I'll admit that this photo doesn't mean much without something to compare it to, so you're going to have to trust me on this one. This generation Toyota Camry has awesome headlights. This photo was taken in high-beam mode where both the reach and coverage are better than virtually any car I've driven recently -- and far better than anything else with this kind of price tag.
Here's the best part: all that light comes from a standard Halogen 55-watt H11 bulb which can be found on eBay for about $20 per set.
Not sure what it is about this car's reflector design that makes its headlamps so effective, but it's refreshing to run across so much light from such a modest package.
Josh Jacaquot, Senior editor
esoterica says:
04:41 PM, 01/19/12
Glad to hear these are good, Toyota headlights in the late '90's/early 00's were the worst in the world.
dg0472 says:
05:06 PM, 01/19/12
Hard to believe they were worse than some Chrysler vehicles of the early late '90's.
desmolicious says:
05:24 PM, 01/19/12
You should do a side by side comparison with the Wrangler. Good grief that has bad lights!
armaanda9 says:
05:39 PM, 01/19/12
Nice post...often overlooked. The worst headlights ever made were found on the 1991 - 1997 Toyota Previa...and these seem to be the best. Evolution!
emajor says:
06:26 PM, 01/19/12
Very informative. I wouldn't mind seeing this as a recurring post for every car in your fleet. Headlight performance is important and one of the facets least likely to be seen in a test drive.
cz_75 says:
06:53 PM, 01/19/12
I'm sure someone on the CandlePower forum can explain why it works so well in a few months from now after some research.
christople says:
07:02 PM, 01/19/12
I've always heard that the Acura TL/RL/TSX have some of the best HID lights on the market, along with Infiniti.
Are those TSX Wagon HID's good?
missmymiata says:
07:24 PM, 01/19/12
But are they adjusted correctly? I've thought I had awesome lights only to find out they were blinding oncoming traffic (well, according to inspection folks, who really have a conflict of interest).
travelingman79 says:
07:42 PM, 01/19/12
@christople: I find it difficult to believe that they're some of the best when they don't auto-level, (except in the RL) don't articulate according to steering input, and have HID bulbs only for the low beams (high beams are halogens).
I was quite impressed with the headlamps on an F10 5 series I had as a rental recently. Good reach and coverage. But then again, they should be at that price level.
One thing I'd be interested in is how well the headlamp lenses resist clouding up and needing "headlamp restoration" when exposed to the elements in the long term. But that doesn't show up until well after 1 year/20k mi, so guess it's not feasible to test in the LT fleet.
zoomzoom22 says:
07:52 PM, 01/19/12
Another improvement from the previous generation....I think you guys called your old long-termer a "dim watt".
My 6's headlights are decent and the brights are very good. The plastic coverings are starting to affect (effect? I'm really not sure on this one) the brightness as they age.
The best low and high beam headlights that I've experienced were on a G37 coupe.
zoomzoom22 says:
07:54 PM, 01/19/12
It seems like ALL headlights in the 90's were terrible.
hybris says:
08:03 PM, 01/19/12
After putting new stock housings, Phillips Xtreme Power bulbs, and adding 2 55w off road driving lights on my F150 I can say that I can at least match that picture.
koofta says:
08:04 PM, 01/19/12
Good for Whom??????????? Certainly not the poor bastard that comes in the other direction, while the slow to respond camry driver delays turning off his brights!!!!!
bimmerjay says:
08:16 PM, 01/19/12
I'm jaded from having quite possibly the best bi-xenon adaptive headlights in the business on my car, but for regular fixed halogens those look pretty decent.
hank39 says:
06:11 AM, 01/20/12
Doesn't the 2012 Camry have low beams projectors and not reflectors? I think since the edmunds' fleet cars all at one point or another park in a garage, beam pattern pictures against a wall would be great! Doesn't take long to do either. Please fancy us headlight-philes :)
langjie says:
07:04 AM, 01/20/12
aren't camry headlights projectors?
legacygt says:
08:19 AM, 01/20/12
Nice.
But I almost didn't get my CX-9 Touring because of an Edmunds post about the headlights in their long term CX-9 not being effective. I'm glad I ignored that post because the headlights on my car are really perfectly fine. Not the best I've seen but more than adequate and I do a lot of driving on dark country roads. Is there any objective testing procedure for headlights. Maybe a measure of brightness over certain distances and across the coverage area? It might be nice to get some actual data on this.
ledwinka says:
09:19 AM, 01/20/12
The headlamp is from either Stanley or Koito. Both are good companies...
ldoan says:
09:22 AM, 01/20/12
I'm certain the reason they are far superior is because they are projectors. How do these headlights compare to the ones in the Sienna (I guess too late to compare since it's been sold to Carmax).
Edmunds should do a comparison of these with the TSX Wagon's, hardly a comparison but would be good to let consumers see the difference an HID projector headlight has versus a halogen projector headlight.
jjacquot says:
09:44 AM, 01/20/12
Clarification:
The Camry does utilize a projector-beam style lamp so my use of the word reflector is somewhat misleading. Projectors do use a reflector -- just not in the traditional sense as they primarily rely on a lens to focus the light instead. I'm not near the car today to confirm, but I believe it uses the projector for both low- and high-beam modes. I'll check this out next week and report back.
Also, the O.E. bulb is an Osram unit for those who care.
Josh
se_riously says:
10:30 AM, 01/20/12
I own a 2012 SE. The low beams are halogen projector (Osram H11) and the high beams are halogen reflector. The projector provides a decent vertical cutoff line. Fog lights are also Osram H11, but shine near field only and to the sides (like they're supposed to).
mrwhopee says:
11:04 AM, 01/20/12
This is very good. Speaking as someone whose eyes aren't so hot at night, this headlight performance should be standard in every car review! Pictures of the actual headlight patterns (like in this article) is very welcome too, if taken in standard location we can then actually compare headlights performance between cars.
mk40 says:
01:29 PM, 01/20/12
Details details... what makes Camry so easy to live with and helps keeps them coming back. Toyota smart profit machine does more with less.... once shrewd car company. Why use expensive HID or Xenon when you can get better visibility with regular Halogen?
mk40 says:
01:30 PM, 01/20/12
Details details... what makes Camry so easy to live with and helps keeps them coming back. Toyota smart profit machine does more with less.... one shrewd car company. Why use expensive HID or Xenon when you can get better visibility with regular Halogen?
bimmerjay says:
02:27 PM, 01/20/12
"Why use expensive HID or Xenon when you can get better visibility with regular Halogen?"
The visibility would certainly be even better using xenon lighting, not worse.
agentorange says:
10:23 PM, 01/20/12
@bimmerjay
I think what mk40 means is that you can still get very good lighting using halogens and a PROPERLY designed light. I happen to agree. My current car has bi-xenon lights and they work well, but I do not see a huge gain in performance over the Cibie Z-beams I had in my old Firebird. This is probably an indication of how good a well designed H4 55/60 E-code headlight can be. You can keep most of your DoT marked crap.
The big plus for the Toyota is that is uses separate low and high beam units. The E30 I owned in the UK had a twin headlight system and that was killer once I fitted the 100W bulbs in the high beam units.;)
mk40 says:
11:03 PM, 01/20/12
If better then by how much? 5 maybe 8% better but 100% more cost. I should have said about as good visibility.
financeman2 says:
08:37 AM, 01/21/12
I own a 2011 Highlander with the projector style halogen lights....I am not overly impressed, especially in comparison to my 2010 Infiniti G with the HIDs. In fact I think the projectors on the 2011 Highlander are actually inferior to the headlights that were on a 2008 Highlander I previously owned. True, these headlights are far better than earlier generation Toyotas, but I think one would need to have a side by side comparison with HIDs before making sweeping statements about the lights.
angry_mushroom says:
10:32 AM, 01/23/12
Say what you will about Toyota headlights, but the Ford Contour headlights were so bad that I usually forgot to turn them on at night.
tekd says:
11:42 PM, 01/31/12
Even older Camry's actually did very well in objective testing compared to the competition. IIRC some of the worst headlamps were older Chrysler headlamps.
By the way the people claiming that HIDs would be even better in terms of distance are actually incorrect-there are laws regulating the light output being thrown forward of the car so most HID designs actually spread the extra light more towards the side of the road. Things would likely look a little brighter and you'd have better coverage of the side of the road but you'd actually be fairly unlikely to get a further throw distance.
Toyota's seasoned experience in this segment does mean that they tend to think of all the little things you probably don't read about in most reviews.
ahgama says:
12:08 AM, 02/ 2/12
My family used to have a 2002 Infiniti Q45 with the ridiculous 7 lens Xenon headlights. We then later moved on to a 2008 Subaru Legacy GT and I remember being a bit mind blown at how bright the Subaru's headlights were even though they were simple halogens. Good lamp design goes a long way I guess lol