Tail Light Preferences and Experiences

[Mike205]

I keep having tail ight issues and am weighing my options. I don't have $300 for the IPCW LED tail lights. I've never liked the brightness of the factory bulbs. So, who's installed LEDs in the factory setup and who's replaced the factory lights with the aftermarket type that don't use the circuit board setup?

 

[tommudd]

Never seen any aftermarket lights I actually like , most look cheap plus many have reported them leaking/ etc.
Just give me old fashioned bulbs, well until I get a pair of tail lights from a great friend and some money to buy the lights I want to put in them

 

[djtimyd]

I agree - I have not seen many aftermarket lights I like. I did find a pair of chrome light guards (which I'm gonna paint either flat black or silver to match the Jeep) at the salvage yard. If you want brighter lights, just use LED bulbs in the sockets. The big advantage is that if an LED goes out (it'll happen - just look at Toyota's or Dodge trucks with LED segments burnt out), you can replace a $10 bulb instead of a $200 full taillight assembly. This is what I have in my XJ and it looks good and its on the list of 'eventually' for the KJ.

 

[Mike205]

Thanks guys. I ordered new factory lights. The RR had already been replaced. Picked up the LR and Third BL for about $200 online. Found out that one of the online mopar places is local. Shipping was only $8 so I'm having them shipped. I will replace my lights with LEDs a couple at a time. I replaced the TBL with an LED today. The lens is quite melted on the inside, as is the LR. The new assemblies come complete with sockets and circuit board so I will be good to go. I think moisture started getting in there or something.

 

[renegade 04]

What I like the best is factory tail lights with the modification to add rear fog lights.

 

[JasonJ]

What I like the best is factory tail lights with the modification to add rear fog lights.

Rear fogs are great- I wish more vehicles had them. I wish Americans knew what they were.. in general. When I worked at the import dealer, 99.975% of the Audi and VW owners had no clue why they had one white light in the back on the tail lights.

But I was told that US-DOT does not allow rear facing white lights on a motor vehicle while it is moving forwards... or something like that, that makes them illegal to manufacture that way; so Audi and VW just deleted one side.

 

[kage860]

I was burning out my brake light bulbs faster than I would like so I put in red philips led brake light bulbs maybe a year ago and have had no problems so far. They shouldnt get as hot, and led bulbs light up a split second faster which is supposed to be safer anyway. I put in led reverse lights that are nice and bright, i would have to look up the brand. Turn signals i didnt mess with.

 

[dude1116]

I have the black Altezza types with all LED bulbs in them. Look good, super bright, and never have to replace a bulb.

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[Duster]

Gah, wish I would have seen this sooner. I could have saved you a LOT of coin. But I can still save you some headache.

See, I too used to be plagued with the bulb burnout and I see it all the time on the road on other liberty rides as well. I thought I posted the solution I found on here, but maybe I didnt. The simplicity of it is gonna make you real dang mad though. But will save you headache later still.

When you take all this crap apart... go straight to old faithful. That bulb that never burnt out. Take that baby out and pay direct attention to how it is oriented and also how it is oriented with the rotation lock. Look at the bulb filament!

Orient all your bulbs so the lock down in that same orientation. SOLVED. Not even kidding. If the bulb is not burning with that filament inside in that one position it will live a short life and repetitively burn out over and over.

I'm not smart, I just happened to be very frustrated and tripped over this fact asking myself WTF and wondering if just all the replacement bulbs were crap made to resell. So I went to pull old faithful out to have a look and replace her with what I thought was a crap bulb just to see if it would burn out in the good socket. That's when I noticed.

I have not had a bulb burn out since. Been so long now I can't even remember how long it's been. Been years.

A's far as the housings... I had someone smash into my jeep last winter storm and just drive off leaving me all jacked up. I was in the same boat and found some of what I thought were similar to OEM but cheaper. I could only afford the one at the time so I just got one and planned to get the other asap. I swear it's the same source as OEM. You literally could not tell me which one I replaced. Got it off Amazon. And no kidding I put my old bulbs in and saved the new. Still no blown bulbs.

It wasn't that I didn't like some of the other aftermarket look housings. They just all would look dumb on mine. I have the one on the manual cover. Dark red, charcoal bumpers and fender trim. OEM looks better with that combo.

 

[Duster]

I wanted to add another post to this even though it would probably be better somewhere else. But at least there will be some record of it that others might find.

I ran into another lighting issue the other day and thought my bulbs had finally given up the ghost again. My top brake light was out and my left brake light too. The top brake light looked kinda concerning. I just replaced it and the left bulb too.

Well the left looked OK which puzzled me and then well it still didn't work when replaced, nor swapped with another bulb and socket. I scratched my head a bit until I noticed the OEM housing had an issue.

If you look at the housing brake light up and look at the contacts, what makes the brake light work is the lower contact in the housing. Mine was pressed in and the housing melted just enough to stop contact. This probably being a short point might have contributed to the pretty ugly upper brake light bulb.

The fix is to take a razor knife and shave away the plastic melted over the contact spring tab. Then take a pick or small screwdriver and pry the spring tab back up a bit. All fixed.

Something else to look for with lighting issues anyways...