I know there are aftermarket headlights for the 05-07 trucks but nothing that I can find for the 08+?
We live in the country with no street lights and LOTS of deer.
On low beam you get pretty good light coverage of the immediate road ahead but not too far.
On high I loose the immediate road ahead and light up a very sharp line of light a few feet above the road for a ways down the road but not really bright.
I am running some Pia bulbs and not the stock ones which were very poor.
I had a 2000 Dakota with the same bulbs and it was fantastic. Is the reflector in the headlights just a bad design? Did they change it in later years?
Has anyone tried removing the little cover from in front of the bulb?
Is HID the best way to get some real light?

 

Hmm, be careful with HIDs, the higher the K rating, the less the lumens. I know there are quite a few members that have done HID conversion kits, so I'm sure they will pop in with their color ranges. I have the Silverstar Ultra's in the Dak. They are definitely brighter than the factory bulbs, but still not good enough for my liking. My wife's Charger low beams are almost as bright as my high beams in the Dak. Her bulbs are the factory bulbs off the dealership floor. FML.

I consistently drive in the mountains in all conditions, including white-out blizzards. Get yourself a light bar with some 6" off road lights. 55 watt H3 bulbs in the right housing will give the car in front of you a sun tan.

 

Im running random ebay headlights (white light, not normal halogen yellowish), and they are better then the ones it had. Then I also installed HID's into my Fogs which helps ALOT.
HID fogs are plug and play well HID headlights you may require the Relay harness.

I have no problem seeing Deer (almost ran over 3 fawns a few months back)

 

Get HID's for headlights (bixenon kit will be to you radvantage) They are great in the fogs too. Use a relay harness with both kits which are only an extra 8-10 $ and you will have zero issues. For maximum light choose between 4500k-8000k. Do not go higher, it looks like crap anyways I recommend DDM tuning for a high quality kit. HIDextra which atleast used to be a forum vendor isn't bad either. DDM gets you on shipping but the kits are affordable

 

Is there any issue with Day Time Running lights and the HID's?
They use the high beams and must PWM the voltage lower to dim the lights.
I would like to program out the running lights but its the law in Canada and the dealer wont disable them.
They make it hard to run aftermarket driving lights since I used to pick up the signal to turn on the driving lights from the high beams but with the DTRL the high beams are on all day, just at a lower output.

 

I am sure you will have some sort of issues with HIDs and daytime running lights.

I do not recommend HIDs. I went that route, relay harness and all. The wiring was easy with the kit from DDM. They functioned as advertised.

However... our reflectors are not designed for HIDs. They look fantastic from a cosmetic standpoint. However, you will either end up aiming the lights up quite a bit and blinding oncoming traffic, or you will not see nearly as far as a good pair of halogen bulbs.

I did a lot of research to figure out why my HIDs sucked for performance unless I ended up blinding people by aiming them way too high. Here is why: HID bulbs have two brightest points, one at each end of the bulb. Halogen bulbs have a single brightest point in the middle. Our headlights are designed to reflect out light from that single, centered brightest point; not the two outer edges, hence the problem.

I threw mine away.

I had tried Silverstar Ultras before the HIDs, and they were better than stock, but just OK in my opinion. Not worth the cost that retail stores charge for them. I am currently running a set of Philips X-treme power bulbs, because at the time, that was the best they had. They are still halogen style, yellow-white mixed light, but thats the best for our eyes to see with.

These are the newer, slightly better ones. Don't believe their 80%/100% more light bogus stuff, but they are definitely better than halogens or HIDs in our 2008+ housings.

There are also these if you want it to be whiter and sacrifice just a little bit of performance to get it there:

 

I'm with jasonw, plus HID's will give law enforcement a good reason to pull you over at night.

 

I'm a fan of DRLs, since nobody seems to be able to turn on their headlights in low-light conditions, but I do understand that not everyone is. And I don't think that there is a case when they don't improve visability.

I think the law is that all vehicles be sold with daytime running lights, not that they have them active once the vehicle is sold as new!

There is a way to disable them, you just need the star-scan tool - and good luck with that!

 

I am a fan (just like I'm a fan of turn signals but no one seams to use those anymore!) other than the ability to use the high beam power as a signal for a driving light relay.
I suppose I can do a double relay. One comes on with park lights which powers the second one when high beams are on. In the daytime the park lights would be off so the DRL's would not energize the driving lights.
I have a pair of real nice duel bulb driving lights, 55 watts per bulb so a total of 220W. I had them behind the grill but when I put in the big rad they had to go. Now I'm trying to figure out where to mount them that looks good and does not block any air flow to the rad.
Maybe a new aluminum bumper this winter with cutouts for them would be a good project.

 

I don't comment often about Gen 3 Dakotas, they're so different from my 96 that they might as well be built by Fiat (oh wait, they are!) I have some experience with HID's on my 08 KLR, tho. And it hasn't all been good. I have the blue ones, never been a prob with the LEO's, and they look stupid enough, bright enough, and slightly irritating to draw attention of the usually bike-blind cagers. They do an adequate job of illuminating the road at night, tho the bright side (separate low and high beams) doesn't seem to put out much more light than the low side.

Coupla things on my KLR. If I don't let the low beam warm up before starting the bike, it may not be on when I get the bike running. And HID's aren't instant on, so flashing your high beams is an exercise in futility.

Would I spring for HID's again? Nah! They aren't that much brighter than halogens, they're kinda expensive, and not worth the trouble.

Back to the Gen 1 & 2 Dakota sections. . .