Adding driving lights into a Toyota Hybrid (Kluger)

[Ricardo R]

Hello everyone,

I would like to add some driving lights onto my Kluger as I usually drive at night through regional small roads.

Are there any special considerations when installing these just for the fact of being an hybrid vehicle?

Thanks for any piece of advice.

Cheers,

[TKH]

Hi Ricardo, Kluger Hybrid can be hard work to wire up. Firstly the battery is behind the tailgate light at the back, secondly the two visible firewall grommets on either side can be difficult to reach from under the bonnet. You can run a red/positive from battery along the doors to the driver side. The grommet on the driver side can be pulled into cabin cut and feed wire through then popped back into place. Make sure you feed in your switch wires from your relay into cabin aswell. Lastly need to connect to back of headlight, Klugers are negative switched, negative is yellow positive purple which makes the high beam come on. I ONLY CONNECTED THE NEGATIVE FROM RELAY TO YELLOW AT THE BACK OF THE LEFT HEADLIGHT, POSITIVE FROM RELAY WAS CUT SHORT AND CONNECTED TO POSITIVE COMING DIRECTLY FROM BATTERY FROM THE BACK OF THE CAR. AS SOON AS YOU PULL THE HIGH BEAM STICK THE YELLOW BECOMES ACTIVE AND YOUR HIGH BEAMS COME ON. I followed my old relay setup for my Hilux by NARVA which only had one wire going to the back of the headlight, in this case the switch or remote wire is yellow negatively switched as positive is always on for every light in your headlight and assume different negatives come on and off to turn different lights on.  I also added a 12v cig point for car fridge. The other option is to pay $700 to get them installed by ARB or something similar, if you buy their lights you looking at $1000 minimum. Hope this is of some help to you. 

Edited July 24, 2023 by TKH

[br14nh]

I know it's been a while, but I've been looking into fitting some lights and have some questions I hope you can help with.

Did you manage to wire the lights so they are triggered from the high beam somehow?

I looked into some Stedi's and phoned them up - they don't make a harness for hybrids and said I'd need a wiring harness from Toyota in addition to the standard one supplied by them.  I was advised by Toyota that they also don't offer lights or a harness for the hybrid.  I then spoke to Opposite Lock Warwick Farm to see if they knew of an after market harness, they told me the high beam on the Kluger uses the one bulb for main and high beam, and the position of the deflector changes to engage high beam (which explains why it's so unsatisfactory)

I could wire the lights to 12V and have a switch but it would be manual and wouldn't trigger from the high beam (apparently the "canbar"(?) system is computerised and switching voltages disappear, so wouldn't hold a relay in - I'd need to work out if I could use a latching relay) so I'm looking around for any information that would help, so far google has been less than helpful.

Have you managed to find out any further information on the wiring system at all since your post?

 

Cheers,.

Brian

[br14nh]

OK, I've been doing some homework...  The "Canbus" system (not Canbar)  would require a CAN interface to detect the signal and provide a signal that would trigger a normal relay.  I've found the CANM8 systems from the UK have a unit designed specifically for this purpose and they have an outlet in Australia through Lazer Lamps, the sell a CANbus CANNECT interface for $260 that would do that job and is available for the RAV4 Hybrid 2019 + and apparently compatible with the "HIghlander" (Kluger) - and hopefully the Hybrid model - as the one unt is sold for use in a range of vehicles...

There is also a dealer locater on their website  https://www.lazerlamps.com.au/dealer-locator

I'm looking to get hpold of thiss unit and try it out, I'll post back with my findings.

[br14nh]

On 7/7/2022 at 7:43 PM, TKH said:

Hi Ricardo, Kluger Hybrid can be hard work to wire up. Firstly the battery is behind the tailgate light at the back, secondly the two visible firewall grommets on either side can be difficult to reach from under the bonnet. You can run a red/positive from battery along the doors to the driver side. The grommet on the driver side can be pulled into cabin cut and feed wire through then popped back into place. Make sure you feed in your switch wires from your relay into cabin aswell. Lastly need to connect to back of headlight, Klugers are negative switched, negative is yellow positive purple which makes the high beam come on. I also added a 12v cig point for car fridge. The other option is to pay $700 to get them installed by ARB or something similar, if you buy their lights you looking at $1000 minimum. Hope this is of some help to you. 

 

Just some further "homework" I've done following Alan's wiring mentioned above - on my Kluger Hybrid 2022 GXL (LED headlamps) I found the LH headlamp assembly had the wires this colour, the RH assembly were different colours but unable to disconnect the plug due to A/C pipes cramping my access.  Testing the voltages as Alan posted, the Purple wire provided 12V when activating high beam by pulling the stalk forward ("flashing" the lights) but with engine on, there was 12V there whether high beam was selected or not, so it looks like the Purple wire supplies 12V for the lighting assembly as a whole and is not differentiating between high or low beam (due to being negatively switched).

I tested a number of other wires and couldn't get any significant readings, so I tested the Yellow...  bearing in mind that the Kluger Hybrid (like many others) is negatively switched,  this seems to be the correct wire for activating high beam.  With engine off, there was uncertain voltage that dropped to clear '0' when flashing, with engine on, this line st at ~5V and dropped to '0'V ONLY when the high beam was selected by either pushing or pulling the stalk.   

So would I guess the purple would be the 12v source if you were wiring the driving light relay coil across the purple-yellow to provide the trigger for the additional high beam relay (I assume that is what Alan has done?).  

I'm also wondering whether the 5~6 volts sitting on that line when the high beam is off would cause the relay to 'stick' on and not turn off when the high beam was dipped - it might only happen randomly.... Hopefully Alan can reply and provide a little more detail -for example, I noticed on Narva's website for wiring negative switched lights that they add a diode in line with the relay coil to ensure current only flows in one direction?

 

    

Edited July 23, 2023 by br14nh