Want "purple" or "blue" headlights for 2000 Tacoma -- any recommendations?

On Sat, 31 Jan 2009 21:30:32 -0500, necromancer - ECHM wrote:

> On Sat, 31 Jan 2009 19:40:43 -0500, Nate Nagel >
> wrote:
>
>
>>You're talking about HID's, but unless they were a factory option on
>>your vehicle I couldn't recommend them. A lot of the "retrofit kits"
>>are fairly crap, don't produce the correct beam pattern, etc...
>
> Aren't they also illegal for on road use?

Here in Australia, police will issue defect notices to cars discovered
with them fitted. How do they know that they are fitted? Because of the
dangerous glare. The glare is horrible, even when you are ahead of the
cretin, forcing you to flip the prismatic rear view mirror.

If the OP is serious about improving his highway night vision, an HID
driving light is an excellent investment. These mothers light up the road
like nothing else and they are legal. Sadly, I suspect from the OP's
question that he is just after a 'cool' looking colour upgrade.

http://www.overlander.com.au/equipme...Driving-Lights

On Sun, 01 Feb 2009 02:02:06 GMT, GortWeasel wrote:

>If you want to be a Class A ******, just go and get yourself some blue
>tint and paint it on your existing halogen bulbs. If you are still in the
>stone age, you will have to paint your sealed beams.

Sealed beams are a whole lot easier to replace than the new style headlights.
It's not as easy as replacing a tail light or brake light.

>For Class B ******s, it is possible to purchase blue tinted bulbs from
>the rice boy shops. These give a blueish output which also reduce the
>amount of photons returning to your eyes (i.e you see less than with
>normal 'white' halogens).

I'm looking for more light. I'm on the high side of 45 and need better vision at
night because of the large number of deer that have infested my area.

>For Class C ******s, you can buy cheap Chinese made HID lamps from Ebay
>and retrofit them. These devices are not very good and they will
>probably work worse than your existing lamps. The Chinese HIDs are
>illegal in most jurisdictions and there is a good reason for this,
>largely because they cause dangerous glare to oncoming drivers.

Thought you were Down Under. I've found nothing that isn't street legal in the
USA while I've been searching.


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On Sun, 01 Feb 2009 02:49:03 GMT, GortWeasel wrote:

>If the OP is serious about improving his highway night vision, an HID
>driving light is an excellent investment. These mothers light up the road
>like nothing else and they are legal. Sadly, I suspect from the OP's
>question that he is just after a 'cool' looking colour upgrade.

No, I passed the "cool" stage long ago, although I do like the way the xenon
bulbs look.

I'm on the high side of 45 and my night vision isn't what it used to be. Too, we
are being overrun by deer and those suckers have this bad habit of being active
at night. I've seen too many dead deer along the roadway and too many
crunched-up front ends. (My sister-in-law hit one last year, and a co-worker had
two deer collisions last year). Anything to light up the night a little better
is what I'm looking for but I prefer a simple headlight replacement to adding
driving lights that require new wiring and switches.


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On Sat, 31 Jan 2009 19:33:35 -0800, H.B. Elkins wrote:

> Thought you were Down Under. I've found nothing that isn't street legal
> in the USA while I've been searching.

Seriously, get E-Code retrofits for your headlamps, and team them with a
decent set of driving lights. Even cheap aircraft landing light sealed
beam driving lights work very well (but you might need to upgrade your
alternator). HID driving lights don't draw much current which is their
main advantage. The driving lights should be wired so that they turn off
when your dip your headlamps to low beam (i.e they should be logically
ANDed with the high beam signal).

On Sat, 31 Jan 2009 19:37:37 -0800, H.B. Elkins wrote:

> On Sun, 01 Feb 2009 02:49:03 GMT, GortWeasel wrote:
>
>>If the OP is serious about improving his highway night vision, an HID
>>driving light is an excellent investment. These mothers light up the
>>road like nothing else and they are legal. Sadly, I suspect from the
>>OP's question that he is just after a 'cool' looking colour upgrade.
>
> No, I passed the "cool" stage long ago, although I do like the way the
> xenon bulbs look.
>
> I'm on the high side of 45 and my night vision isn't what it used to be.
> Too, we are being overrun by deer and those suckers have this bad habit
> of being active at night. I've seen too many dead deer along the roadway
> and too many crunched-up front ends. (My sister-in-law hit one last
> year, and a co-worker had two deer collisions last year). Anything to
> light up the night a little better is what I'm looking for but I prefer
> a simple headlight replacement to adding driving lights that require new
> wiring and switches.

Understand. Where I live there is a 20km stretch of road that runs
through coastal heathland and it teams with kangaroos in the night.
Despite a lot of care, I still managed to clean two up last year. They
are so dammed unpredictable. Thankfully they were small 'roos and the
damage done was mainly underneath the car (the air dam in one instance,
and the exhaust pipe hangers another time). Although I'm pushing 60 yrs
my night vision hasn't deteriorated yet, but driving lights are a must.
They have saved my bacon many times over the years. Even good E-code
headlamps are easy to over-drive at high speeds so the only solution is
to project a lot of light a long way down the road.

H.B. Elkins wrote:

> Anything to light up the night a little better is what I'm looking for
> but I prefer a simple headlight replacement to adding driving lights
> that require new wiring and switches.

What I posted doesn't require that you add driving lights. It just
pertains to upgrading your wiring harness so that your existing lights
actually receive sufficient current. Bulbs that aren't receiving enough
current won't provide enough light no matter how good they are.

But if you want xenon/HID headlamps, you'll need the following equipment.

1. Assemblies (either projector or reflector type) that are designed for
HIDs that fit your vehicle. You're probably not going to find these
unless your vehicle had a factory option of HID headlamps.

assuming you are able to obtain item 1

2. A pair of ballast. Each one will provide the necessary voltage spike
that's needed to ignite the HIDs

3. HID bulbs.

As Nate posted, you should not just use items 2 and 3 in a headlamp
assembly designed for halogen bulbs. This is because the light
distribution pattern of a HID bulb is different compared to a halogen
bulb. Using a HID bulb in an assembly designed for a halogen bulb or a
halogen bulb in an assembly designed for HID bulb will result in a
distribution of light that will not sufficiently light up areas in front
of your car that need to be illuminated (like parts of the road in front
of your car) and will light up areas that aren't meant to be illuminated
(like up and to the left in opposing traffic drivers' eyes).

The assemblies, if you can find them, will probably be around $250 to
$500 each. The ballasts will probably be around $200 each and the bulbs
will probably be around $100 each.

H.B. Elkins wrote:
> On Sun, 01 Feb 2009 02:49:03 GMT, GortWeasel wrote:
>
>> If the OP is serious about improving his highway night vision, an HID
>> driving light is an excellent investment. These mothers light up the road
>> like nothing else and they are legal. Sadly, I suspect from the OP's
>> question that he is just after a 'cool' looking colour upgrade.
>
> No, I passed the "cool" stage long ago, although I do like the way the xenon
> bulbs look.
>
> I'm on the high side of 45 and my night vision isn't what it used to be. Too, we
> are being overrun by deer and those suckers have this bad habit of being active
> at night. I've seen too many dead deer along the roadway and too many
> crunched-up front ends. (My sister-in-law hit one last year, and a co-worker had
> two deer collisions last year). Anything to light up the night a little better
> is what I'm looking for but I prefer a simple headlight replacement to adding
> driving lights that require new wiring and switches.
>
>

Check with Daniel Stern and see if there *is* a "simple replacement."
Maybe your vehicle was sold in Europe as well as the US and you can use
some European lights? a relay harness really does make a world of
difference though.

nate

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necromancer - ECHM skrev:
> On Sat, 31 Jan 2009 19:40:43 -0500, Nate Nagel >
> wrote:
>
>> You're talking about HID's, but unless they were a factory option on
>> your vehicle I couldn't recommend them. A lot of the "retrofit kits"
>> are fairly crap, don't produce the correct beam pattern, etc...
>
> Aren't they also illegal for on road use?

Outside NA xenon headlights must be equipped with automatic leveling and
washers, so just replacing the headlight would not be enough. With that
said, if you have projector headlights the light pattern after a
retrofit is pretty good.

My advice would be to buy 50%+ bulbs instead, much cheaper and still legal.

>
> --
> "I... Can't drive... FIFTY-FIVE!!"
> --Sammy Hagar
Ulf

"H.B. Elkins" wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> I'm looking to replace the headlights on my 2000 Toyota Tacoma extended cab 4WD
> pickup with new lights. The only way I can describe what I'm looking for is that
> I want those lights that appear purple or blue when you meet a vehicle with a
> set of them in oncoming traffic.

Is this because you're what we call a 'prick' (colloquial for penis) in the UK ?

Graham

"H.B. Elkins" wrote:

> On Sun, 01 Feb 2009 02:02:06 GMT, GortWeasel wrote:
>
> >If you want to be a Class A ******, just go and get yourself some blue
> >tint and paint it on your existing halogen bulbs. If you are still in the
> >stone age, you will have to paint your sealed beams.
>
> Sealed beams are a whole lot easier to replace than the new style headlights.

********.

Unclip the plastic cover on the rear of the lamp cluster, pull out the (often) H1 or
H4 bulb, replace and reverse procedure.

Graham