Part II: Installation and Initial Review of Valenti JDM full LED tail lamps from TWP

I have just my left (driver's side) Valenti unit installed at the moment as I am in the process of taking additional side-by-side photos/videos of the Valenti and OEM lights. Please post any special request(s) of side-by-side comparison that you'd like to see and I'll try to honor them before I install the passenger's side unit.

UPDATE: See my other post for tips to make the removal process 20 times easier as well as a method to remove the slip-lock retainer without breaking it.

Installation photos. I've annotated the steps within the body of the photos for easy identification.

















The installation process is fairly easy and straightforward, leaving the only hard part getting the OEM unit out. Unfortunately, Toyota has made it difficult to take out the OEM lights with the stubborn white plastic fasteners. I ended up breaking one of the two white fasteners and the other one came flying out intact. Like Calvin, I also partially broke the bottom retainer clip that slip locks into the bumper cover while pulling the OEM unit off the car. I tried installing the lamp without this bottom clip but there was too much play at the bottom. However, I was able to attach the bottom clip to the bumper cover first (snaps into place in the tabs within the bumper cover itself), then just lower the clip attacher (on the rear of the unit) onto the bottom clip. I was happy to find it's totally secure this way (despite one broken white fastener), with absolutely no play at all. The new lamp ended up fitting really well. The rest of the installation was a breeze though.


Out with the old...




...in with the new




Rear side-by-side comparison of Valenti and OEM units (FYI: I have the silver-coated Philips Silver Vision bulb in OEM turn signal to avoid the "fried egg" look). The red tail makes the rear end look not as tall and perhaps more balanced compared to the stock light.




Close up




It's nicely flush with the body line




You can judge the fit for yourself



I'll post more side-by-side pictures and videos in the next couple of days. In the meantime, if you see a major faux pas black Prius on the 110 that's me!

 

How much??? If I recall they were over $300.

IMO....not worth it at all.

 

Thanks for doing the write up.

 

The SB looks perfect with your rims! :thumb:

 

One-side shots





















Parked at work today. Can you spot the interesting one out of sameness?




More to come (side-by-side shots, lights in action and videos).

 

The HC tails look good on the black Prius. And the SB tails look good on the dark gray Prius, although I could see it looking good on a red Prius as well (with a sunroof & window tint for extra contrast), but that's just me.



32kcolors - I have a request for you, since it looks like you still have the US factory tail on the passenger side.

I'd like to see a video of the JDM tail and the US tail lit up to compare the brightness of both, but from a distance.... like 3-4 car lengths back, something what other drivers would see if they were behind you. I'd like to see the parking lights on, the brake lights on, and the hazards flashing. I'm not really concerned about the reverse lights as much, but more so the lights that drivers behind you would see.

I'm mostly curious about the lighting from that distance, in the following conditions....

- During the day under the direct sun light.
- At night in the dark, so see how bright they look compared to each other.
- At night with headlights shining on you from behind, like a car behind you on the road.


Ok, maybe that's a tall order to ask for. But I'm somewhat curious to know that the brake light and turn signal intensity will be enough for drivers behind you to see it, especially under the direct sunlight during the day.

 

Some side-by-side photos of the lights in action:


Inside garage, lights on




Nighttime, lights on




Daytime brake and reverse lights




Daytime brake, reverse and turn signals




Inside dimmed garage, lights on




Inside dimmed garage, lights on with turn signals




Backup camera (please excuse the crappy NAV screen with only 256 colors instead of 32K colors). The reverse light from the Valenti unit casts a bluish hue on the road. At least it matches my 6000K license plate LEDs




Backup camera with the brakes applied. There's a strong reddish hue coming from the Valenti brake light.




Showing this just because it's cool




To make Calvin feel better, my camera sometimes captures the yellow ends in the bars, which aren't visible to the human eye




Close-ups of the various lights in action. The one on the far right is especially for macmaster, who most properly asked what the heck are all three lights doing at once?




Videos forthcoming.

 

I'm not usually a fan of changing brake lights but damn those look nice!

 

Videos of Valenti and OEM lights side-by-side comparison:


The Valenti turn signal is in sync with the other turn signals. It's perfectly in sync with the LED turn signal mirror and the front turn signal (reflected in the opaque glass by the door). It has different characteristics from the OEM turn signal but is still in sync with it. This different characteristics will of course be a non-issue once the Valenti lamps are paired (assuming mine doesn't suffer from the hyper-flashing that Calvin has with his passenger's side lamp).

Daytime side-by-side comparison.

Nighttime side-by-side comparison. This video looks bad as the Valenti brake light bathes it with strong red light, thereby washing it out.

I've taken two nighttime videos per your request. Will try to do daytime tomorrow. The camera was about 4 Prius lengths back. Looks like at night from a distance the OEM parking light is stronger compared to Valenti and the brake lights/hazards/reverse are about the same.

-At night in the dark, to see how bright they look compared to each other

- At night with headlights shining from behind, provided by my RX350 HID headlights (uh-oh, a black cat crossed the road)

I think the HC model would look good on all the colors. It was in fact Calvin's second choice after SB. Both would look great on Winter Gray. I'm a big fan of solid red tails on red. If I had a Blizzard Pearl, I'd definitely get the SB tails (especially with SR) and fit it with gunmetal rims.

 

Daytime side-by-side video from 4 Prius lengths distance per SDM44's request. It was taken at 10 am, under direct sun light. It helped that it's street sweeping today so I had the road to myself

 

Thanks! That looks good. The LED turn signals appear to be just as bright (if not slightly brighter, depending on the conditions) on the tail lights, as that was my main concern when driving around in LA traffic. The only other concern would be the brightness of the brake lights, but it's obvious there's no problems there.


After you swap out the passenger side tail light, I'm wondering if you get the same fast blinker issue that HI MPG has. And if so, I wonder how the CF-018 relay will work (should cure the problem), and make sure that it doesn't affect the lock & unlock turn signal flashing.

 

Last set of side-by-side comparo before the passenger's side unit goes on!

Although the LED bars (the Valenti's parking lights) appear dimmer under certain conditions such as at night from a distance, they pose an advantage over the OEM lights in one area. The four LED bars (ignore the yellow ends in photos; they aren't visible in person) have a much wider viewing angle as illustrated below. The OEM individual LEDs are at their brightest when viewed head on and diminish greatly when you move away. The Valenti light bars are equally bright when viewed at all angles.

 

I've installed the passenger's side unit and in my limited testing so far, there's no hyper flash issue with the turn signal that Calvin is experiencing with his unit, indicating it's an isolated problem.

I also figured out a trick to make the removal process 20 times easier. As Calvin mentioned earlier, the OEM light is still held in place by 3 plastic fasteners/snap-ins (two white and one yellow) after you've removed the two 10mm nuts from the rear of the unit. The yellow fastener (at the top) is designed to hold the unit in place; however, the white fasteners appear to be primarily for anti-theft purposes. This is obviously to make it as difficult as possible to steal the LED lights as thefts of HIDs/LEDs have been prevalent in the past. The bottom white fastener (shown below) is particularly stubborn so what you need to do is take a regular plier and squeeze the end of it to collapse it. Don't worry about it becoming bottomed out as it's not necessary for stability. Once you do that, the unit comes out cleanly. You do not need to do the same with the top white fastener (which you can't really see) or the yellow one, both of which unfasten relatively easily.



Once you have the OEM unit out, take a small flat head screwdriver and insert it under the retainer clip as shown. Slowly and carefully pry upward and it'll pop right off. It snaps in place when you transfer to the new unit.



Installation finally completed.

 

Alright I'm definitely sold. I want the smoked lens lights more now that I initially did. My only concern is the fast flash issue. I've read about a replacement flasher relay to help solve this?

 

My units do not have the hyper flash issue so it's an isolated problem with Calvin's right unit rather than a production issue.