Technology has come a long way over the years, and although we head bush to escape it, there are a few things that make heading off-road that much more enjoyable. Like a quality set of LED driving lights, for instance.

Driving lights are one of those mods that you won’t fully appreciate until you invest in a good set. Not only do they make driving at night less fatiguing, but they also make it easier to see low-range obstacles like rocks and ruts, and wandering livestock before they pose a real threat to you and your passengers.

New and improved LED versions like the Adventure Kings Lethal LED driving lights are proving popular thanks to their light-weight design, super-strong casing and lens, lower current draw and brighter OSRAM LEDs.

For best performance, minimal wiring and ease of installation, your best bet is to mount your 4×4 driving lights in the centre of the bullbar just in front of the grille.

Here’s a quick tip – make sure your chosen lights will fit within the centre hoop before handing over your hard earned, as some bullbar hoops can be smaller than others. In this case, it’s a better option to opt for a set of 7” LED Driving Lights.

WATERPROOFING YOUR LIGHTS & WIRING

Before you buy your next set of driving lights, check to make sure they’re actually waterproof. As basic as it seems, a surprising number of them aren’t, which means the first water crossing you hit or any decent downpour has the potential to wreck your new lights. Kings Lethal spotlights and the Kings Plug n Play Smart harness us quality waterproof Deutsch plugs, and the 4WD driving lights themselves have an IP69X water and dustproof rating!

CORRUGATIONS ARE KILLERS

Another difference between a quality set of lights and a cheap set is how they behave off-road, particularly over corrugated roads. Lethal LED spotlights use an adjustable dual locking mounting system so once the lights are aimed and tightened down, even the roughest of roads won’t shake them out of alignment.

SPOT VS SPREAD BEAM

Traditionally, you’d have to choose between spot or spread when buying your lights. But what we like about the Kings Lethal LED driving lights is that their unique combo beam polycarbonate lenses are not only super strong and crack resistant, but they provide a highly directional beam that lights up both the centre of the track and off to the side of the road as well as providing excellent long-distance light penetration.

AIMING YOUR NEW LIGHTS

Once you’ve got the driving lights powered up, you’re ready to aim them. To start with, nose your 4WD up to the garage door and turn your high beam lights on. Flick on your driving lights and centre them at the same height as your high beam lights.

To ensure you’ve got them spot on, you’ll have to recheck them next time you’re out in the bush. Find a long straight stretch of road and carefully pull up smack bang in the middle of the road. Use common sense here, and only do so if no one else is around and it isn’t going to cause an accident.

Turn the driving lights on and make final adjustments so that the centre beam illuminates the track just ahead of the reach of your headlights. For horizontal adjustment, aim the left light slightly to the left of the centre line of the road and the right light to the right side of the centre line.

These fine adjustments will give you the best of both worlds; a long throw of light with a decent spread off either side of the road ahead.

UNDERSTANDING IP RATINGS

The IP rating of a light is a clear snapshot of how weatherproof that light is. The term ‘IP’ stands for Ingress Protection, and the follow table explains what each number means. Lethal LED Driving Lights feature an IP69K water and dustproof rating.

1st Number – Protection from Solid Objects	2nd Number – Protection from Moisture
0. No protection	0. No protection
1. Protection against solid objects with diameter less than 50mm	1. Protection from dripping water
2. Protection against solid objects with diameter less than 12mm	2. Protection from dripping water when tilted up to 15°
3. Protection against solid objects with diameter less than 2.5mm	3. Protection from spraying water (rain)
4. Protection against solid objects with diameter less than 1mm	4. Protection from splashing water
5. Dust protected	5. Protection from water jets
6. Dust tight	6. Protection from heavy seas
	7. Protection from immersion in water
	8. Protection from continuous submersion
	9k. Protection from high pressure heated water

ADVENTURE KINGS LETHAL LED DRIVING LIGHTS

Available in both 7” and 9” sizes, the Lethal LED Driving Lights feature an IP69 water and dust-proof rating. That means they’ll run underwater, to a depth of 1 metre for an hour without any sign of water ingress, and they’ also stand up to high pressure hot water too! To prove it, we’ve hooked them up to an extended wiring harness connected to a running 4WD, and dropped them in an icy-cold stream in a metre deep hole. We then rented a diesel powered hot water pressure washer and hit them with 1100psi of hot water, and not a drop got in past the LED Driving lights seals!

Then, to take it to the next level, we threw one light off a 100ft high cliff onto rocky ground, then towed the other up a rocky dirt road chained to the back of a 4WD for kilometres. All that, and these incredible LED driving lights STILL worked perfectly as soon as we plugged them in – now that’s insanely tough!

If you haven’t seen the video, it’s well worth a watch – because it’s almost hard to believe these claims unless you can see them with your own eyes. It’s all right here, and it’s well worth a watch: https://youtu.be/7e6g3o0qdEA