Headlight upgrade question

So replace my headlights with these pictured. Everything works great except for my bright light indicator on the dash.
Brights turn on just fine, it just doesn’t indicate “on” in my gages. Any ideas?



Also looking at replacing the headlight housing with the Akkon’s. Anything to be aware of with these?


thanks!

 

You need a resistor. Throw one on the passenger side. You may also need one on the driver's side.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01N59YQB0?ie=UTF8

 

You need to add a resistor on the passenger side...

 

You need a resistor

 

Also post some output shots of the light output for us. We like pictures. Like a lot. Really a lot.

 

Also, I put that same brand of headlights in the high and low of a Nissan sentra. Been good so far. About two months right now

 

Thanks for the feedback! Resistor it is. I also post some pics of the light output. They’ve been a huge upgrade.

 

Rather than getting regular LED bulbs, I think Mini-projectors are the way to go. Here's some examples of how well they light up:

https://youtu.be/jotFAZcoiY4



Link: https://www.led-colight.com/product...-mini-projector-lhd-mode-led-headlight-bulbs?

 

I just with the cutoff was actually as clean as shown in that pic. Both of the popular mini projector brands I've found seem to have a pretty wicked purple/blue haze at the cutoff that's pretty aggravating.

Example over here, before I aligned and leveled, with a high/lo beam shot a reply or two after the linked reply:

https://www.tundras.com/threads/wha...-gen-tundra-today.2558/page-1586#post-3142167

Also seen with the CO bulbs in this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vDi-fIp0jkw

 

Would love to see some pics of how those headlights look on your truck! Need to order a new pair for mine soon. Saw that brand on Amazon, curious how it looks

 

I think I totally missed your 1st reply.

RE: Akkon - is there a reason you're buying blackout housings versus stock? My main recommendation is to only buy CAPA certified housings if you want any semblance of longevity out of them.

RE: Your issue - Obviously everyone covered it, but the need for resistors is one of many topics covered in this thread, which you may want to take some time to read, learn other quirks/details about your 1st gen.

Hopefully using a non-projector LED bulb in an OEM housing doesn't end up blinding others with the light scatter. It's super important to take time to confirm your headlight aim after, and new housings will require a full re-alignment/re-aim, every time, without fail. They're never set correctly from the factory, sheet metal is never exactly same truck to truck.

 

I have the resistors on both sides, got my fogs working again (also led) and got the high beam indicator back.

 

Just liked the way they looked on someone else’s build. Didn’t realize there are quality issues. I did read the thread… a few times, but that’s a lot to remember. I figured it was something like adding a resistor, but wanted confirmation. I’m new to this, so learning as I go.

 

I’ll snap some pics tonight.

 

Hellz yea

 

Any brand can be CAPA certified. Akkon may have a certified version.

 

What are some of the replacement headlight brands you recommend? I read the thread about avoiding parts from Amazon. Amazon has a slew of headlight replacement brands. Are you recommending avoiding any and all on Amazon? Or just to be weary of certain brands on Amazon? Thanks in advance.

*replacing my headlights is virtually the last thing on my list of cosmetic upgrades as of right now.

 

Here you go! Your pictures as promised. Low beams then high beams in both sets.

 

Just keep in mind that the cheaper brands are cheap for a reason. They won't throw light very well. I went cheap on my housings but did the mini projector mod and they do very well for me (because it no longer uses the built in reflector). If you want perfect with no fuss I'd say buy some OEM light housings and they'll last as long as what's on it. Just be prepared to spend the coin on them.

 

Those are the older co-light bulbs, mine are a newer model that they just released. Your blue line above the cutoff looks alot more severe than mine. They're also not $240, these are like $60.

 

I paid $30/bulb. But I bought new CAPA-certified housings at $85-90/ea to hack up for the bulbs b/c I didn't want to butcher my year-old $350 OEM housings on an upgrade I wasn't sure I'd like. $225-240 was my OTD price with tax ship etc.

 

I think you may be misinterpreting what folks are saying about scAmazon and fleaBay.

Buying brand name products on those outlets is an iffy endeavor. Especially if it's replacement parts, and it really doesn't matter whether it's auto parts, small engine parts, appliance parts, anything like that, if you're trying to get authentic OEM, you're going to get one of the following, and you have no idea which it'll be: Gray market product, Full-on counterfeit, non-OEM 'white box' alternative, or the authentic part. If counterfeit or white-box/generic, you may not even know, because counterfeit packaging and design has come light years from where it was, and some counterfeiters are actually sourcing assembly pieces from the OEM's sources to build their part. It's just not worth the risk.

Some legitimate name-brand companies started out as nobodies, like Vizio with their TVs. There are vendors on scAmazon who are similar, but most aren't, they come up with BS names in ALLCAPS that clearly nobody would ever protect/mark, sell their cheap product for 6-24 months, then switch names/branding and spin down the other business to avoid any warranty responsibility and/or hide in the event their product turns out to be garbage in the field - YOU the consumer are their guinea pigs in some cases. Often times the product they're selling is ripped from someone else's design, reverse engineered, and rebuilt with small changes.

For those ... If you ever find a product on scAmazon and want to know if it's a legitimate name-brand company you can potentially trust, you used to be able to go to Google and search up the manufacturer's name in quotations. If you don't find the company's website in the first 3 results, you're almost certainly buying from one of the 6-24 month fly-by-night companies and shouldn't trust the product. Many times, the top 3 results will be scAmazon's site and the top 10 will be link-referrers, websites that make their money optimizing for search engines to redirect you to scAmazon for a cut of the purchase. I'm not going to throw shade on anyone, SEO is a tough business, just saying, it's a sign.

(Sadly, it doesn't always work now, b/c some sellers now are spending a few bucks to host an authentic-looking business site while their product is sold just to look like it could be a legit business - even have carts - but simply hook back into scAmazon's site in many cases I've seen)

For things like automotive bulbs, let's be real. The CO bulb in the video above is the exact same bulb as the "BraveWAY" bulb I installed. I dug up hi-res pics of the CO fanless projector H4 bulb and held up my BraveWAY fanless projector H4 bulb, it's the exact same thing. Which tells me, like so many fly-by-night style products on scAmazon, those bulbs are being sourced from the same warehouse, but sold under different names. They're all packaged the same with the same foam inserts inside, but the printing on the box is different, and the cheap paper instruction insert may be slightly different. It's fine - you're getting what you're getting, just because it's cheap doesn't mean it sucks.

But for me, I'm not going to be going out and buying name-brand Hella or Sylvania automotive bulbs on scAmazon anymore because I don't want the risk of potentially getting fakes. A few folks on here have had it happen with spark plugs and even one person got fake Bilstein struts, the pics were hilarious. Counterfeits are rampant at any storefront that doesn't have control over their supply chain. scAmazon doesn't pay extra money to hire counterfeit-checkers for every load of inventory coming into their army of warehouses across the nation. It's no better than fleaBay either, they also can't control what XYZ storefront drop-ships to you if they choose not to use scAmazon's warehouses.

Organized crime has a lock on the counterfeit market, pushing product through popular sites, and they've got a well-designed system in place to exploit any storefront that allows direct-to-consumer and/or allows them to pump bogus inventory into someone's supply chain. scAmazon, fleaBay, WallyWorld, Sears, NewEgg, all of them (and more) are being exploited at the moment. And with scAmazon in particular, it doesn't matter if you go to the "Bilstein store" to buy your part. They're always going to give you the cheapest Prime option, unless you view their list of every vendor selling and pick your specific vendor, hoping they're actually who they say they are.

tl;dr - you do you. Just know the risks and be a smart consumer. scAmazon is basically AliBaba at this point.

 

Thank you for the follow up. It’s funny, they do put the brand name in all caps. Reviews on scAmazon from the poor souls who have purchased their housings all read the same; “doesn’t fit. Had to modify to make fit”. I would be mortified over that. I don’t mind some good old fashioned ingenuity when it comes to working on a vehicle, but I would never rest easy knowing that some part of my truck isn’t correctly aligned. Maintenance is just part of vehicle ownership, but I searched and waited for years to find the truck of my dreams, I want to put new headlights in it that A) are authentic and B) freaking fit.

*I can’t stress enough how much being a member of this site has helped in my journey with my truck. Thanks again

 

So the resistor did not fix the bright light indicator…It’s definitely a foreign made POS after handling it.

Will take @shifty` s advice and go with CAPA certified housing.

 

Did you go with a single resistor on one side, or one on both? A lot of folks find just installing onto one side will solve issues; sometimes two are necessary.

Housings wouldn't have any impact on this; it's purely the bulb in conjunction with the OEM circuit that causes issues with indicators, fogs, DRLs etc.

 

I tried multiple options. Started with the passenger side, then both, then drivers side. Nothing worked. Lights and brights still worked normally with the resistors plugged in, so it wasn’t a connection issue.

 

Super weird. That situation has happened before after LED headlight upgrade. But it's also happened after people upgraded the tail lights and had issues with the sockets IIRC.

 

Maybe its ur dash indicator bulb that is done for.

 

When I had HID bulb retrofits, the indicator worked with a resistor on the passenger side only. When I changed out the HID setup for LED bulbs, it worked the same, just the passenger side. When I did another retrofit using bi-led projectors, I ended up having to throw the second resistor in the driver side in order for everything to work properly. Meh.