Best Tail Light Bulbs: Get the Dim Out

Top 8 Best Taillight Bulbs

Scattered amongst all the commerce posts you’ve read on this and other sites about ZOMG PRIME DAY DEALS featuring a wide array of products are lists like this one, focused on a single type of car part that you’re not likely to think about until its actually needed.

Taillight bulbs certainly aren’t the sexiest topic but it is an eminently practical one. Having a few of these suckers on hand, especially if one dailies a clapped-out hoopty like most of us do around here, is never a bad idea. Your author has a Maxwell House coffee can full of the things, harvested from years of prepping cars for demolition derbies.

To keep an apples-to-apples comparison, we’ve selected a sample vehicle for which all these bulbs should fit: A 2015 F-150. It’s also worth noting that some cars require a load resistor or some other electrical add-on when converting to an LED bulb. As with all products of this type, make sure you’ve selected the right thing before hitting that ‘buy’ button.

These pure red LED bulbs come in a pair and have the proper seat to fit the wiring sockets on our fictional F-150. A series of LEDs all around the bulb surface should provide much better illumination characteristics than one with peepers just on the end.

The twist with these things? They will briefly strobe at during their initial illumination, a feature that will - in theory - more quickly grab the attention of that texter behind you and make for a safer emergency stop situation compared to a solid brake light. The seller asserts the flashing has "legal blinking times" so while it will draw the attention of Becky who's on the phone, it shouldn't draw negative attention from the gendarmes.

The rise (and subsequent cost reduction) of LEDs has been a boon for all things automotive, particularly in terms of styling choices. Manufacturers can now assemble much more interesting headlight designs that still shine brightly and do not mimic simple fireflies in jam jars.

It's a similar story outback with these red LED bulbs. Finding red incandescents back in the day was a chore. Now, they're everywhere - including these options here. Phinlion seems to be a popular brand of LED bulbs and this variant has one of the best ratings on Amazon.

If all one needs is a bulb to pass state inspection or to sell a knackered old car fine second-hand automobile on Facebook Marketplace, a simple 5 dollar set of traditional bulbs is likely all that's required. Keep the snazzy LEDs for yourself.

These are the same type of bulbs that fill your author's coffee can mentioned in the preamble of this post. They are clear in color, sold by Bosch, and fit the flat terminal style outlets found in the wiring loom of our fictional F-150 pickup.

The seller of these bulbs makes the claim they are of a waterproof and dustproof design, an assertion that may seem needless since most taillights should be watertight and do their own job of keeping out those types of debris.

But let's be real - if you're replacing bulbs, there's a good chance your rig is getting old. And older cars sometimes have cracks or sealing problems on their light housings. One could also argue these might be handy for off-road gearheads (*raises hand*) who routinely dunk their vehicles in the nearest river or shove them into a sand dune with wild abandon.

These bulbs are clear, making them a decent choice not just for tail- and brake lights but also for backup and turn signal duty. This is handy for cars that have amber blinkers (yes, I just used that word) in the rear as nature and European/Japanese manufacturers intended.

Spotting amber turn signals on a 2015 F-150 is like spotting a non-sedentary teenager: very rare. Recall, however, that a particular Sport Package on the previous-gen Ranger used the box and taillights from its Mazda B-Series equivalent, marking one of the few occasions in which a Ford pickup had amber turn signals bookending a tailgate. And, oh yeah, these bulbs are highly recommended.

These bulbs are also of the strobe-when-activated variety, so be sure that type of illumination is kosher with your local constabulary before installing these things. The ad copy starts off with troubleshooting tips that either denote a lack of confidence in the product or a wise attempt to get ahead of customer complaints from dough heads who install the bulbs upside down.

Some customers advise these are good for brakes only, not turn signals, which would normally DQ these from consideration for our sample F-150. However, an equal number of respondents said they had no problems. An electrical add-on (as mentioned above) might help.

Part of the brigade that tosses white light from their LEDs instead of red, these bulbs would be fine for applications where the taillight lens itself is red, not clear. A 360-degree lighting design will probably emulate a collapsed sun for brightness.

This is also one of the few sellers that mention anything about heat dissipation. While not as big of a deal as incandescent bulbs which can heat up to the point one can light a cigarette off its surface (ask me how I know), thermal management is usually an issue for any bulb.

Like others here, these bulbs cast a white light and are non-polarity in design so it should be easy enough to plug-n-play these things into your beater. Keep in mind some cars will need an electrical add-on

The seller says these bulbs are designed as low temperature and low power consumption items. Claiming to be more than 400% brighter than the original halogen bulb, one can expect a life span of up to 50,000 hrs (or one week in L.A. freeway traffic).

FAQs

Are LED tail lights better?

Yes, LED taillights are way better than the traditional Halogen or Xenon lights due to the following reasons:

LEDs are cheaper compared to traditional bulbs

LEDs are comparatively brighter

LEDs last longer (somewhere around 30,000 to 50,000 hours)

LEDs consume much less energy

Another noteworthy point here is that not only in tail lights but many people prefer using LEDs for the headlights of their vehicles as well.

Now, if you are planning to replace your tail lights, you are advised to consider the above advantages before deciding upon which bulbs you want to go for.

What kind of bulb goes in a tail light?

Although Halogen or Xenon bulbs are used as stock tail lights of a vehicle, LEDs being more popular these days, many owners get the factory-fitted bulbs replaced with them. This is because the LED lights come cheap, are brighter than the stock lights, draw comparatively less power when turned on, and have a life of around 30,000 to 50,000 hours.

Can I put LED bulbs in my tail lights?

Yes, you can. As mentioned earlier, LEDs offer several advantages over traditional bulbs that your vehicle initially comes with. However, things are not as simple as they seem. Because most car manufacturers install Halogen or Xenon bulbs for tail lights, many old vehicles don’t have a circuit to accommodate LEDs.

If your car didn’t come with any LED-oriented circuit and you plan to replace the stock tail lights with LEDs, there are a few things that may raise a false-positive concern. To overcome this, you may have to go for an additional component or CANBus-compatible (Controller Area Network Bus compatible) LEDs to get them up and running.

The following are the details:

Because LEDs consume significantly less power, when using them for brake lights, the Controller Area Network Bus or CANBus that is responsible for detecting any problem in the vehicle and flashing it on the display screen fails to sense their presence due to higher resistance in the circuit. As a result, the CANBus shows an error telling the driver that the brake lights are missing.

To resolve this issue, you can either install a CANBus decoder if you’re planning to buy standard LED lights or you can go with a comparatively easier option which is CANBus-compatible LED bulbs that have a built-in decoder. As a matter of fact, it is advisable to always prefer the latter over the former. This is because the CANBus-compatible lights can work flawlessly even if CANBus is already present in your vehicle.

Are LED tail lights brighter?

Yes, they are much brighter than the traditional tail lights. In addition, they are comparatively instantaneous. Simply put, when a Halogen bulb gets turned on, it takes a while to warm up and glow at its fullest luminance. On the other hand, an LED bulb takes merely around 0.2 seconds to fully illuminate.

Furthermore, because LED bulbs are brighter, when turned on, they are visible from a comparatively longer distance. As a result, your vehicle becomes less prone to accidents that could otherwise happen if you have bulbs with reduced luminance installed as tail lights in your vehicle.

From time to time, TTAC will highlight automotive products we think may be of interest to our community. Plus, posts like this help to keep the lights on around here. Learn more about how this works.

(Editor’s note: This post is meant to both help you be an informed shopper for automotive products but also to pay for our ‘90s sedan shopping habits operating expenses. Some of you don’t find these posts fun, but they help pay for Junkyard Finds, Rare Rides, Rental Reviews, and whatever else. Thanks for reading.)

[Main Photo Credit:Eshma/Shutterstock.com. Product images provided by the manufacturer.]