Thread: Ford Ranger Headlight Upgrade

and ffs dont drive spotlights/lightbars straight off the 12volt headlight feed. i spent yesterday arvo sorting out BS trailer wiring which i now have to completely rewire

I changed to the STEDI LED bulbs on my Ranger, fiddly to do but much better. No concerns with the WOF either.

Originally Posted by BRADS

Were they not the same lights in all the px models ? I was of the understanding they were all the same.


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No. The PX1 had a different reflector and profile, the PX2 XLT and Wildtrack (first facelift front end) were slightly better and the best performing of the PX-series rangers. I think the same PX1 lights were used on the PX2 XL and low-spec versions? The PX3 and onwards with the fancy 'slim profile' headlights were shite, the reflectors were not deep enough to project meaning on flat highway you could see but anything offroad with undulations in the road the lights either sent the beam into the sky leaving dark spots in front of you or the road was above the center of the headlight beam. It didn't matter if you were on high beam or low beam, the depth of beam didn't cover enough of the road. You needed auxiliary driving lights to 'fill' the area below the headlight beam (some people call these fog lights but fog lights fulfill a different function) and then for high beam you needed spot lights to increase the vertical depth of the headlight beam. As someone has pointed out, a farking shite design for a headlamp and one of about four critical cockups with the PX series ranger design. The others were the fuel handling and filtration system - the factory filter was not of sufficient capacity and not small enough micron rating, the rear suspension design of the chassis as supplied from the factory did not allow for sufficient curvature of the factory springs to provide enough load carrying for going between full load and empty and tow handling was an absolute joke (it needed a minimum of a 5-leaf spring pack with about an extra 50mm of spring leaf curvature as correcting that cockup with aftermarket springs lifted the arse end annoyingly high and without this the factory springs overloaded and turned inside out leaving the thing sitting on it's bump stops unloaded) and the last was the engine mount setup which breaks far to frequently. It's the consequence of trying to be all things to all people with the ute - what Ford should have done was produce two versions of each model spec the urban soccer mom version that goes everywhere unloaded and looks tough as - and the industrial vehicle version with load carrying suspension that's stiff and bouncy when unloaded but capable of carrying a load and is a little less refined in terms of vibration and noise transfer but does the damn job.

Buy a proper car
About the only thing on a 70 series tock that's OK is the headlights
Just don't go those new age blue crap that blinds every oncoming bastard

Originally Posted by Arced

Like others have said if you fit an LED upgrade kit you’ll have to swap them out every time you go for a WOF. You could try and get better bulbs and if doing lots of night driving then getting some spotties and wiring them on a switch independent of the headlights circuit so you can still get a WOF.

If you fit a pair of spotlights then they don't need to be wired independent of the headlight circuit, if you fit a lightbar then it does need to be independent.

Originally Posted by makka

If you fit a pair of spotlights then they don't need to be wired independent of the headlight circuit, if you fit a lightbar then it does need to be independent.

That’s true. They can be wired to the high beam switch provided they do not come under the classification of a work light. My understanding is that they then must have approved safety standard and a high beam pattern.

Originally Posted by Arced

That’s true. They can be wired to the high beam switch provided they do not come under the classification of a work light. My understanding is that they then must have approved safety standard and a high beam pattern.

Yep, thats right. Most decent spotlights will have good enough beam pattern and the standards markings on them as well

Fuck there's some absolute ledgends here. I've owned probably more than 50 Rangers from PX1-4 plus Mazda BT50 and the occasional Navara and I've never had anything go wrong. I must be the luckiest man in NZ. I've got near 20 tradies carrying everything but the kitchen sink with a 3T scissor lift on the back across some of the finest HB potholes man can make. Not one vehicle has failed or had antrhing worse than a flat tyre over 9 years. Keep your piehole closed unless you've got real world evidence cause half the shit here is absolute rubbish and the other half is probably shit too. My old PX3 still goes hard and even though I don't drive a lot at night the rubbish on here is just that, rubbish. FWIW the PX4 I have now is awesome but has been the worst vehicle I've owned for reliability as it's been recalled twice. Once for a software patch and the other to replace a driveshaft that never failed. Still driving it as it's fine and just a box tick exercise.
You probably just need glasses not new headlamps or you've likely got astigmatism. Go to SpecSavers.

I'd go with the following upgrade, it's the only Ford headlight upgrade I'd recommend!

Originally Posted by Dublin

I'd go with the following upgrade, it's the only Ford headlight upgrade I'd recommend!

Attachment 240369

LOL When the GR spec can’t touch the V6 diesel let alone the Raptor come back to the party.

Originally Posted by kiwijames

Fuck there's some absolute ledgends here. I've owned probably more than 50 Rangers from PX1-4 plus Mazda BT50 and the occasional Navara and I've never had anything go wrong. I must be the luckiest man in NZ. I've got near 20 tradies carrying everything but the kitchen sink with a 3T scissor lift on the back across some of the finest HB potholes man can make. Not one vehicle has failed or had antrhing worse than a flat tyre over 9 years. Keep your piehole closed unless you've got real world evidence cause half the shit here is absolute rubbish and the other half is probably shit too. My old PX3 still goes hard and even though I don't drive a lot at night the rubbish on here is just that, rubbish. FWIW the PX4 I have now is awesome but has been the worst vehicle I've owned for reliability as it's been recalled twice. Once for a software patch and the other to replace a driveshaft that never failed. Still driving it as it's fine and just a box tick exercise.
You probably just need glasses not new headlamps or you've likely got astigmatism. Go to SpecSavers.

Good on ya mate, you have probably had the best run out of anyone running the things I know. I've got one with some form of electrical glitch currently - it's intermittent but either in the loom or a control module and while we are narrowing down the possibilities the culprit is still playing hard to catch and a right pest as it's causing limp mode to be activated with some events not throwing a DTC (a really neat trick). I've been involved with another ranger that had the same, random limp modes which threw random DTC's and that was finally correctly diagnosed as an ABS circuit wiring loom issue (plug full of water). One other crapped itself, one of the injection pump piston springs failed and filled the common rail and injectors with nice shiny filings. $8500 to sort that out. Another went through four sets of front brake discs, towing and heavy loads (the next fella did one set in the same timeframe so that one probably wasnt the full fault of the ute to be fair). Other random minor faults over the time and that's over 8 vehicles... Probably each doing 65,000 km's a year on average? Those are just the mechanical and electronic control faults, there were a few others like the in-dash actuators in the air conditioning system crapping out, the power window switches shitting themselves and needing to be replaced because the window decided half way up (or down) was the fully closed or fully open position so rather than winding all the way up it would go from half open to fully up then back down to half open (apparently there was something inside the actuators that stuffed up requiring a new actuator). Another weak point was in-tank sender and lift pumps, been through a few of those. Had one fail a PDQ and that required a new steering rack from new so they do have their fair share of glitches same as any other units.

Originally Posted by Dublin

I'd go with the following upgrade, it's the only Ford headlight upgrade I'd recommend!




























Attachment 240369

Jaysus on a motor cycle, you have more money or time to spend getting the things fixed than I do. Used to love the Hilux's, but had a string of stupid issues. Then when with one ute Toyota refused to support the thing under warranty due to claiming that there was incorrect servicing being performed and when their stealership were the only ones doing the servicing that's when we all decided another supplier might be in order. The ute that caused that argument and toy chucking suffered a completely worn out engine in less than 100,000Km's, it was returning a measured 56L/100Km when it was pulled and kicked to touch. It wasn't chipped or stuffed about with, and Toyota were the only ones doing the work on it so I dunno what went wrong - maybe it couldn't handle towing 3500Kg TB-class trailers carting BIG boats with a lot of wind resistance (it's possibly the case - the big 3500Kg trailers are one thing but a BIG boat is like towing a parachute and not all utes can hack that). We pretty much went to Rangers with the 3.2L 5-cyl engines after that as they were the best combo of power vs purchase cost vs running cost, tried a couple of other options with the big trailers but they just didn't handle the gear. Didn't go for the Mazda version just with the stupid smiley face they slapped on them. Cheaper than the Ranger but goodness me, who designed that hideous thing!

I'm running Stedi LED's in my Pajero - SUBSTANTIAL upgrade in light, and throws the correct beam pattern as tested on the WoF mans beam tester and on the wall at the local Mitre 10 (big concrete wall and you can drive up to it)
No annoyance to other drivers.
Yes they're more spendy than the cheapies, but buy once, cry once