Parabola headlights

[stuffandblah]

Interested to know what people's thoughts are of the Parabola LED headlights, as my test drives so far have been only in the day. 

Coming from the xenons on the octavia, which I have no complaints with, and not having LEDs before, I'm hoping these will be equivalent or better?

[stuffandblah]

Anyone got reflector/parabola headlights?

[Mike2222]

Had to Google what parabola reflector headlights are, so not coming from a strong knowledge base 😂! I think they are standard on rav4s up to 2022, from then on swapped to led projector style. I have the latter, so unfortunately cannot provide any comparison opinion. 

 

As far as xenons go, my understanding is that xenons and leds are both considered very good/excellent at illuminating the road, however leds are generally preferred on modern cars due to lower power requirements and longer service life, rather than *significantly* improved lighting performance. Happy to be corrected by those with more knowledge tho

[ColinB]

Not sure what my 2021 RAV4 Excel was fitted with, however although the light output was good there was a very sharp cutoff on dipped beam. There was no adjustment wheel so if on fast A roads with traffic coming the other way visibility wasn't great as they didn't project far enough forward. 

My 2024 Yaris Cross Premiere edition, by comparison, has much better lights which can be adjusted if necessary, although apart from being LED I'm not sure what system they use. 

[philip42h]

I had to Google too to understand what the 'parabola' bit is about - it's the shape of the reflector in a standard reflector headlight.

My 4.3 and 4.4 had projector headlights - powered by a halogen bulb. They were perfectly OK.

My 2020 4.5 had LED headlights with the very sharp cut-off as described by Colin. Mine was also an Excel which boasted projector LED headlights. The Icon and Design grades had just "LED headlights" - so, presumably, the reflector type.

Which gets us back to Dave's @stuffandblah question -which we can't answer from experience! We'd need input from someone driving a Design from that period ... 😉 

[stuffandblah]

Sorry, I should have just referenced reflector rather than parabola. This is what it's called in the brochure when comparing the different models.

It mentions:

Icon & Design have the reflector/parabola.

Excel & Dynamic have the projector.

So the question is more for those with the Icon or Design. Thanks

[Rav4ster]

I had RAV4 Design with reflector/parabola for 2 years and the lights were fine. Came from Seat Leon Cupra with LED lgihts and did not find much of the difference.
Took RAV4 to Europe and they were fine there as well. On the other hand, Auris MK2 Excel with led lights are very poor on dipped lights. It cuts off too close to the car, especially on the driver side.
 

[TonyHSD]

From all types of headlights the very best ones are LED in Projector lens. 
These are the heads of many Toyota models and particularly the higher trims like Corolla excel, Prius excel, Yaris cross design and above.
These together with Mercedes a class lights does provide the best light ahead, on the side and does not distract other road users. 
The led in reflector type like Yaris design, Corolla design are fine but not as good, the light is bright enough but not so well projected into the road and in slightly dimmer conditions like rain, fog or brighter street lights the light ahead can be almost lost similarly to halogen bulb lights, where led in projector is so good in all conditions.