Xtreme Pro LED review: 5th gen housings cause poor lighting performance even after upgrade

TLDR: I rate the Xtreme Pro LEDs a 2 out of 5 (for the 4Runner), due to poor performance under real-world conditions given the high price. I do not recommend this LED upgrade if you must have a significant increase in visibility.

New 2019 limited owner here with some OCD tendencies regarding lighting. I believe the 5th gen headlight housings cause poor lighting performance regardless of the type of bulb.

The 4runner’s stock halogens are miserably bad with poor brightness, breadth, strange focus and pattern, and lighting distance. With the stock halogen fogs also on at the same time, the lighting is merely on par with any other car’s headlights alone.

I have tried at least a dozen LED headlight kits and I finally found the Hikari Ultra 12000 ($90) to be the absolute best (5 out of 5 stars). Those are currently in my 2019 Honda Odyssey, and are as bright as HIDs that I’ve had in the past on a previous car.

After getting the 4Runner, I was eager to test the Hikari from the Honda, only to find that the Hikari Ultra (as well as just about every decent LED) will not fit into the 4Runner housing due to a fat fan/heat sink base that hits the housing due to a very strange sideways headlight bulb insertion. Why would Toyota make the headlight insertion sideways, when the DRL is standard forward facing???

I then had to research what would actually fit and found that only the Xenon Depot Xtreme Pro LED ($120) would fit easily due to the fact that it has no fan and pliable thin aluminum strips as a heat sink. I was hopeful because each Xtreme Pro LED bulb contains 6 Philips LUMILEDs (3 on each side), just like the Hikari Ultra 12000. After getting them to fit and orienting the LEDs properly horizontally, I was initially impressed (because anything is better than the stock halogen). I was also convinced by this YouTube review of the Xtreme Pro LED which stated that the LED output is 3x versus the stock halogens in a laboratory test - https://youtu.be/OUwp3HkYiqw.

However, after driving through light rain, snow flurries, and oncoming traffic headlights, I found that these LEDs are extremely weak overall. The light wasn’t smooth or wide, and there were dark gaps. Any areas outside of the very bright center focus points were quite dim—on par with the halogens. In rain with wet roads, the light was extremely difficult to see (which is similar to most LEDs—except for the Hikari Ultras in my experience). With light from oncoming traffic, these LEDs provided very little forward visibility. They were also completely overpowered both (1) by stock halogen lights from cars that passed me in the fast lane and (2) overhead street lamps.

I then re-inserted the halogens out of frustration and took pics. I saw that the halogens were even worse than I remembered, since I only used them for one night after I bought the 4Runner. After re-installing the Xtreme Pro LEDs, I saw that they were indeed brighter, in the center at least, and less so in the surrounding areas. However, the same problems still plagued these LEDs making them weak overall.

After nearly two hours messing with light bulbs on a cold night with snow flurries, I arrived at the conclusion that the 4runner’s housing and sideways bulb may be what causes poor lighting from both the halogens and these Xtreme Pro LEDs.

Overall, the Xtreme Pro LEDs are a very minor upgrade to the stock 4Runner halogens. The center focus points are quite bright, but the surround areas are about the same as the halogens, but with far less visible contrast. In cases of rain and wet ground, or bright headlights from opposing traffic, you will see less overall with these LEDs than with the stock halogens unfortunately.

Conclusion: I reluctantly decided to keep the Xtreme Pro LEDs because (1) I am hoping that after I install LED OEM fog lights, the total forward-facing light output will be satisfactory, (2) I don’t want to have to mess with dead halogen bulbs ever, and (3) there is a no return policy on this $120 product and I refuse to spend any more money unless I'm 100% sure of a huge visibility improvement.

Let’s all hope that the next gen 2022/2023 4Runner will have stock LEDs.


Note 1: The Xtreme Pro LEDs would not even turn on when attached to my Honda for some reason, despite that they use the same H11 bulb, thus I could not test if the Xtreme Pro LED could produce the same incredibly bright, wide, far and smooth light as the Hikari Ultra 12000 LEDs in my Honda.

Note 2: I hate HIDs, and will never consider them again because I have wasted so much money and time buying and replacing HID bulbs/ballasts that kept failing over the past decade. These ballasts also likely damaged the electrical system of my old car to the point that all types of bulbs are extremely dim.

Note 3: The pics I attached below show far better brightness and visibility than in-person, due to the iPhone 11's night mode--the dark areas in the light output are reduced by the iPhone camera software. The point of these pics is to show the minor brightness improvement from stock halogen to Xtreme Pro LED (after the LEDs are aligned properly. Without proper alignment, these LEDs will be unusably bad).

 

My Morimoto 2Stroke 2.0 in the lows are great and im running the Xenon depot Extreme Pros in the highs. Im extremely happy with that comb .

 

I wish could have tried the morimoto low beam. At this point, I'm unwilling spend yet another $120 for low beams, when I still need to get the LED fogs, which I think should help visibility a lot. How do they fare in rain and wet ground as well as other real world conditions? I'm sure they are bright in a lab, just like the Xtreme LED Pros, but real world is a whole different story.

 

I put H11 LED bulbs in my fogs along with Yellow Lamin-X

 

Why not instead of limiting yourself to the stock halogen projector, just do a retrofit?

 

Oh good idea. I should try that

 

More $$$ I'm unwilling to spend plus my own laziness

 

If your interested here's some oem led fogs...just did a price drop
https://www.4runners.com/threads/oem-black-led-fogs.12021/