My friend is in Japan and he is helping me with my shopping list for my GEN3 IV. He found some excellent condition JDM LED headlights for the car. I've seen some output shots of the US LED headlights and they don't seem to have a cutoff or a flare to the right for US roads. Would I have a problem with getting the JDM ones?
What makes you think that these headlights would be exempt from the laws that every other headlight in production are subject to? These pictures aren't great, but they seem to illustrate that they do have a directional cutoff. LED lowbeam observations | PriusChat The Toyota factory manuals also use the same adjustment guidelines for the LED's as the halogens.
The JDM headlamps are designed for vehicles that drive on the left as in the UK, NZ, and Australia. US headlamps fitted into a UK car would fail our yearly inspection (MOT) because of the beam pattern on low beam. Surely the same problem would arise if headlamps designed for use on the left side of the road are used on the right. We have this problem in the UK when driving in France, "only twenty miles over or under the English channel" and the rest of Europe where we have to fit beam deflectors to the front of the headlamps or risk a fine while driving in Europe. John (Britprius)
JDM headlights would have a pattern for RHD vehicles.... which 'technically' is not legal to be used here in the US... if we have something similar to UK's MOT the car would definitely fail because on the light pattern..... I have used JDM headlights on my Gen 2 and currently using JDM headlight on Gen 3.. and the light pattern is way different from the LHD fitted lights... what I did is adjust the lights to best illuminate the road without blinding oncoming vehicles... so far on two lane roads no oncoming vehicle have ever flashed their lights (hi beams) on me.... ..... and fingers crossed I have never been pulled over because of my headlights....
