Morimoto headlights

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bigred74

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Give it time[emoji4]


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I was one of the first ones to receive these lights so I've had them since the beginning. Will keep an eye out on it tho. In other news my passenger morimoto taillight keeps goin out on me
 

wvmountaineer

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Hey guys, dropping an update: Pulled the passenger light and found the blue DRL wire was snapped off at the light. Looks like the wire is shorter than the rest and it bore the weight of the plug. Quick solder and some zip ties all is good, well, except for the melt. Checked drivers side and it did not seem to have the short wire, zip tied in case.
 

Morgan

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Hey guys.

I have to say I'm surprised at the direction this thread turned.

I was a pre-order customer. Yes I did have to wait.

My truck is an 18 Black Express. Night edition? The one that comes all blacked out.

Anyways it came with Quads. They had blacked out chrome bezels so maybe that affected the light output from the halogen bulbs??? Anyways I found them to be horrible (factory blacked out quads).

To be perfectly honest, I was used to driving an Audi with factory BiXenon HID. The light output is fantastic with those.

The quads seemed almost dangerous. I put in a set of silver stars and had only marginally better output. I wasnt willing to put a brighter bulb (LED or HID) in my halogen reflectors because I didnt want to be "that guy" driving around blinding everyone. I mean what's the point of spending money on brighter bulbs for a low beam halogen reflector that doesnt provide a cut-off to reduce glare for on coming traffic? If you're the type of a$$ who doesnt care about blinding anyone, you could save yourself the money and just drive around with your high beams on permanently.

Anyways, I'm digressing.

Thought I would give the morimotos a shot.

My personal experience with them:

The bad:
1) I had some problems, I'm not gonna lie. My truck was a canadian truck with quads. So I had stupid factory DRLs enabled on my high beam wires. That wreaked havoc with the morimotos at first. I disabled DRLs with alphaobd and fixed that.

Unfortunately this meant I had to buy bluetooth obd2 adapter, alphaobd software, security bypass cable. I cant even remember the total for all three but I want to say 200-250 CAD

2) Aiming is a real pita. I dont know if it's just my year of truck but I had no knock outs where the morimoto aiming bolts are located. Which means you have to remove the headlight, make a fine adjustment, reinstall. Check aiming. Then rinse and repeat until you get it right. Not fun.

3) I dont like the fact that the DRL dimmer trigger wire is Inside the housing and therefore not accessible. I would have preferred that to be outside in the wiring harness where I can wire it to the low beam positive wire.

4) The wiring harness for the "trucks with halogen reflectors" is a bit of a dog's breakfast and has a pound of relays/resistors in play.

5) They dont seem to make enough heat to melt ice off the lenses like my Audis Xenons or the stock halogen reflectors. Where I live that might be a problem 4 or 5 times a year.

The good:

1) I personally feel that light output is awesome, as compared to my stock halogen quads. I've been meaning to do a video comparison with output shots but I've got a new baby at home and there just doesn't seem to be enough hours in the day anymore.(digressing ... In the coming weeks my brother who has a 19 classic Laramie is getting a xenon retrofit kit for his halogen projectors. The claim is that a clean cutoff will be maintained. if that turns out to be true We can do some side by side pictures of light output.)

2) the Drls are super bright.

3) the switchback turn signals are nice also.

4) they look oem imho. As in, they dont look like cheap aftermarket garbage.


Again I'm not saying this is fact, it's my personal opinion and experience so far. I'll look for melting and deforming tomorrow but I feel like I'd have noticed by now during one of my cleaning rituals.

FYI I just installed the matching fogs ( vertical xb led) and need to aim them still, but they are also a huge improvement over the stock halogens imho.


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1500ram12

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Hey guys.

I have to say I'm surprised at the direction this thread turned.

I was a pre-order customer. Yes I did have to wait.

My truck is an 18 Black Express. Night edition? The one that comes all blacked out.

Anyways it came with Quads. They had blacked out chrome bezels so maybe that affected the light output from the halogen bulbs??? Anyways I found them to be horrible (factory blacked out quads).

To be perfectly honest, I was used to driving an Audi with factory BiXenon HID. The light output is fantastic with those.

The quads seemed almost dangerous. I put in a set of silver stars and had only marginally better output. I wasnt willing to put a brighter bulb (LED or HID) in my halogen reflectors because I didnt want to be "that guy" driving around blinding everyone. I mean what's the point of spending money on brighter bulbs for a low beam halogen reflector that doesnt provide a cut-off to reduce glare for on coming traffic? If you're the type of a$$ who doesnt care about blinding anyone, you could save yourself the money and just drive around with your high beams on permanently.

Anyways, I'm digressing.

Thought I would give the morimotos a shot.

My personal experience with them:

The bad:
1) I had some problems, I'm not gonna lie. My truck was a canadian truck with quads. So I had stupid factory DRLs enabled on my high beam wires. That wreaked havoc with the morimotos at first. I disabled DRLs with alphaobd and fixed that.

Unfortunately this meant I had to buy bluetooth obd2 adapter, alphaobd software, security bypass cable. I cant even remember the total for all three but I want to say 200-250 CAD

2) Aiming is a real pita. I dont know if it's just my year of truck but I had no knock outs where the morimoto aiming bolts are located. Which means you have to remove the headlight, make a fine adjustment, reinstall. Check aiming. Then rinse and repeat until you get it right. Not fun.

3) I dont like the fact that the DRL dimmer trigger wire is Inside the housing and therefore not accessible. I would have preferred that to be outside in the wiring harness where I can wire it to the low beam positive wire.

4) The wiring harness for the "trucks with halogen reflectors" is a bit of a dog's breakfast and has a pound of relays/resistors in play.

5) They dont seem to make enough heat to melt ice off the lenses like my Audis Xenons or the stock halogen reflectors. Where I live that might be a problem 4 or 5 times a year.

The good:

1) I personally feel that light output is awesome, as compared to my stock halogen quads. I've been meaning to do a video comparison with output shots but I've got a new baby at home and there just doesn't seem to be enough hours in the day anymore.(digressing ... In the coming weeks my brother who has a 19 classic Laramie is getting a xenon retrofit kit for his halogen projectors. The claim is that a clean cutoff will be maintained. if that turns out to be true We can do some side by side pictures of light output.)

2) the Drls are super bright.

3) the switchback turn signals are nice also.

4) they look oem imho. As in, they dont look like cheap aftermarket garbage.


Again I'm not saying this is fact, it's my personal opinion and experience so far. I'll look for melting and deforming tomorrow but I feel like I'd have noticed by now during one of my cleaning rituals.

FYI I just installed the matching fogs ( vertical xb led) and need to aim them still, but they are also a huge improvement over the stock halogens imho.


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With the adjustments, I believe I remember reading, at least vertical if you look through one of the factory adjustment holes you should see the adjustment screw. But you'll only see the top side "gear" part of it. You can use a long phillips screw driver and adjust that way.


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KWG88ss

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5) They dont seem to make enough heat to melt ice off the lenses like my Audis Xenons or the stock halogen reflectors. Where I live that might be a problem 4 or 5 times a year.

The good:

1) I personally feel that light output is awesome, as compared to my stock halogen quads. I've been meaning to do a video comparison with output shots but I've got a new baby at home and there just doesn't seem to be enough hours in the day anymore.(digressing ... In the coming weeks my brother who has a 19 classic Laramie is getting a xenon retrofit kit for his halogen projectors. The claim is that a clean cutoff will be maintained. if that turns out to be true We can do some side by side pictures of light output.)

FYI I just installed the matching fogs ( vertical xb led) and need to aim them still, but they are also a huge improvement over the stock halogens imho.


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They are LEDs, they won’t give off a heat profile like Xenon.

Bright light up front != you can see better. It’s like the saying all “lumens no throw.”

The fogs are an improvement in what capacity? Fog? Or normal driving?



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ichime

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Finally got around installing these lights. I coated the housing in a dark chrome, though it's a bit too dark to see a difference.

Definitely changes the look of my front end and light output is very crisp. Not much brighter than my old stock projector with LEDs, but crisper and lights the road a bit better.

That being said, these are definitely NOT worth $1200 considering the fitment and the gap exposure. Probably worth half of that. But out of all the other options out there, the lighting design (DRLs, turn signal, etc.) is the best IMO.

Also, these are the 2nd version of these headlights, which feature a slightly different design in the housing from the first iteration, likely to address the melting issues with the first batch.

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mynameisante

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F*** that's expensive

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RamHemi2500

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They do look nice but same as everyone else. That company lost my trust with the first round of headlights. I see they are making ones for the 2019 RAM now. I can only imagine the issues they will have with those.


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ichime

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They do look nice but same as everyone else. That company lost my trust with the first round of headlights. I see they are making ones for the 2019 RAM now. I can only imagine the issues they will have with those.


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The 2019 ones look cool, especially the one for the HD trucks. Hopefully they'll do more thorough testing this time around.

The V2 headlights I have are holding up good to the heat/sun so far
 

bruce219

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I installed mine,had to use the fuse tap for the drl.Only problem I'm having is the Sequential is not working,I disconnected the wires at the back,they will work for two flashes and then the signal freezes and only one part stays lit at center of headlight,it doesn't do anything after that.Anybody else have this problem or the cure for it.My truck had quads from factory thats why I used the fuse tap.
 

KWG88ss

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The 2019 ones look cool, especially the one for the HD trucks. Hopefully they'll do more thorough testing this time around.

The V2 headlights I have are holding up good to the heat/sun so far

Check them out after a rain. Mine started taking on water..... [emoji31]

Btw can anyone explain the relationship between Morimoto and Retrofit Source? Same company?


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Reaper338

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Hi , I'm am getting REALLY confused , so my truck is a 2015 ram 1500 , I just had the Morimoto XB headlights installed on Friday and come to find this morning that I have not turn signals and one of my headlights looked like it was turning on and off with white DRL's not the amber DRL's, I have the light knob set to "auto" , I bought the trucks used , it was a Canadian truck from what I can see , where I'm confused is since it is a Canadian truck can someone PLEASE explain what all I need to do in alfaOBD to make these lights work properly , what I need to buy , I have the Morimoto Resistor-Morimoto-11.25-ohm that they recommend ? it's all a little overwhelming, any help I greatly apricate it .
 

Reaper338

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Hey everyone I just thought I would post back with an update on my problems.

I one of the unlucky souls with a Canadian Quad Truck with the factory DRLs set to the highbeam bulb.

Anyways. All previous problems have been sorted out.

My solution was to buy an OBDlinkMX+, and AlphaOBD to set my DRLs as a selectable option in the UConnect interface. Once I disabled my DRL all the misbahaviors of the Morimotos resolved.

I will note that my truck is a 2018 so I required the security module bypass cable which was ridiculously easy to install. Big thank you to Deereguy on the forums here.

Next on the list is to aim these things properly. The drivers side is aimed way low and tilted significantly but I didnt want to bother until I got my issues sort out first.

I am using the supplied fuse tap for the DRL.

They are super bright!

And the LED projectors are a huge improvement over the stock halogens.
have you had any issues since this post ? I have a 2015 ram canadian and i am having turn signal issues . i replied to this thread a little bit ago if you want to see all I said .
 
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