The tail lights on my old truck are a bit foggy, I've cleaned & polished them; but visibility is a good thing.
Are these worth the money, do they work and have the same life expectancy?
Thanks, Dan
Rats, can someone put a W in my title please?
The tail lights on my old truck are a bit foggy, I've cleaned & polished them; but visibility is a good thing.
Are these worth the money, do they work and have the same life expectancy?
Thanks, Dan
Rats, can someone put a W in my title please?
I have some on my cars, they're extra bright but I've only had them on for a couple years so far. They should last far longer than incandescents.
I don't have anything to add about the bulbs (been wondering the same thing actually) however I do think "Orth the Trouble" would be a great name for a villainous troll in a children's book. 
They should save you a traffic ticket for burned out lights every few years.
Here's an Exterior lighting maintenance, resto, and upgrade post. It's classic Mopar-centric, but most of it applies ot any older car/truck.
I have them on the parking and brake lights on my Disco. I refuse to add external resisters, so I am stuck using regular incandescents for the signals. I have had them going on three years now, no failures and still very bright
I use them on my bikes.
I don't know what "trouble" they are, pretty much drop-in replacements. I run them on my '64 Corvair, because it has tiny rear lamps and these are extra bright. Had them in there for 2 years so far, zero complaints.
914Driver said:Rats, can someone put a W in my title please?
"W" added FTW
The only issues I have had was getting them to fit in a Harley tail light socket. The Harley tail light sockets are slightly deeper than other sockets. They wouldn't fit. I solved it by chucking them up in the lathe and turning the shoulder further up the bulb until they fit. Non=HD tail lights probably wouldn't be affected.
The SMDs are worlds better than the old clear LEDs you would get from Autozone back during the ricer/apc craze. If you want the blinkers to run at a normal rate, just use an HD flasher, no resistance blocks needed. Should be drop in on any rig running a 2 wire or 3 wire flasher.
https://www.grote.com/products/44110-3-pin-led-flasher-flasher/
Did you know there is a whole company just making aftermarket flashers? And they are in Canada?
Do yourself a favor and replace the pigtail with 3157. Most of the failures of 1156/1157 bulbs come from crusty sockets.
Replacing tungsten with LEDs can be as easy as replacing bulbs. In some cases (like mine) it turned into a several week project. One would think that you plug in an LED bulb and then make sure the flasher works. If it doesn't you replace it with an EL12 electronic flasher and you're done. Not in my case. EL12 didn't work. Special electronic flasher with additional circuit didn't work. I had to get a solid state flasher that didn't fit in my fuse panel and make pigtails to connect it remotely. What a pain.
As long as you're just doing taillights and rear turn signals, you should be fine. If you do a full upgrade like I did, prepare for headaches.
Curtis said:As long as you're just doing taillights and rear turn signals, you should be fine. If you do a full upgrade like I did, prepare for headaches.
That wasn't so on my 2015 Frontier. It "knew" right away when I changed the rear signal lights and it hyperflashed. It also apparently doesn't have a flasher module, so I ended up putting in resistors. Brake and tail lights were also 3157, but an odd wiring arrangement (3157CK) so that was a learning experience too.
In reply to akamcfly :
My 94 Fordzda Branger was a crazy fight to get LEDs to work. It is so old school, you would think it would be a slam dunk, but it was a painful journey.
I just replaced my 31 year old tail light lenses, cheap on Rock Auto. Much brighter.
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