Joined
·
36 Posts
Okay, guess while I'm posting reviews of stuff I've done to the Ody, I'll post this one up too!
I like our '06 Ody (EX-L with XM/Res/navi), but after having an '05 Tacoma, the lighting department is a bit lacking with this van! I decided to purchase driving lights for our van off Ebay, and for $85.00, I thought it wasn't bad at all since it came with harness and switch! I'll post some pics when I get a chance of the installed lights, but for now I'll just post my findings.
I found an installation guide for the official Honda kit and used that as a guide for the installation. Its a bit unnerving when there's 80 plus steps in the guide for installing them, but as an owner of a car audio shop back in the 80's/90's, its nothing too hard for me. Others who do not like wiring will not want to tackle this on their own!
So, starting out, I pulled the bumper off, which was a bit amusing since there's really only two 10mm bolts and two philips screws to hold it in, along with a few handfuls of plastic retainer clips, most of which broke.
Cutting is a pain in the butt, and you gotta cut a LOT away to get them to fit! I had to cut well past the black "cover" area and into the painted part of the bumper to get them to fit! They did screw into the stock area just fine, but fitment is not as good as I'd like to see in a kit. There's a good amount of space between the lights and the bumper, and because the stock mounting holes are used to secure the brackets, there's really no way to pull it in any closer to the bumper. I suppose longer screws and spacers could help, but there would be much more cutting to allow the light to be more recessed in the bumper.
wiring is not too bad, the kit came with a complete harness, and I just assumed it was copied from the OEM kit-NOT!!!
The install guide was pretty much useless after the light installation, so I just ended up wiring it the old fashioned way! I ended up having to extend the supplied wiring kit since it wasn't long enough to do what was necessary, and since I had to do that anyways, I decided to just run the +12V wire directly to the battery, as well as the wire to the lights. While there, I figured why not just run a third to the parking lights so I don't have to bother finding it under the dash? Easy enough since I went right past the parking light's harness on the driver's side.
Popped the switch into the dash, amazing enough it was a perfect fit! Plugged the harness into it, grounded the negative cable to a bolt under the dash, and wired the three cables coming in from the hood.
Everything works well, and foglights are on regardless of hi or low beams which I like, although this is sort of illegal in many states.
This kit came with blue bulbs, something I really hate, so I'll be replacing the lamps with some normal halogens, I suspect it will be even brighter once I do.
Overall, the kit was definitely worth the money and has added a decent amount of light up front, just what I expected from stock-like driving lights. I'll see if I can get some photos of them on at night. It took about 4 hours to finish, most of which was spent slowly trimming the first hole out of the bumper. Obviously, the second hole went MUCH faster since I knew how much to cut.
This is definitely not a reversible mod if you don't like the fitment or look of the lights without replacing the bumper cover, unless you don't mind having two large holes in them!
Chris
I like our '06 Ody (EX-L with XM/Res/navi), but after having an '05 Tacoma, the lighting department is a bit lacking with this van! I decided to purchase driving lights for our van off Ebay, and for $85.00, I thought it wasn't bad at all since it came with harness and switch! I'll post some pics when I get a chance of the installed lights, but for now I'll just post my findings.
I found an installation guide for the official Honda kit and used that as a guide for the installation. Its a bit unnerving when there's 80 plus steps in the guide for installing them, but as an owner of a car audio shop back in the 80's/90's, its nothing too hard for me. Others who do not like wiring will not want to tackle this on their own!
So, starting out, I pulled the bumper off, which was a bit amusing since there's really only two 10mm bolts and two philips screws to hold it in, along with a few handfuls of plastic retainer clips, most of which broke.
Cutting is a pain in the butt, and you gotta cut a LOT away to get them to fit! I had to cut well past the black "cover" area and into the painted part of the bumper to get them to fit! They did screw into the stock area just fine, but fitment is not as good as I'd like to see in a kit. There's a good amount of space between the lights and the bumper, and because the stock mounting holes are used to secure the brackets, there's really no way to pull it in any closer to the bumper. I suppose longer screws and spacers could help, but there would be much more cutting to allow the light to be more recessed in the bumper.
wiring is not too bad, the kit came with a complete harness, and I just assumed it was copied from the OEM kit-NOT!!!
The install guide was pretty much useless after the light installation, so I just ended up wiring it the old fashioned way! I ended up having to extend the supplied wiring kit since it wasn't long enough to do what was necessary, and since I had to do that anyways, I decided to just run the +12V wire directly to the battery, as well as the wire to the lights. While there, I figured why not just run a third to the parking lights so I don't have to bother finding it under the dash? Easy enough since I went right past the parking light's harness on the driver's side.
Popped the switch into the dash, amazing enough it was a perfect fit! Plugged the harness into it, grounded the negative cable to a bolt under the dash, and wired the three cables coming in from the hood.
Everything works well, and foglights are on regardless of hi or low beams which I like, although this is sort of illegal in many states.
This kit came with blue bulbs, something I really hate, so I'll be replacing the lamps with some normal halogens, I suspect it will be even brighter once I do.
Overall, the kit was definitely worth the money and has added a decent amount of light up front, just what I expected from stock-like driving lights. I'll see if I can get some photos of them on at night. It took about 4 hours to finish, most of which was spent slowly trimming the first hole out of the bumper. Obviously, the second hole went MUCH faster since I knew how much to cut.
This is definitely not a reversible mod if you don't like the fitment or look of the lights without replacing the bumper cover, unless you don't mind having two large holes in them!
Chris
