gets power folding side mirrors and yet 3IS didn't have that feature. Even the 80K RCF doesn't have power folding side mirrors.

 

Yeah, it’s pretty ridiculous. The DRLs and fog lights are LED, but not the headlights. Thankfully the current Highlander has LED headlights. I’ll be upgrading my headlights soon.

 

To answer your question. My brothers 2008 RAV4. I have a 2007 RX 350 with 201k miles. It has adaptive HIDs. It is shocking how bad the halogens on the RAV4 are. It's like driving with kerosine lanterns on the front of the car. Although my 2007 Volvo XC90 had halogens, and I don't remember them being that bad, But then I never drove it after getting my Lexus.

I have also driven Lexus loaners with LEDs and they are a huge improvement over my old HIDs. I wonder if were to replace the bulbs on my mine (which I suspect are original) would improve brightness? It's amazing how long they last. I had this since 2015 and put 64,000 miles on it. I've only had to replace the marker and taillights. Ballasts are fine too.

 

The Corolla IM has power folding mirrors.

 

I believe that gen had projector halogens, which is the best that halogen could do at that point. Much better distribution and focus for the light beam than a reflector can manage.

 

Look at 1st gen Mazda CX-5 forums. Those DRLs have notorious failures. I’ve seen this myself frequently.

 

now that's kind of shocking. they're at least some kind of projector beam halogen i think? that maybe helps some?

still toyota as has been said here is pretty inconsistent and cheaps out with incandescent lights here and there. i know my genesis is no bargain basement car, but one thing i love about it is every single bulb EVERYWHERE seems to be an LED.

 

DRLs, but what about LED HEADLIGHTS?

 

No, E38 750iL came standard with xenons. It was kind of a big deal.

The only W140s that got them were the high end S500s and S600s after 1996, part of the '97 refresh.

 

Lets clarify a few things here. The purpose of automotive lighting is to let you see and be seen without blinding others in traffic. I think modern LED driving and accent lights have done a great job of letting you be seen on the road, even when the main headlights are off. I too haven't noticed any failing with LEDs, unless its cheap chinese LED replacements for factory halogen bulbs.

However, when it comes to the actual headlight, optics can be a lot more important than the light source and absolute light output. Understand that both halogen and HID sources are not directional, they disperse the light 360 degrees, and this is why headlights employ reflectors to "collect" the light that is dispersed to the sides and redirect it forward. With LEDs you don't need a reflector because they are more directional, and even though LEDs produce about the same amount of lumens per watt as HID, they are are a lot more efficient in applications such as headlights because not as much light is getting lost. This have been said, no matter how much light you have it is very important at how your headlights distribute the light on the road in front of you. Understand that when driving on a dark highway you want the light to light up the road in front of you as far as possible. You do not want a bright spot directly in front of you, because it actually makes your eyes get used to this bright spot and they wont see far ahead. I see a lot of people make the mistake of driving on the highway with their fog lights on - the fog lights really light up maybe 10-12 feet in front of their car, which gives them an illusion of better illumination, but now their eyes become less responsive to the potential hazards that are further ahead. At highway speeds if you see a hazard when it is 10-12 feet in front of you it is too late, you want to be able to spot it when it is far ahead - thus better headlights are designed to "throw" the light as far as possible instead of "flooding" the light directly in front.

So it is possible for a good halogen design with a projector housing to outperform a cheap LED design or cheap HID design that only uses reflector housing. But there are only very few HID designs using reflector housings - a few early MB and 2GS to my knowledge. And vice versa, there are only a few halogen headlights that use projectors - 1GS, some older BMWs, older Camry, older Mazda 3, and older Suzuki to my knowledge. There are also very few LED headlights that didn't employ projector optics - I think either a Prius or Nissan leaf?

For the most part of course modern headlight technology, particularly LED matrix headlights and laser LED headlights are so much better than halogen that it's simply not contest. And with modern optics the manufacturers are finally using high quality plastic housings that do not yellow on the outside or fog up on the inside as much or as fast as older plastic headlight housings. Not too long ago it was a common to see a 3-5 year old car with headlights completely hazed out, providing almost no useful illumination on the road.

Oh, and also it is great to see one trend go away - during mid 2000s when the marked was flooded with cheap chinese HIDs people would swap these into their halogen headlight housings. I was guilty of this in my LS400 as well. These would light up trees, roofs - anything but the actual road, as well as blinding everyone else on the road.

 

And LED failure is an LED failure, isn't it?

 

Sorry, I meant on the non Xenon equipped models. It was still a projector, just a projector halogen unit.

 

Thanks for taking the time to write up this... very informative.

 

Agreed.....good write-up, Och, though my experience has been that how the lights are designed and adjusted at the factory make just as much difference to visibility as they type of bulbs or projectors they are.

 

And that's another thing, many modern headlights actually have self leveling projectors so no longer see so many cars with misaligned headlights points the beam of light into the sky, lol.