Upgraded Tacoma Lights

Let’s have a look at my lights, the modifications I have made, and what I have added. Click on the picture below for my video review:

Note, some of the below links are affiliate links that give me a small percentage of the proceeds. Your support is greatly appreciated.

Headlights:

For my headlights I am still using the stock housing, as I like the way it looks with the truck, and I like the look of the daytime running lights (“DRL”). With the DRL being stock, Toyota usually focuses on longevity with their lights, and therefore I know that these will last a long time. I have taken the housing apart and painted the chrome pieces black, which I think made a huge improvement to their look.

Low Beams:

As the stock low beams are halogen bulbs and come with a projector lens that is designed for halogen bulbs, I had to stay with Halogens for my low beams. The light output of the stock H11 bulbs is not great. Therefore, I changed them out for the Philips H9 bulbs. These have a much higher light output but have a shorter life span than the H11 bulbs. Although the light output of the H9's is better, I am still not fully satisfied, and may retrofit some LED projectors into these housings one day.

The H9 bulbs must be slightly modified to be able to use in the H11 connector. As seen in the images below, the H11 bulb only has one tab at the bottom of the connector, as opposed to the H9 bulb, that has two tabs. One at the top and the bottom. The top tab on the H9 bulb can easily be removed to be able to use with the H11 connector.

High Beams:

For my high beams I am running the Micro Extreme LED bulbs from VLEDS. These have a very high light output and work fantastic for High beams. Some people say that these can be run in the low beam projectors, but I would not recommend that, as they do not maintain the correct pattern and scatter light that may blind other cars.

Front Turn LEDS:

These are also from VLEDS, they are a high visibility Amber LED bulb. They are brighter than the stock halogen bulbs that were in here, but I changed them out for LED bulbs, because I had changed out all my other turn signal bulbs to LED, and the halogen bulbs are not as instantaneous as the LED's. Therefore, there was a slight delay between when the LED's lit up and the halogens lit up. I am very happy with the output of these.

LED Pod Lights:

These are not the brightest LED pods on the market, but they are very effective and bright for their price. I have also had no issue with reliability. The harness that is provided with them was also very practical and made the installation a breeze.

Mirror Turn Signals:

I have been running these MESO customs ultimate turn signals for almost 4 years now and still love them. The black color is a great replacement for the stock chrome turn signals, and the light output is also great.

Tail Lights:

My truck originally came with the chrome tail lights, and as you can tell by now, I am not a fan of chrome. Therefore, I bought a used pair of the black tail lights.

The light configuration of the stock harness is also not great. Therefore, I upgraded to the MESO Customs Total Stage 1 kit. This kit comes with a full replacement of the bulbs, upgrading them to LEDs, and it also comes with a harness that rearranges the light pattern to have the red lights work full time as running lights and break lights, and uses the reverse lights for reverse light as well as the turn signals. I love the new configuration and am glad an easy solution was out there.

Rock Lights:

I also installed some rock lights. I received a set of 6 lights for a Secret Santa gift. I used two under the hood and installed the other 4 under the truck, 1 in front of each wheel. These provide great lighting under the hood, even during the daytime. The lights under the truck provide great lighting for night wheeling, and look great.