Rear Hatch & Cargo Area LED Light Swap on 5th Gen Toyota 4Runner
- Trunk or Cargo Area Light Bulb: DE3175
The rear hatch/ cargo/ trunk lights on our 4Runner are not very bright. If you are looking to increase the brightness of your hatch lights, you may want to swap them out with LEDs.
Beyond increasing the brightness, your color will change from yellow and dim orange to a crystal bright write color. The color of LEDs looks much better.
The rear hatch and trunk area is one of the most important areas to light up. We use our rear trunk for groceries, hauling the kid’s stuff, trips to Home Depot and so much more. When you are accessing the rear trunk at night with the factory lighting, it’s hard to see.
With new LED bulbs, it will light everything up.
- Dome: (x1 bulbs)
- Rear Door aks Rear Hatch: (x2 bulbs)
- DE3175 Bulbs (x3): Check Today’s Price
- Brighter Phillips Option: Check Price on Phillips Festoon
Step 1 – LED Lights Before
Step 2 – Pop Tab on Hatch Light
Step 3 – A Better View of the Tab Inside
Step 4 – Pop Cover off Light Assembly
Step 5 – Pull OEM Bulb Out
Step 6 – Install New Festoon Bulbs
Note: Festoon is a style of bulb. They are long and pill shaped. When you see one of these pill looking bulbs, it’s called a festoon bulb. You learn something new every day.
Step 7 – Test LED Lights
Rear Hatch & Cargo Final
Just installed the DE3175’s in the hatch. White but not brighter. Put the OEM’s back in. The OEM’s are yellower but they illuminate more of the cargo space and I can see more details. I even compared side by side. Sorry, but that was a waste of money. I have a 2018 TRD Off Road. Specs are the same. Disappointing.
Given comments like these and all of the reviews on the Amazon link that say the same thing I think the posted article on this website needs to be updated. Many of the reviews on Amazon say that these are fine for exterior purposes like lighting up the license plate but when used behind plastic as in a dome light application they don’t give off as much light as the original halogen bulbs.
Bryson Hicks posted the best light links, I bought them. 5 minute install and bright as can be.
I ended up adding an LED strip to this as well. Super bright. I’ll be posting an article on it at some point.
Damn, let’s see an article on this already!! lol.
Instead of using another festoon bulb I replaced the light with an LED panel. Substantially brighter and fit perfectly. I held the panel in place with a little hot glue.
Pic:
Product: http://a.co/d/7DoXYPM
Have you had any issue with them heating up? I read a few reviews that said they get pretty hot (given no airflow too, I’m sure it’s exacerbated) and some said they nearly melted some plastic in the housing.
The brighter Philips 30mm festoon looks too thick to fit in the housing ?
no?
So, I installed these in my ‘16 4Runner, and when set to “Door”, they put off a very dull glow when the hatch is shut. Do yours do the same? It’s only fixed by moving the switch to “Off”….
Andrew, did you ever find the fix for this? My XD festoons worked fine in my 2016 4R Limited… I swapped them out to my 2018 4R TRD OR and now the are dim on DOOR mode but turn on bright in ON mode. Both rear hatch lights do this. My dome light works fine which was also a swap from my Limited when I traded her in.
Thanks in advance.
Mr. Ed, I did not find a fix for the dull glow when the door is shut. It has not caused any issues over the past 2 weeks, so I am not too concerned now. As for the issue you are describing, when I was installing mine in my TEP, after a certain amount of time with the hatch open and the selector in DOOR mode, the power will be cut to the lights. When switching from OFF to DOOR to ON, the lights would not illuminate in DOOR mode. To fix, simply close and reopen the door. I thought I had faulty a faulty bulb at first, as the first one worked fine but the second one did not, which was due to the time the hatch was open. Let me know if am not describing the same issue.
Andrew, thanks for the info! My lights are working as designed since closing the rear door. I had stopped troubleshooting after the install and had closed the door without checking again until now. My lights also emit a dull glow when the door is closed and don’t seem to turn off at all when in DOOR mode.
My guess is there is a slight amount of voltage occurring since the circuit is closed (active) in DOOR mode which is probably serving as a standby mode vs in the OFF mode where the circuit is open. I’m guessing this lower voltage is normal and does not affect the analog halogen light but does affect the LED since it is a diode.
I really do wonder if others have not noticed the glow since they may not have seen these lights in the dark with the door closed and set to DOOR mode while viewing from the inside. I wouldn’t have noticed until I read your post.
Thanks again Andrew for your reply and super thanks to Brenan for Trail4R and all his hard work!
I know this is an older thread, but I recently installed some autogine LED lights from @mazon in my 2020 TRD Pro 4Runner, and I have the exact same issue with the door switch mode and the rear hatch LED lights. I’m curious if there has been any more informational updates or discoveries on this since the past couple years of this thread. Overall all the other lights thus far seem to be working great. Even the same bulb that goes in the overhead that uses the off/door/on switch doesn’t seem to emit this glow. Only the rear hatch. Any update or information on this would be greatly appreciated.
Just checked. No dull glow over here.
Just swapped out rear hatch lights for the Sylvania DE3175 bulbs…don’t appear to be any brighter than the stock halogen lights. Going to return the bulbs and try the Phillips option you recommend.
Thinking about doing this next! Have to get some interior lights ASAP from our friends at Xenon Depot!
@theblizzard4r