I have a 1995 4Runner and a 2003 4Runner and i travel through a area overun with deer and its sometimes also very foggy to the point that ya cant see the side of the road because they dont mark it with white lines.i have already bought toyota original brand new fog switches for the 1995 4Runner and will buy the right switch for the 2003 .i need to know what is the standard by which other lights are measured by as in is who is the best most rugged leakprrok brightest and durable light.i am familiar with hella lights i had a set on all three of my 1985 dodge omni glh's . I will be mounting my lights to my bumber for now since there are holes there and a pair of broke cateye crappy lights that dont work.but i have considered a new light bar with an area for a warn winch in the future. pleas any help would be greatly appreciated.
Happy Trails
Rick Wallace

 

You need to remember that fog lights and driving lights are two different creatures. A fog light it designed to be mounted low so it can undercut the fog and generally has a shorter, wider beam pattern. Driving lights usually mount higher (not always, though) and provide a longer pattern.

You can go with Hella, PIAA, Lightforce or a dozen other brand names and get good results. It comes down to how much cash you want to lay out. I am intrigued by the PIAA P3000 Tri-Beams, personally, but they run about $270+ on eBay.

 

IMO the Hella 500 series are some of the best bang for your buck. You get a decent lense pattern (glass lenses) and ABS housings (durable), the stock 55w bulbs are great and you can easily bump them to 100w.

I would also recomend you buy a really good set of bulbs for your headlights. I run hella 80/100w Xeon blue (white light) bulbs. Very good output.

 

hella 700ff with 100w bulbs very nice can be had less than $100 dollars .... also ive had a set of hella 550s fog lights with the yellow lens for fog didn't help very much

 

What do you consider a reasonable price? In my experience Hella and PIAAs are the best.

For $50-$100 you can not go wrong with Hella 500-700 series. For $100-200 the Hella FF series are really nice. PIAAs are very high quality and run $150 and up (ebay pricing). If you want true ARC/HID lighting, look at $300+

I'm up in the air about the color temperature of the bulbs. I have some PIAA 1000XT's now with the 4000K bulbs. The white light looks pretty cool and appears brighter, but I'm not sure if a higher color temperature translates to more usable light on the road. I'm thinking about replacing my bulbs with some 3800K bulbs.

 

for a good driving light consider the PRO COMP 100 watters. I had a pair on my 95-2nd gen and ARB bumper mounted and they worked just fine for around $45 a pair. They were at 4wd parts stores. You can spend more for chrome or stainless steel I think-but black body was fine for me. ( I was going for the Johnny Walker look red and black he he heee)

Also many of us run the Hella 500s and I have seen at least one posting where a smart dude carry the yellow tint with them (like a gel overlay) and slap it on their light to change the driving white light into a yellow fog light (obviously the beam pattern is not changed just the tint of the light)

I like mine but the mounting system is rattly and I had to bump up the mount height a bit to be able to slip the cover on and off easily-otherwise it was too tight to my ARB bumper to slip over the lens. Recently they were $29.99 plus $6.50 to ship on Amazon-I paid $43.80 for mine and they are fine for that price, at $80 a pair I would have been pissed....

No valid opinion on a dedicated fog light-we rarely have enough moisture here to make fog.

 

how did you mount your lights on the bumper like that?

 

I would got with some PIAA 520 ATP's. I got a brand new set off eBay for $200. They are the perfect cross between a fog light and driving light and I think they will be just what you are looking for to see the road ahead and cut through fog.

 

anyone having a problem with blowing fuses while running 100w bulbs in the Hella 500s?

 

just drilled holes in the bumper

 

i had a set of those on my '05 tacoma and was not that impressed with them