How-To: fix your Headlight and fog light aim!

[skierd]

I picked up my 2021 STX Tuesday night and like many of you I noticed immediately that the forward lighting isn’t great. IIHS rated the halogen headlights as Poor due to a lack of distance projection both down the road and to the sides.

Most people immediately think “These lights suck! Time to throw parts at it and try to fix it!” But what if they didn’t actually suck. What if they just weren’t aimed properly?

As delivered:

Lows only

Fogs and lows

High beams

Ok, let’s investigate. The standard for fog lights at our truck’s height says the cutoff should be 3” below the height of the bulb at 25 feet. I can only pull in 15 feet at my garage at work, but it’s clear the fogs are no where near 3” below the stock 24” light center!

Headlight aiming is explained in the owners manual, but basically the top of the hot spot should be at the same height as the lamp center at 25ft. On my truck that’s roughly 40”. Measure your truck, then measure to the top of the hot spot on the right side of the pattern. My trucks lights were at 38” at 15ft, also low.

Use these adjusters to put the headlights where the need to be with a #2 Phillips screwdriver

an example of how I made my aiming marks, bigger is more accurate but this worked for me.

the adjusters for the halogen fogs took a 1/2” wrench to adjust

Drivers adjusted fog, passenger as built

the results?

Fogs only:

Lows only:

High beams:

Without and with fogs, it’s hard to see in the photos but the fogs actually have some side projection now and somewhat help with corners. They are no where near as wide as the TRD Off Road fogs that were on my Tacoma, but it’s still useful.

I have no reason to believe similar improvements can’t be made with LED equipped trucks, but I don’t have one so I can’t say.

I will say that I am more than pleasantly surprised at how much better the headlights work now, to the point that I think I’ll be fine without auxiliary lights once I upgrade the stock long life type bulbs with high performance halogens:
Fogs: stock 9140 40w ~600 lumens to H10/9155 55w ~950 lumens
Low beams: stock H11 ~1100 lumens to Phillips standard H9 bulbs trimmed to fit ~2200 lumens
High beams: stock 9005 bulbs ~1800 lumens to Phillips standard 9011 ~2350 lumens

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[Graygoose2021]

awesome write up!!!!!

 

[RLTW175]

Very instructive, thanks for that. I had to adjust my headlights after levelling the truck. Had no clue you could adjust the fogs, but I'll be doing that this week. Because they are essentially useless as aimed now.

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