Tinted Tail Light Issues

jslibby · **Posted:** Tue Oct 12, 2010 1:21 pm

get LEDS and smoke the light with paint. you can buy a $10 can and spary it of get a pro job and pay 100 bucks but will last for ever.

turbosocks · **Joined:** Thu Jan 07, 2010 1:06 pm **Posts:** 93

here are some better pics of the tails.. this weekend after some wetsanding and re-clearing, they should look a ton better.. i was driving around all night last night and the tails didn't seem hot at all with the LED bulbs in the parking/brake lights.

Jeepin_it_real · **Posted:** Sun Oct 17, 2010 9:00 pm

turbo you need to add resisotrs in line if you didnt already or you are gunna have a problem with heat and possibly other electrical problems... LEDs are low resistance which causes the current int he circuit to rise... may not seem like an issue but too much current is not good and some things are made to only handle a certain amount

lefty's pride · **Posted:** Mon Oct 18, 2010 11:03 pm

leds are low current if your using power it has to go some where else "heat" "light" ect if they used more power than a standard bulb the heat would have to show up somewear.
wikipedia says "LEDs present many advantages over incandescent light sources including lower energy consumption, longer lifetime, improved robustness, smaller size, faster switching, and greater durability and reliability."

Jeepin_it_real · **Posted:** Tue Oct 19, 2010 10:07 pm

the only thing that will increase light is voltage and to a certain point LED's will only produce a certain amount. they will no go beyond that. the increase in current increases the heat.. which will destroy your expensive LEDs... I'm an electrical and computer engineer. i work with LED's and electrical components on a daily basis.. infact part of my education is understanding how a LED or pretty much any diode works. if your gunna install LED's ... do it right!

jslibby · **Posted:** Tue Nov 02, 2010 1:13 pm

LEDs since 08 and still no issue I only put resistor on my turn signals to avoid the fast blinking.

Jeepin_it_real · **Posted:** Tue Nov 02, 2010 8:23 pm

jslibby just cause there seems to be no problem doesnt mean there isnt... I'm telling you from an electrical point of view it is a problem... why do you think for instance your signals go so fast.... you should always add a resistance... when removing a component and exchanging in in an electrical circuit you change all other components in the same series and any other component in parallel which have that same voltage drop... the resistance also keeps your current form being too high... it will save bulbs and keep other items from having an issue

jslibby · **Posted:** Tue Nov 09, 2010 4:26 pm

they go fast because the car reads as if the is no bulb. i know that but it a liberty we drive no a mercedes or bmw or jaguar.
i mean yea you can be like best buy and say yo need to buy special clip for wire or just cut and join i pretty hard to mess up simple electirics. i mor worried about the cars original issues then my "mods".

Jeepin_it_real · **Posted:** Tue Nov 09, 2010 8:23 pm

it doesnt read faster because of no bulb. the reason it flashes is due to it's resistance... if you raise or lower the resistance it will decrease/increase your flash rate... not all electronics are plug and play... just cause the bulb fits doesnt mean the result or how it acts to your car is the same in fact you could be doing more damage to your car by just screwing up the electrical...

CohenCaptureCrawler · **Posted:** Thu Jan 20, 2011 12:08 pm

Atthehelm wrote:

Wow. I never would have thought that tiny bulb could melt that plastic. I was a week away from doing this myself and im glad i didnt. I wouldnt drill any holes on the outside for waterproofing purposes, maybe try drilling some holes on the inside part of the housing for more ventilation.

i was about to do this too!!! can we reach a consensus on the proper way to black your lights on the kk?
(maybe put it in the FAQ)

TJS2010 · **Posted:** Thu Jan 20, 2011 1:26 pm

jslibby wrote:

they go fast because the car reads as if the is no bulb. i know that but it a liberty we drive no a mercedes or bmw or jaguar.
i mean yea you can be like best buy and say yo need to buy special clip for wire or just cut and join i pretty hard to mess up simple electirics. i mor worried about the cars original issues then my "mods".

Just my

but a resistor should be added even though it may appear not necessary. Yea you could deal with a fast blinking bulb, but that’s not the true problem here. I've seen this happen first hand on my other car. I had LED's in brake and turn bulbs. I never added resistors and just delt with the fast blink. A few months later the car had a parasitic drain I wasn’t able to track down up until about a year later when I was doing some work behind one of the rear interior panels. About 3 feet down the line one of the harnesses’ wires had grounded to the back side of the quarter panel. Save yourselves the trouble and add the resistor. It may seem minor, but could lead to big annoyances.

Lord Helmet · **Posted:** Sat Jan 22, 2011 11:43 am

Glad I saw this thread. I was going to do this today.

EDIT: To add to this, has anyone had any issues with tinting the front marker lamps?

NewJerseyKK · **Posted:** Sat Jan 22, 2011 12:46 pm

Im thinking about doing my front turn signals too. Anyone know how to get them off?

Knightrider03m · **Posted:** Sat Jan 22, 2011 12:58 pm

I've always had my tail lights tinted with film. Long term wise it still held up great. Downside is that it doesn't get as dark as I would like it.

1998 ZJ

2008 MKZ

Lord Helmet · **Posted:** Sun Jan 23, 2011 1:18 am

Knigtrider, what kind of film do/did you use? I saw some pre-cut ones on ebay for $8 or something. I was thinking of picking them up. I'm wondering if it can be done with regular window tint.

Knightrider03m · **Posted:** Sun Jan 23, 2011 2:35 am

Lord Helmet wrote:

Knigtrider, what kind of film do/did you use? I saw some pre-cut ones on ebay for $8 or something. I was thinking of picking them up. I'm wondering if it can be done with regular window tint.

Don't know about what type of tint was used because I had my tint guy put it on. When I did my Lincoln, I bought the ebay tint and gave it to my tint guy to do it. After about 20 minutes of him working on it he came back and told me that the tint will not work out. He showed me how the tint was poorly cut and was way too small for the light and he also told me that the tint may not last that long due to the thickness (or lack there of). He also told me that is was hard to put on due to the curve of the taillight, so I told him to dump it and put his tint on the car.

NewJerseyKK · **Posted:** Sun Jan 23, 2011 10:23 am

What about spray tint? cant you use that?

Lord Helmet · **Posted:** Mon Jan 24, 2011 10:03 pm

Knightrider03m wrote:

Lord Helmet wrote:

Knigtrider, what kind of film do/did you use? I saw some pre-cut ones on ebay for $8 or something. I was thinking of picking them up. I'm wondering if it can be done with regular window tint.

Don't know about what type of tint was used because I had my tint guy put it on. When I did my Lincoln, I bought the ebay tint and gave it to my tint guy to do it. After about 20 minutes of him working on it he came back and told me that the tint will not work out. He showed me how the tint was poorly cut and was way too small for the light and he also told me that the tint may not last that long due to the thickness (or lack there of). He also told me that is was hard to put on due to the curve of the taillight, so I told him to dump it and put his tint on the car.

Knightrider, thanks for the info. I think I'll go talk to my tint guy this weekend and see what he can do.

glsec507 · **Joined:** Mon Jul 18, 2011 4:12 pm **Posts:** 59

any way we can get some pics up that show the brightness of the taillights with the tint and also the brightness difference between leds and reg bulbs under the tint??????

black and blue · **Posted:** Thu Jul 21, 2011 4:46 pm

I have been seeing the "dimple" a little more recently since it's been so hot out. I have a couple SMD LEDs on the way though.

What size resistor is everyone using? The place I got them from does not say the resistance of the LEDs, but the resistors they sell to fix hyperflash are 60 ohm.

Tinted Tail Light Issues

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