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LED Conversion issue

Discussion in 'Gen 2 Prius Technical Discussion' started by MCCOHENS, Oct 6, 2022.

  1. MCCOHENS

    MCCOHENS Member

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    The halogen bulbs just plain suck, so on recommendation of others I bought a H4 beamtech bulb. But the existing halogen bulbs are 2 wire and these new bulbs are 3 wire. The high/low seems to be just the shield in the headlight moving. What am I missing?
     
  2. Tombukt2

    Tombukt2 Senior Member

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    I am totally confused I own a Gen 2 with halogen headlights and halogen bulbs. When I change to the beam tech s ones all I did was take the H4 bulb halogen incandescent whatever out of my housing left the housing in the car plugged in the beam tech s ones and put the H4 socket onto the three prongs of the beam tech LED bulb turned on the lights saw that I had low beam hit the high beam saw that the high beam lit up turned them off did the right side. Point blank now on the 05 with HID I removed the HID housings from the car and I bought halogen housings beamtech S1 H4 bulbs and then wired up H4 sockets to the car wiring on each side of the car maybe that's what you have going on here I don't not sure how this has happened I'm not sure what other kind of bulb they would have had in place so the halogen H4 bulbs you took out of your regular halogen housing should have been metal three-prong H4 bulbs? H4 is a standard they don't make a two-prong and a three-prong H4 the two prong would be something else like a 9006 or whatever so I'm totally confused by what you're describing I own both cars a tourer w hid. Non Tourer w halogen H4 factory . It's the generation 3 that has the funny business like h8 and h11 or something kind of like my motorcycle but I thought the Gen 2 was 3 prong H4 halogen or HID which has no prongs? Now you got me confused I got to go out and look at the car because I haven't looked at this since I put them in the minute I got the car.
     
  3. PriusCamper

    PriusCamper Senior Member

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    You're missing a wire... I wonder where it went? Standard Prius Halogen Type 9003 have 3 pins on the back. The plug that plugs into your halogen bulbs is the same plug that plugs into your LED bulbs, unless you bought the wrong bulbs. You want to buy LED bulbs that are compatible with 9003 bulbs/plugs.
     
  4. dolj

    dolj Senior Member

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    It sounds like you have HID headlight housings. These have a moving shield to provide the high/low beam function. Halogen enclosures have no shields.

    H4 bulbs (aka 9003 and HB2 by Toyota) do indeed have 3 tabs on them that match to a 3-wire plug.

    Fairly sure HID wiring is different, so maybe somebody has monkeyed with your headlights.
     
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  5. MCCOHENS

    MCCOHENS Member

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    dolj, yes that is the correct answer. I was totally confused and could not find information that helped. But after opening up the housings and seeing the little "umbrella" move it became obvious. Some previous owner cheaped out when there was an issue and put in some crappy fog light bulbs, hence the 2 wires only.
    I suspect any HID to LED conversion is hampered by the "umbrella" and new housings is the best solution. Even more frustrating after spending an hour refinishing the durn things!
     
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  6. ChapmanF

    ChapmanF Senior Member

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    Shouldn't they just have HIDs in them?

    Seems odd that crappy (incandescent?) fog light bulbs were able to work.
     
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  7. Tombukt2

    Tombukt2 Senior Member

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    I'm not even sure how they got any of this to work you wouldn't have high beams with the two wire or like you said these must be factory HID that you cleaned up. And now I'm guessing you're going to change those to halogen housings and then the H4 bulbs will twist right in and you will wire the H4 bulb sockets to the car wiring which is kind of like under the headlight you'll find three wires on each side and you're going to wire them to the H4 socket like the ones pictured that I can't post that came off my '05 and worked perfectly I do not know about all the resistors and relays as the cob LEDs are going to use less energies than the HIDs so the relay in the HID system should be plenty sufficient. Oh well