Installation Time
(approx) 1 Hour
Difficulty Level:
Simple installation for anyone.
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Merideth: If you're looking for a premium upgrade in lighting performance for the front end of your Tacoma while getting a sleek look in the meantime, these Morimoto XB Hybrid LED Headlights with the Black Housing and the Smoked Lens will be a great choice for your 2012 to 2015 Tacoma. Now, these headlights will feature a projector LED light that's a big upgrade from the factory. Great for you guys out there that are not really happy with your factory lighting and are searching for a headlight that's much brighter and will offer some better visibility, especially when driving at night. Not to mention, these will be incredibly sleek with the black housing and the multi-projector setup, which will add a premium look to the front end of your truck while also being great for the Tacoma owner who's in search of a headlight that's more on the blacked-out side for more of a blacked-out look.Now, this set will also have an LED light bar daytime running light up at the top and down at the bottom, making you more noticeable on the road, and of course, just upgrading the front-end styling just that much more. When it comes to the construction, these will have a UV-coated, lightly smoked polycarbonate lens for good durability, especially if you take your truck off-road and they will be weather sealed to make sure that nothing's going to get in and fog up the lens or harm the LEDs inside. Now, not only the housing being a big upgrade here, but this will have multiple projector lenses again paired with the LEDs that'll optimize your lighting performance, creating a more uniform light pattern or beam pattern compared to an incandescent bulb. Now, this will require you to swap over your halogen turn signal, however, with the upgrade in housing it will appear a little bit brighter and more noticeable because of the reflector on the inside. Not to mention, this is a completely plug-and-play setup taking all the question out of the install and making it very straightforward all while being DOT-approved.When it comes to price, these will come in at right around the $950 mark, making these a more affordable choice for an LED headlight compared to some of those very premium choices. Now, what I will say is that you are saving a couple of bucks considering that this is the hybrid version where Morimoto kept the same turn signal as the factory one but upgraded the rest to LEDs. Now, you are still getting outstanding lighting performance with the projector lenses and you'll get that crisp and clear daytime running light that not every single choice has. Nonetheless, I think this is a great choice if you don't mind compromising a little when it comes to the features, but you really want a premium setup at the same time without completely breaking the bank. Install will be a one out of three wrenches on the difficulty meter, taking you about an hour to get the job done with some basic hand tools. At this point, we can head over to the shop and check out a detailed breakdown of what that install looks like. That's gonna wrap it up for me. Let's go ahead and jump into it.Man: The tools you're gonna need for this installation include an electric or regular ratchet, flathead screwdriver, 10-millimeter shallow and deep sockets, a 10-millimeter wrench, preferably a ratcheting wrench, trim removal tool, a pop clip removal tool, needle nose pliers, diagonal cutters, and a circuit power tester. How's it going? Today we have a set of headlights that we're gonna install in our Tacoma and we previously got the uninstall footage, so we're gonna show you that first. Then I'll be back to show you how to install the aftermarket headlights step-by-step.Woman: All right. So, the first step in our install, we're gonna remove several pop clips on each side of the grille to remove the grille itself. With a pop clip removal tool or a trim panel removal tool, go ahead and remove the pop clip. Remove the pop clip on the other side as well. At this point, you can remove two 10-millimeter bolts holding on the top of your grille. At this point, we can remove our grille, pull up on the plastic brackets on top, and then grab your grille and pull straight forward to release all the clips. All right. So, at this point, we're gonna remove the trim piece beneath the headlight. In order to do this, we're gonna grab a trim panel removal tool and if you're worried about scratching your paint, you can throw a bit of painter's tape on the end here. To release the tab, go on the top here. You're gonna look for a green pop clip and if you press on the back of the pop clip, it will release the tab. To release the back of this trim piece, put your pop clip in the end and twist forward because the clip goes in this direction.At this point, you can remove the 2 10-millimeter bolts holding on the top of your headlight. All right. So, there is one more bolt that we do have to remove, which is a bit hard to get to. It's right about here on the bottom of your headlight. And the way we're going to access this is remove two bolts underneath the wheel well liner and one screw in the side of it. With a 10-millimeter socket, remove the two bolts underneath your bumper. At this point we're also gonna remove a pop clip with a stubby flathead screwdriver, twist it to remove. With that clip removed, peel back your wheel well liner, and now you should be able to access the bolt by going in through here to the back of the headlight. All right. Now with the wheel well liner back, you can see this bolt. You might have a little trouble seeing it on camera here, but you can feel the one that you have to remove. We're gonna grab a 10-millimeter socket and a ratchet and we're gonna go ahead and get it out.With all the bolts removed, we're now gonna release this tab here. You can do this by hand or if you like, you can do it with a flathead screwdriver and you're just gonna pry forward. Release the two tabs at the top as well. Again, you can just lift up or if you have a flathead, just pry it off. Now that the headlight is released and loose on your truck, we're gonna disconnect each of the connectors at this point. Go ahead and pull each of them off. There should be three, one main and then two marker lights. And there's one a little bit farther forward up here. Now that everything is released and your headlight's disconnected, it's a matter of wiggling the headlight and maneuvering it in just the right way for it to come out.Man: We're back to show you how to do the install, but before we do that, there is one more piece we have to take off of our truck before we can get started on our new headlights. And it's this small bracket right here, so let me show you how to do that, and then we'll get started with our new headlights. Now, to remove this bracket, we're gonna need our 10-millimeter ratcheting wrench here in order to remove the screw that holds this in place. And it's impossible to see on camera, especially from this angle. But if you reach your hand behind the bracket here and underneath the bumper support, you'll be able to feel it and it's right about here behind the bumper. So, get your ratcheting wrench on it, and take that out. All right. So, there's a screw. Once that's out, we're also gonna need our flathead screwdriver here. You just wanna pull up on the bracket a little bit to get underneath because there's a tab that's holding it into our bumper support. So, I'm just pushing in the [inaudible 00:08:22] in order to get this free. So, just take your time. Do it slowly so you don't break the tab that's on the bottom of this bracket and you also may be able to reach underneath and depress the tabs as well.Once that tab is free, what you have to do is just pry the bumper forward a little bit so that you can get it clear of the bumper and the bumper support. So, here is the tab I was speaking about and these are the [inaudible 00:08:58] on the sides that you have to depress in order to pull it up. Now, before we put our new headlight into our Tacoma, we do have to take one piece off of our factory headlight and that's the turn signal bulb and socket so that we can transfer it over to our new headlight. So, if we take a look at the back of our factory headlight here, you notice that we got several sockets, two sockets actually, and our bulb here. The only thing we're concerned about is the turn signal bulb and socket, which is right here. So, to get that out, simply twist it counterclockwise and then pull it straight out. Now we can transfer it over to our new headlight.So, on the back of our new headlight, it is set up a little different but if you look at it this way, this is the bottom half. So, I'm gonna flip it over just for reference. So, this is actually the bottom of the headlight here and that's where our turn signal bulb is gonna go. So, line up the tabs here accordingly with the slots in the hole and there is one tab that's bigger than the others. So, once you locate that, you can slide it into place and then turn it clockwise and you're good to go. Now we can start putting our headlight in here on the driver's side, and at this point, it's a good idea to grab a microfiber cloth or something to protect the lens of the headlight from the fender here. So, when we're putting our headlight in, we wanna put this lower right mounting point into the hole first and then our next line of business is to get this low enough so that we can get the top of the headlight housing here underneath our RAD support. So, there is some maneuvering we have to do with the headlight. So, if you can see, I had to angle it out away from the bumper in order to get the upper portion of the headlight in.Once we have the upper portion of the housing in, go ahead and lift the bottom portion of the headlight and get it over the bumper here. So, now what I'm doing is just lining up all the mounting points with their appropriate holes. Last thing you wanna check on your headlight as far as the mounting position is the lower left bracket here. Make sure that it's in its slot down here. Make sure it's lined up and then you can push it and you can hear it so that you know that it clicks into place. Now, let's get a hold of the headlight harness as well as the factory harness. And we're gonna be plugging in the main headlight harness on our new headlight as well as the turn signal. The other one will be left open and then the other connector here for our new headlight, I'll show you that in a little bit but that's gonna connect our two headlights together. So, this is our headlight harness here and this is our factory harness over here. So, we're gonna take our headlight connector, match it up with the three prongs and slide it together. You can also slide this protective sleeve over the connector a bit just to give it a little extra weather protection. Just make sure it's seated properly after you do that.Next, we can take our marker bulb connector here and just line up the keyed portions of the connector. As you can see, it has a ridge here which lines up with this slot in the connector and then get a little audible click so you know that that's good. This part of our headlight harness here, we're gonna leave open for now. This actually connects this headlight to the other headlight, so I'll explain that later. Then lastly, our turn signal connector here just gets connected to our socket that we installed on our headlight and that's right down here. I know it's hard to see or not able to see it on camera, but as you recall, bottom right of the headlight. Since we're here at the top of the headlight, we might as well go ahead and put in the two bolts that secure the top two brackets here. So, go ahead, grab the factory hardware and your 10-millimeter socket and put these in place.At this point, we're gonna go ahead and put our trim bracket back in place. So, we're gonna line up our tab here on the bottom of the bracket with the hole in our bumper support and then screw it into place using our 10-millimeter socket. All right. So, we're at the bottom left of the headlight here. Right here is our bumper support where our bracket goes. So, just like before, you just wanna pry on the bumper a little bit just so you can slip the bracket behind. Make sure that this bracket is in front of the headlight. Then line up the tab with the hole in the bumper support and push it down to click it into place. Now we can put our screw behind here and secure it down. All right. Now that we got our bracket in place, let's go ahead and put our screw in, and we're gonna be using our 10-millimeter ratcheting wrench. So, we might have to reach in from the other side just to grab the screw, get it in a couple of threads by hand. Then I'm actually gonna take my ratcheting wrench around this bracket right here and we're good to go.Now we're by the driver's side front fender here and we're gonna get under our fender liner here and reattach our last screw for our headlight. And then we're gonna put the fender liner back and reattach the factory hardware. Go ahead, grab your factory headlight bolt here and your 10-millimeter socket. I'm gonna show you where this goes. Now, I know you can't see it on camera, but this is the same bolt that we removed from our factory headlight in order to get that out. So, this is the bolt we're replacing, putting in our new headlight. So, if you kind of follow the in between the fender liner and the bumper and reach up, you'll feel a little hole and that's where the bolt goes and connects to the headlight. Now we're gonna go ahead and put our fender liner back in place. Now, there's one thing I do have to call out that during the uninstall you probably saw a plastic push clip coming out with a flathead screwdriver, but somewhere along the line our Tacoma got...that push clip got replaced with a metal screw. So, I'll be putting that in here with our 10-millimeter socket. But if you still have the plastic push clip, you can go ahead and use your flathead screwdriver and after you put the push clip in, just turn it clockwise in order to secure it in place.So, we have 1 10-millimeter screw up here and then 2 that are gonna reattach our fender liner at the bottom. All right. Let's pull our fender liner back down and push it into our clips here. And just for reference, we are underneath the bumper here, reattaching the fender liner. Once you have it in place, go ahead and put in the 2 bolts and these will get tightened down with our 10-millimeter socket. All right. Now we're behind the bumper and next to the wheel again here and we're gonna secure our fender liner down here in this hole. Now, again, just to reiterate, you might have a plastic push clip which you would just push in through here and then take your flathead screwdriver, turn it clockwise to lock it down. I however have a 10-millimeter screw. So, therefore, I'll be using my 10-millimeter socket.Now we're gonna put our headlight trim back in place right here below our driver's side headlight. So, for the trim piece, as you can see there's a slot on the right end of it and this tab here on the fender goes into there. Once that's in place, then we can push our plastic push clip in through our bracket. All right. And that completes the install process for the driver's side headlight. For the passenger side headlight, just repeat the same steps. Once you've repeated the steps and you have both headlights installed, at that point, we can reinstall our grille. One thing I wanna mention before we put it in is just make sure your tabs here on the bottom of the grille are lined up with the holes in the bumper. All right. Once you have all the tabs lined up, make sure that this guiding pin here is also lined up with the hole in the headlight housing, and you can push it into place. Make sure all your holes are lined up at the top for the mounting and we'll take care of that next.To secure the top of the grille, we have 2 plastic push clips and 2 bolts that get tightened down with a 10-millimeter socket. Push clip number one goes here, and bolt number one goes here. Then bolt number two goes on this side, and the second plastic push clip goes right here. At this time, we're gonna connect our wiring harness here, the extension that comes with the kit. And as you can see, it has two black plugs on it and these go to the connectors, one on each light. Once we have those connected, then we're gonna find a good place in our fuse box here to plug our fuse adapter into. As you can see on our harness extension, we have one of the plugs that has one wire coming off of it and another has two. So, we're on the passenger side headlight right now and we're gonna connect the one connector that only has one lead coming off of it to the black plug that's coming off of our headlight.Now we're gonna move over to the driver's side and plug this one in. Now that both of our headlights are plugged into our harness, we can go ahead and find a good spot in our fuse box to plug in our fuse adapter. We're at the fuse box right behind the battery here. So, we're gonna take the lid off by depressing this tab back here. Then we can pry away from the front side. Once that's out of the way, we have access to all our fuses here and we have to find a fuse that has power with the key on, but no power with the key off. So, right now the key is off and I'm gonna use my test light here to check for power. So, connect it to the negative battery terminal. It's best to probe both sides of the fuse. And as you can see, there's no power. Now just to show you that it does have power with the light or with the key on. So, you just have to put the key in position two and probe again. And as you can see, now we have power. So, we know this is a good spot. So, we're gonna pull this fuse out and put our terminal adapter, or excuse me, our fuse adapter in place.So, with a pair of needle nose pliers, you can go ahead and grab the top of this fuse, pull it straight off of course with the key off at this point. Once you have that off, grab your fuse adapter here, and put it in its spot. You can route the wire so you can close the lid. But once that is done, last thing you have to do is just route the wire, make sure it's zip-tied out of anything that's hot or sharp.That's gonna wrap up this review and install of the Morimoto XB Hybrid LED Headlights with the Black Housing and Smoked Lenses for the '12 to '15 Tacoma. Thank you for watching, and for all things Tacoma, keep it right here at extremeterrain.com.
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Features, Description, Reviews, Q&A, Specs & Installation
Brand | Morimoto |
Headlight Type | Projector |
Headlight Housing Color | Black |
Headlight Lens Color | Smoked |
Headlight Style | Aftermarket Style |
Fitment:
Morimoto LF529
CA Residents: WARNING: Cancer and Reproductive Harm - www.P65Warnings.ca.gov
Installation Info
Installation Time
(approx) 1 Hour
Difficulty Level:
Simple installation for anyone.
What's in the Box
10 More Questions