Yes, they have a good low-beam projector in them, to make the most out of the light available. The Highlander forums have some good suggestions for drop-in LEDs. I just need to order them and pop them in. Maybe this thread will give me the push to finally go online and do it.

 

I think you'll be better off with HID swap - believe or not HID bulbs work well with halogen projector. I know if there are LED bulbs that are direct replacement for halogen that can reliably produce as much light as HID or even the halogen bulb they are meant to replace.

 

Oh I definitely believe it. The LED swap just seemed pretty quick and easy, with a reasonable cost, and lots of Highlander owners reported good results. I'll do a bit more research.

 

Not necessarily. Electronics are built to different tolerances for different purposes, just because accent LED lighting may fail doesn't mean that more robust headlamp LED systems would fail.



The halogens in this F Pace have projectors. Not impressed lol.

I highly doubt you would find an HID/LED setup that is factory that doesnt outperform even the best halogen setup. At least, I've never seen one that doesn't...including old cars I had with HID in projectors like my LS400, ES300 and Prius. When you're talking about aftermarket and retrofitted systems, thats a different story.

 

I don't know about y'all, but I got no issues with seeing in the dark:



With that said, I use only the OEM LED low beams on main highways or in town. Only time these get lit up is if im in the middle of nowhere, and they get switched off when oncoming vehicles are inbound.


I have this setup because around here, wild hogs get this big:



That is a 950lb wild boar, shot a few miles from my home. They cross the back roads here all the time. I drive alot at night, and our new home is in the country where the only light source will be my house for miles.

With that said, if you haven't driven FM roads in TX, you wouldn't understand.

 

You would not want to hit that!

 

^^^ Quite a shot, Josh. I once lived for a while in Austin, many years ago. We used to see armadillos here and there, particularly at night on on the rural roads near the city that you mention, and I knew there were boars in Texas (across the border, in Arkansas, they are called Razorbacks)...but I've never heard of one growing to that size. That's a lot of pork LOL.

BTW, if you lived just a little further to the east in TX, in the Piney Woods region towards the Louisiana border, you'd probably be seeing alligators, too. The Brazos, Sabine, and Neches rivers are full of them.

 

At least it has projectors, I've had plenty of 3 series loaners that had nearly $50k sticker price and came with halogen reflectors.

You know, I never paid attention to it, but today I noticed there are so many cars on the road with halogen projectors - just about every Toyota, many Nissans, Hondas, even saw a Grand Cherokee. I guess manufacturers like to milk the customers for that HID/LED option still.

I wonder how would a an HID/LED reflector do against a halogen projector. When I went from 1GS300 with halogen projectors (very few cars hand any kind of projectors back then) to a 2GS430 with HID reflectors, I was of course impressed with the HIDs - back then they were still a novelty, and clearly produced a lot more light. Plus when I sold my 1GS300, it was already 9 years old, and the headlights were hazed. But I would like to see a proper scientific comparison, to see how much usable light these setups actually throw onto the road.

 

My Tacoma has an LED reflector, which is roughly 9,000 times better than the Highlander's halogen projector.

 

In general, light is measured in units of either Candlepower or Lumens. Of course, as you point out, how they are are pointed, and how wide a beam they produce can make a big difference in what you actually can see with your eyes.

Although I am generally not a fan of Cadillacs, one system that I like and have a lot of respect for (although I have never actually owned one) is their Infrared Night-Vision system, which uses military and police-type technology to detect persons/animals and vehicles at night.

 

Ton of them still.

Just from memory of my cars with HID reflectors, they were far better than other cars we had at the time, and much better that these halogen projectors.

Watch the video I posted above

 

That video was more of a comparison between different techs, but I wonder about optics.

That being said, my new X6M has laser lights, and I haven't even really tested them at night yet. I need to research in how they work, I understand in USA it is illegal to have the tech that they have in Europe with selective high beam, but maybe the car already has the tech and can be reprogrammed to enable it.

 

Sounds like people in your area need to do some of those shoot hogs from helicopters game management events to get rid of more of those hogs.

 

I have noticed for years the majority of cars on the road have halogen lights, HID/LED are not that popular except for luxury cars. I never thought halogens were that bad, if you are on a dimly light road you turn on the hi beams. I don't notice much of a difference between my HID's and my dads LED's, the LED's seem more white and focused but I have never felt my HID's need to be better or want a upgrade.

 

What I meant to empathize is a lot of these cars with halogen headlights actually have projector optics. In the not so distance past, most halogen headlights were simple reflectors, and even some early HID headlights were reflectors.

I believe BMW was the first manufacturer to introduce projectors, and later introduced their famous "angel eye" rings around the projectors, even back when HIDs were not used in automotive applications. BMW on one end continues to push headlight tech with adaptive high beams, lasers, leds, etc - but on the other end their last gen 3 series came with halogen reflector headlights in its base form, and I won't be too surprised if the new model still does.