headlights

A whole mess of us 2010 owners had to adjust our headlights up because they came from the factory very low. Pretty easy to make the adjustment. There is a DIY thread on this.

 

You don't want a ton of light on the road directly in front of you. You want to light mostly way out in front of you so you can avoid a possible collision. More light directly in front of the car only serves to decrease distance vision because it causes your retinas to contract.

If you need more illumination in general, put a set of aftermarket HIDs in your stock headlights. Use 4300K bulbs.

 

Any more info on this. I am ok with basic changeouts but am a far stretch from a mechanic. Is this doable for a novice?

 

Piece of cake. Especially if you don't use the extra wire harness.

There are install threads in the Modifications section.

 

Thanks a lot for the info. I have felt like my lights on my 2012 prius III were not bright enough for me.

 

So I've done some checking on how the Prius model III headlights work and here's a quick summary. I can go into more details but that is probably boring to most.

1) Prius model III is using a projector style headlight. This means the beams are concentrated through a lense similar to a flashlight. You will get a more focused beam than a reflector based with less light bleed.
2) The Prius model III also has a cutoff plate (as far as I can tell just short of taking it apart for a retrofit). This means anything above crotch level will be dark. Almost all HID system uses a combination projector with a cutoff plate to have a super focused beam that ONLY illuminates the ground
3) So once again without taking apart the headlight for a retrofit, from what I can tell, the projector lense is a clear lense. The beam is very focused with little to no light bleed due to a muddy lense. Because of this, Toyota installed a little wedge lightbulb above to help illuminate signs that would otherwise be dark below the cutoff line.

So with that said, you need to park your car on flat ground in front of a wall to determine if the beam should be moved higher or not.

So this is just a guess without knowing more of what issue you are having.

And please do not use HID kit in a projector based bulb. Though the beam is more focused, the light optics prevents it from being aligned well.

 

The wedge bulb is the parking light - it does not put out enough light to light anything. Above the cut off light bleed to satisfy DOT requirements is accomplished via fluted projector lenses.

I do not advise using HID kit in halogen housings, but, projector housing are much more forgiving than the reflector housings. Reflector halogen housing with HID kit is a big no no.

 

As for the flickering, maybe one of the bulbs is bad and fixin' to go? Park it in front of a wall or fence and watch it good, if you can reproduce it, take it back to the dealer.