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LED Replacement Bulbs That Are NOT Brighter Than OEM 2024 XLT 303A

Scott-E

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Hey guys,

There are LOTS of posts on here and other sites about replacement bulbs that will work well for the stock non-LED tail lights. My problem is that they all seems to marvel at how much brighter they are. I don’t fully understand that. I appreciate that it makes you more visible, but from my perspective it comes at the cost - the annoyance of other drivers.

Does anyone know of any LED bulbs that will work, that won’t have other drivers quickly trying to figure out if I’m breaking or not? I really want the crisp on/off that LED provides - and that’s all I want. Does anyone have any recommendations?

thanks in advance!
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ksdon

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If your headlight is a reflector, using an LED build will almost guarantee that the appearance to other drivers will be horrible. LED and halogen build have different points of light. They are sort of close on some brands but they are never correct on an LED build due to the necessary difference in the bulbs. If you have a projector headlamp, LEDs can be pretty good if they are correctly aimed.

We have projectors with LED bulbs that were aimed using an electronic aiming machine and have never been flashed in at least 2 years.

I apologize that I can not answer your question about less bright LED. Nearly every LED buldmaker is on a journey to get brighter than the next guy.
 

JerseyGlock

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You'll be blinding (glare) oncoming drivers, depends on the state law and you may get tickets. You are better off go aftermarket LED headlamp unit replacments.
 
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Scott-E

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Understood - but I'm talking about tail lights only. My headlights are already LED from the factory (as is every other light on the truck except for the tail/break lights).

Blinding others with my tail lights is exactly what I'm trying to avoid. I find that almost all of the bulbs referenced in other threads seem orders of magnitude brighter than stock. Everyone seems to love that, but I don't.
 

Hans Moleman

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LED bulbs in halogen tail lights are terrible as well. They don’t illuminate evenly or uniformly .

Just get OE style Chinese made tail lights on eBay. I have 2021-2023 Chinese Raptor tail lights and the brightness and color are great. No moisture intrusion issues either. They only cost me $250. There are 24+ styles as well.
 
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Scott-E

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LED bulbs in halogen tail lights are terrible as well. They don’t. Like even or uniform.

Just get OE style Chinese made tail lights on eBay. I have 2021-2023 Chinese Raptor tail lights and the brightness and color are great. No moisture issues either. They only cost me $250. There are 24+ styles as well.
That's not a bad option, honestly. I take it you didn't run into any issues with BLIS or anything like that? I know that I'll need to make some edits in forscan, which is fine. I just assumed the Chinese ones would throw errors left and right.
 

Porpoise Hork

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I use these for the brake lights on mine. They are incredibly bright. I've had the same set in there for over three years now with no issues. No problems with seeing them from any angle or dead spots. The halogen tail lamp housings have a diffuser that helps make the light from these very uniform from the back too.

SYLVANIA - 3157 ZEVO

There's little nubs on the lamps that need to be clipped off so they will fit int he plugs, and you'll need to go in with Forscan and disable rear brake light hyperflash. I've tried a munch of different bulbs and none are as bright as the Zevo's so I keep putting them back in. lol
 

Hans Moleman

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That's not a bad option, honestly. I take it you didn't run into any issues with BLIS or anything like that? I know that I'll need to make some edits in forscan, which is fine. I just assumed the Chinese ones would throw errors left and right.
Everything was good. I transferred the BLIS modules from the factory tail lights to the Chinese ones. I did do Forscan changes to disable bulb outage detection because I didn’t want to use resistors.
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