The Morimoto XB Hybrid 12-15 LED headlight review

Morimoto XB Hybrid 12-15 Tacoma Headlights

These units are Morimotos 3rd LED headlight assembly for the Tacoma platform. You can see their v1 3rd Gen assembly posted here and the v2 version for 3rd Gen posted #4548 here. The 2nd Gen Tacoma units are different than their 3rd Gen Tacoma units, in that they call them 'Hybrid' lights, such that they still use incandescent bulbs for some functions and are not full LED like their 3rd Gen lights, however the critical components like headlight high/low and DRL are LED. Utilizing an incandescent signal rather than LED avoid issues with hyper-flash.





Stock low beam vs Morimoto LED


The Morimotos put down 60% improvement over stock


But note the color temp. These are not the higher quality 5500k emitters Morimoto usually utilizes and promotes for their color temp. These are a much higher and less desirable color temp using 7000k emitters, coming in at nearly 6900k. That is poor, very blue and very reflective and looks cheaper, not at all in line with Morimoto's brand.

Here is the $865 Morimotos vs $35 Philips GT200 +200 stock wattage bulbs


The Philips Racing Vision GT200 +200 bulbs come within about 2.2% of the peak performance low beam intensity output for about 4% of the cost, at also a much better color temperature.

However there is a major flaw in the low beam design. There is an absurd amount of uplight that appears beyond legal levels causing blinding glare to oncoming drivers.


This picture is taken from above the cut off, from the view of an oncoming driver. There should be mild uplight but no blinding glare above the cut off. The picture does not do it justice, it is blinding.


At first I thought this was some kind of attempt to fix the deficiency that their headlight products had lacked designed uplight like OEM. Then I realized it wasn't that at all, they used a near mirror gloss black surface immediately in front of and below the projector which redirects the projected light upward at oncoming drivers. This is a novice engineering mistake at best, the surface should at least have been matte to avoid reflection and never high gloss.



Compare to the 4runner OEM LED


The Morimotos mirror finish in close proximity to the projector create a very high intensity reflection. The OEM LED 4Runner lights move the surface away from the projector and use a matte fine texture coating to diffuse reflection, so the surface is illuminated but not reflective, resulting in no undesired reflected light patterns.

Low beam pulls 18.2w


Where the Morimotos really excel is the high beam performance. The pattern has a very focused high intensity down road punch right above the cut off for maximum distance projection with a nice soft flood outward to illuminate the greater area, this is a well designed high beam pattern. The high beam design is much better than the 3rd Gen Morimoto units. I'd easily rate this high beam as the best part of these lights.


Vs stock high beam pattern, with the halogens the low beam is turned off


Yeah, the high beam is that much ridiculously better.


19.6w high beam (after subtracting the low beam)


A nice feature improvement over stock is the Morimotos utilize both the high and low beam projectors on high beam, unlike OEM halogens which turn off the low beam.

Like other Morimoto headlights there are some questionable design choices. Turn the aiming screw more than 3 times and your headlights are broken. OEM headlights don’t function like that. While most are unlikely to encounter the issue a simple mechanical stop on the adjuster would solve the potential problem.


Again like the 3rd Gen, square breathers are used. Industry standard is round to prevent failure at corners. A white sticker is placed over the signal input, a nice QC touch to prevent debris in the headlight though seems unnecessary.


The legal stamping


Like 3rd Gen, not super impressed with build quality. You can see wires and plugs in the headlights assembly that would not pass in an OEM grade product. The projectors should be moved closer to the housing assembly so the gaps are not so large. Most observers won’t notice these very minor details though and it certainly isn’t noticeable standing back from the vehicle.


High beam has a huge gap


Running lights


Running light power draw



Combined running light + corner marker pulls 3.3w.

Ignore intensity as the distance is not standardized. But note color temp.


The running light/DRLs are ~5500k like most Morimotos products, but unlike the headlight LEDs in these assemblies.

Hard to photograph but the headlight output is definitely 7000k blue and does not match the 5500k DRLs.


The DRL pulls an impressive 26.8w. These are very bright. The camera was having issues with artifacts in the photo due to their intensity.



Of course it must be asked how does this compare to the 2nd Gen ultimate halogen upgrade? The Morimotos low beam does not outperform the Osram halogen upgrade.



The halogen numbers do not take into account boosted voltage from the standalone harness or the AGM voltage booster if applicable, which cause significant further gains to the halogen performance.

These Morimotos are no where near the 500% brighter that some misleading lighting vendors claim.

It is great to see a 2nd Gen LED headlight option but overall these assemblies are somewhat underwhelming. The low beam performance is better than stock but also achievable with a simple bulb upgrade, the color temp is way too high at near 7000k and far out of line with Morimotos brand standard of 5500k. A design mistake was made in the finish of the product, resulting in blinding reflected glare to oncoming drivers, and the 7000k color temp makes it worse. The headlights assemblies best feature is their outstanding high beam which is a massive improvement over stock, it would have been nice to see similar great results in the low beam.

 

And this is the only LED headlight option currently available for purchase for a 2nd Gen Tacoma as of today, yes?

 

Thank you sir!!!!! was thinking of getting these but maybe I’ll do some retros instead

 

Another honest, well written and hard hitting review that was well worth the wait. Thanks Crash! Despite the fact that they don't out-perform the Ultimate Headlight Upgrade - and risk blinding oncoming drivers - people will buy (AKA waste their money) in droves because "they look cool." Words fail me.

On the bright side, there will soon be numerous sets of perfectly good OEM 2nd gen headlights available for those wanting to replace oxidized originals.

 

Great review! Any way to remove the LED bulb and use an HID? It sounds like they used a regular HID projector instead of an LED projector.

 

Please tell me your not talking about where the turn signal goes

 

Correct, at least the only one from a reasonable quality brand.

No, the unit is sealed. You cannot change the light source with LED projectors.

LOL! OMG Facepalm. Yes. This is what happens when burning the entire candle at once and not just both ends. Interesting they put a sticker over the bulb entry point, I suppose it is a nice QC feature.

 

Interesting review, although you don’t even mention the DRL? Very surprised considering it’s one of the highlight features of this light. Super clean and amazingly bright.

 

It is mentioned it features an LED DRL, I could add a minor note on power draw with a DRL pic. All my reviews focus on pattern output performance, I don’t usually cover DRL, signals ect. Plenty of other reviews cover those basics.

 

Understood. I thought it would be worth some review in your write up, considering it is a very prominent feature of these lights.

 

Definitely like the look of the amber DRL, those look great. These units I have are the white DRL. I had ordered amber but then they were delayed with no timeline so I switched the order to white. Unfortunately it took quite a while for me to get around to reviewing these so I could have stuck with amber. I’ll add a DRL measurement and commentary about the DRL options to the review.

 

DRLs


Interestingly the corner marker is tied to the same circuit as the DRL.



Combined DRL + corner marker pulls 3.3w. I don’t have a lot of data for DRLs, the JW Speaker J3 headlight DRLs I run pull 5.4w in DRL alone for comparison.

Ignore intensity as the distance is not standardized. But note color temp.


The DRLs are ~5500k like most Morimotos products, but unlike the headlight LEDs in these assemblies.

Hard to photograph but the headlight output is definitely 7000k blue and does not match the 5500k DRLs.


Of course the DRLs are also available in amber where the color mis-match wouldn’t be a thing since they are distinctly different colors rather than both being different cool whites.

 

I know this is a terrible pic, but my corner marker light is definitely not tied in to my DRL. Now maybe that is different on the amber version, not sure.

 

Strange. These white units were in the first batch available, amber did come out a bit later. Hard to say if something changed or that is unique to amber. But on mine the side markers come on with the DRL.

 

My ambers came with an extra plug and harness with a fuse tap to power the drl with key on power at full brightness. Then when the stalk is turned to parking lights and headlights the drl dims

 

Do you have any more info/instructions you can share? Mine were out of the first shipment and did not include an extra harness or any instructions whatsoever. I'm curious if my DRL test is actually the parking light setting and there is a higher power DRL setting without the corner light.

Edit: The harness was in there. Just buried underneath the packing material.

 

https://www.morimotohid.com/core/me...-caprcuQ7TxsLNQNFGhpwtyQ0Ps2m0IZxqcTB02x8c_uu

These are the instructions off of Morimoto’s website. My ambers came with the extra wire and harness as well that was supposed to be tapped into the fuse for power. I ended taping into my Raptor lights harness instead. The DRL’s are crazy bright when everything is off on the stalk. The DRL’s are on all the time, and cannot be turned off without adding a switch. When you switch to DRL, nothing happens. When switched to parking lights, they dim and the side marker lights up along with the turn signal. Then obviously the headlights turn on when switched fully on to headlights.

 

my harness didn’t have connectors on it but I added a kill switch to it so I just cut it and put my own connectors on. It’s weird that not all the lights have the drl harness

 

Here we go, much better! The DRL pulls an impressive 26.8w. These are very bright. The camera was having issues with artifacts in the photo due to their intensity.



However Morimoto’s instructions provide a high beam aiming procedure rather than the appropriate low beam procedure. Following their procedure the headlights will be aimed too high and blind oncoming drivers. The headlight aiming should specify a specific drop at 25’. The following instructions should be used instead:
https://www.danielsternlighting.com/tech/aim/aim.html

Easiest way to adjust drop though is to change one headlight at a time and adjust the cut off to match the existing light (assuming the existing ones are aimed correctly).

 

Thanks crashnburn80 for your review on these headlights. While I'm not interested in buying them, I was anxiously awaiting your review on them.
Would it be correct to assume that changing the temp color would not be worth the effort? Also, could one open the housing and apply a matte surface to the existing gloss black surface fronting the projector to reduce the upward glare?