Try as I might I can NOT figure this question out! I am confident someone out there knows the answer. BACKGROUND: I recently purchased a 2008 IS350 from a police impound yard. My dogs are rescue specials - so shall soon be my ride : ) BUT- I will need to purchased replacement stock headlights, and the question Rock Auto and every other potential vender has is: Are they auto leveling? The original owner, nay the LAST OWNER - who fled the P.D. and abandoned poor Lexie - made some "typical" modifications - to include doing something to the wiring harness to facilitate LED type "bulbs" where Lexus originally had incandescent filaments of the old school variety. I want all new headlights and plan to use Philips 9006 Crystalvision Headlight Bulbs - or maybe the Sylvania 9006 Silverstar Halogen Bulb, top shelf Old School illumination - but not until I know if I am screwing up not knowing if the auto level. I am hoping even IF they are auto leveling, and I buy a replacement until without that capacity I can still plug and play and adjust by hand. Anyone out there know?


I need to restore this poor neglected thing to full duty. My good luck to already have interacted with LeftyJohn from near the Jersey Shore. He took great care to supply me a original grill, a bolt on CAT BACK STOCK exhaust (the car has its resonators hacksawed out and sounds RUFF!) and best of all staggered ENKEI EKM3 wearing super sticky rubber! Its right rear rim shattered after impacting "something" which no doubt drew local police attention and stated the dominos falling until it landed in my driveway!

 

Auto leveling is only used on the factory HID headlights. If the headlights in the car use H11 connectors and have no ballasts, they're not auto-leveling. You can also use the switches on the left side of the steering wheel to scroll through the menus and see if you have an option to turn AFS off. If you do, you have the auto-leveling headlights.

Jeff

 

If the machine is not self levelling should there not be a switch for manual levelling?

 

Depends on the country, but in Canada/US, no. It’s either auto leveling or no leveling.

Jeff

 

Jeff - thank you for the post. I appreciate the information. The car is in the shop - so I can't check through the screens to see if AFS appears. Of course, the head unit required repair for the navigation screen to accept input. It displays the NAV map screen, and turns into a back up camera when reverse is detected, but it needs the fix I found on the forums here.

Weirdly Rock Auto shows these two options:

TYC 20682401 {#8117053270, LX2502132} Lens and Housing Only; Halogen; Does not Include Bulb or Socket; Halogen Info
Left; w/o Auto Level [NSF Certified]

or
TYC 20682301 {#8113053270, LX2503132} Lens and Housing Only; Halogen; Does not Include Bulb or Socket; Halogen Info
Right; w/o Auto Level [NSF Certified]

which APPEAR to be clearly not HID / Ballast type but Old School tunsten bulb units which are either leveling or non-leveling?!

Hence this inquiry to the forum.

One of these puppies will be coming home.

It's a bit unnerving that it will likely become an autolevel or NOTHING situation. I would hope every aftermarket allowed for some up/down - left/right fine tuning of the light beam. It is almost irresponsible not to. The aim is critical to the mission of lighting up the road while NOT BLINDING oncoming traffic. In a previous life I replaced a 2001 Dodge Caravans sun fogged original headlamp units with $80 each cheapo ebays - and they offered NO ADJUSTMENT. Selfishly, inside the vehicle, from behind the steering wheel 100% improvement - its power to light up the road paralleled my C240 - and Germans do take lighting seriously. My Avalon has HID's which have a cut off that is so low, so conservative - I prefer the halogen bulbs of almost any other car !?! So, I fear Toyota might not have the same playbook as veryone else illuminating the road ahead.

What a great resource this has been.
So appreciated.

Stay safe !

 

All factory IS headlights have an aim adjustment. The HID’s just have auto leveling with a motor to dynamically adjust as you drive. It is a separate system mostly independent of the aim adjustment that both the halogen and HID headlights have.

I expect the TYC headlights will have the same adjustment as the factory ones.

Jeff