Headlight opinions wanted

Halogen would be cheapest overall. LED is also an option but you would need a replacement his headlight. No insurance?

 

My sensitive eyes would greatly appreciate one less pair of overly-bright headlights blinding me at night...

 

They are adjusted for that. It’s the idiots that put conversation kits in their cars that are the problem. Plus you sit low in a Prius. I have that problem far less when I drive my 4 Runner or Tacoma at night.

 

Seems that the the newer the car, the brighter and more dangerously irresponsible this hazard gets... If we had legitimate laws, overly bright headlights and tail lights on many new vehicles wouldn't be allowed.

Of course when I complain of being nearly blinded by other vehicles, everyone always argues it's my fault because I drive a Prius and if I just drove a giant 18mpg clunky pile of 2-ton garbage that sits higher all my problems would be solved. So sick of my eyes hurting from all these bigger and brighter is safer fools. It's not safer. It's a hazard!!!

 

You do know that some of that is actually aging eyes don’t you?

 

The factory hid housings do not blind people. The direct the light with a nice sharp cut off that should be below the level of your bumper. That's you want any new car as well if you're finding the headlights to be blinding it's probably your eyes. People that retrofit HIDs into halogen housing can cause glare. But it sort of depends on the housing. Some control the light output much better than others. The Prius is one such vehicle I run aftermarket HIDs and mine and have very few problems. The only issue I've ever run across is as I'm passing a semi truck there is a light beam that goes right up to their driver side mirror. I don't know what the source is but it doesn't seem to bother other people in cars.
You can look on Google and find a replacement housings for 120 a pair. The Factory hid housings are harder to come by. you could replace both with a cheaper halogen housing and put a quality LED bulb in it. That should provide good output but to get quality LED bulbs that are not going to Blind anybody and actually put out more light than the halogen bulb you probably going to spend 250 bucks for the bulbs.

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I might add that if you get a quality set of aftermarket housings. You could put HIDs in it and you should get very good light output. I can tell you my halogen housings with HIDs in them is brighter than my friends Factory hid lights in his Prius. The reflectors are almost identical but not quite there is some difference in the scalloping inside the reflector. I've had very good luck with HID kits from DDM Tuning. I bought the cheap ballasts and the cheap bulbs. and I bought the most expensive ballast and most expensive bulbs. The only real difference I can see is the come-up time is faster on the expensive ballast and bulbs and they are brighter. However I've actually had more reliability out of the cheaper bulbs. I've got a set in my car that are 5 plus years old. And they're not expensive so if you do get a failure it's cheap enough to replace. I've never had a ballast failure it's always been a bulb. Good luck on your search.
Here is a link to a company that sells a variety of housing. I'm considering the ones that are black and out on the bottom. I bought a set of projectors that you can put inside a halogen housing. That should make a better output and a nice sharp cutoff and eliminate any glare. But you could put any kind of bulb you want in these and it should work okay just pick the style you want.
They even sell us at that are HID projector there bit expensive

2008 Toyota Prius Custom & Factory Headlights – CARiD.com


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I hope you are not angry with me bro. All I said was I have less of that same problem when I drive my 4 Runner or Tacoma. If you read my post I never argued or placed any fault on you. I have the same issue when I drive my Prius, I was just pointing out the lower seating position adds to the problem. Perhaps where you live the roads don’t flood, where I live in the country they do. There is no way I could drive a Prius through the roads I drive to work. Sometimes people need more than 1 vehicle for valid reasons. Could I tow my 18 foot fishing boat with a Prius? When I go skiing is not my 4 Runner not a better option?

 

No issue with you... I was mostly thinking of all the annoying people who will blame overly-bright headlights on everything else other than overly-bright headlights. Happens every time I post my headlight opinions... So my edge was due to that, not you...

 

I suffer from the same affliction as you my friend. The 2 things that help are wearing my long vision glasses that I don’t need to pass my drivers test or yellow driving glasses at night. Just getting older I guess. The long distance glasses really help at night in the rain

 

While that is *mostly true* and are typically the worst offenders of the "blinding headlights" phenomenon, even OEM installations can be pretty bad. Reason? Federal laws that are myopically stupid regarding lighting. The OEMs will beg and plead for regulation changes for STYLING, but they generally don't give a damn about lighting QUALITY. Add to that the fact that HIDs must be "attitude adjusted" to account for vehicle loading/angle to help prevent severe glare, many of the systems are woefully ineffective and the regs only apply to HIDs. So if you have, as many late-model vehicles do, high intensity LEDs, the adjustment requirement does not exist.

Now lets go way off into the weeds and add to the conversation that there is no requirement to KEEP headlights properly aimed, none at all. A few states check it, most do not and almost no one even knows how to do it today. I used to be a standard thing to check alignment at PDI and every couple years, not any more.

My suggestion is QUALITY LED conversions to Halogen buckets if you drive a lot at night at high speeds. If you are the average driver, as we are, good Halogens would be my first choice in your situation. I HATE HIDs!

 

The problem is finding a quality LED conversion. A lot of them are not any brighter than the halogens and a lot of them don't have better light control either and you end up blinding people just as badly. If you buy a decent HID bulb that has the proper shield in front of it. The beam pattern is very close to the stock halogen. However they are significantly brighter. And if you look at a stock halogen bulb there are flares to go up and out to the sides and top. When you put a significantly brighter bulb in there such as an HID those flares end up being significantly brighter also and can cause some problems. It all depends on the housing. Somehow things from the factory are pretty crappy at like control anyway even with halogens. Then you throw an HID in there and it's really really bad. I can tell you the Prius has pretty good reflectors in there to do an HID conversion. As long as you buy a ball that has the proper shield in the front of the bulb it should put the white in the same location as the factory incandescent halogen did. Or very very close to it. All of you DDM tuning HID kits now are made this way and the Bulb Moves In and Out for high-beam low-beam switching witch again puts the light pretty much where it's supposed to be.
I've been running their HID kits for a long time I pass safety inspection with them and very very rarely does anybody flash me.

Bulb should look like this one I posted..

You can see the shield the covers the front and the gate on the bottom to control the light output.

You can buy a cheap kit from them and try it out. I've had pretty good luck with both light output reliability and not blinding people.

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I was able to find some mount part #s at http://parts.toyota.com for our v.