Guide to Aftermarket HeadLight/Taillight Replacement (US Only)

WUZombies

Adventurist
This is a short overview of a topic that is complex and interesting if you enjoy such things. I'm not attorney and this is not legal advice, it is advice from my personal and professional experience to help you keep you and your rig safe.

Some thoughts on lighting


Most of the lower cost vehicle lighting aftermarket isn't legal to use on the road in the US. The Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards speak specifically about the five required lights on a vehicle. The specific code is 49CFR571.108 and it talks about issues such as color temp of the lighting, reflectivity of reflector devices (typically built into light housings now days for non-commercial vehicles that require retro tape) and the lighting being weather sealed. If you look at your OEM light assembly, or a legal replacement, there will be a series of things embossed on the lens. There is the DOT number and then a SAE number. DOT does not "certify" any lighting, all the DOT numbers on the lens really mean is that the company has a DOT certificate. Companies that emboss the SAE certificate number actually completed the testing for that light assembly. It is possible to have FMVSS compliant lighting without having been tested and certificated; however, buyer beware, some states that have vehicle safety inspections won't pass a vehicle with aftermarket lighting that does not have the full series of embossed information on the lens. Also buyer beware, some of the Chinese made lights have fake numbers embossed on them (often sold on eBay).

What does this all mean besides being "legal?"


A lighting solution that hasn't been tested and recognized as being compliant may not have the correct beam pattern, it may have lighting that is the incorrect color temperature, it could have a housing that fails due to weather contamination...basically actual safety concerns. If you are interested as to why beam pattern and light color temp matters for safety we should have a separate discussion, it can be quite technical but it does matter.

Tinting of lenses

100% 50-state illegal. Besides being ludicrously stupid from a traffic safety standpoint, the FMVSS has specific wording that makes it illegal. Every state has wording in their traffic laws that defer technical requirements to the FMVSS.

For instance in Texas it is TC547.3215:

Sec. 547.3215. USE OF FEDERAL STANDARD. Unless specifically prohibited by this chapter, lighting, reflective devices, and associated equipment on a vehicle or motor vehicle must comply with:

(1) the current federal standards in 49 C.F.R. Section 571.108; or

(2) the federal standards in that section in effect, if any, at the time the vehicle or motor vehicle was manufactured.

Added by Acts 1997, 75th Leg., ch. 324, Sec. 1, eff. Sept. 1, 1997.


This includes practically every lens assembly that is produced with smoked lenses. You have to be careful with the manufacturing wording, they'll often say a product is compliant, and it might be with a clear lens. The problem is that the same model might be offered in a smoked lens that isn't compliant and the manufacture may not be very obvious about the difference.

Does any of this concern you? From the perspective of a traffic safety expert that actively works in the field involving crashes (fatalities and serious injuries) resultant in major litigation I argue that it should; from my perspective as a former police officer who spent most of his career in a traffic unit enforcing traffic laws, I know that most people don't care.
 
People should care, but most wont. I am seeing more and more people driving around with LED bars and pods that scatter light everywhere these days. I think part of it is they are so cheap and abundant now.

My eyes are very sensitive to light, I literally have sunglasses on my head 98% of the time. They suck when people run them all the time, even daytime!

That being said, my current lights are not DOT legal. I swapped aftermarket projectors into my OE housings when I went to HID lights. That being said they are probably on par or better than most cars. I have a very very clean cutoff line to my lights, it generally lands below the trunk line of a 'camry' that would be in front of me at a stop sign/light, that is with a slightly lifted truck. I have never been flashed yet since doing them.

Another thing to note, many states have a limit to the height and number of lights that can be illuminated on a road going car/truck. Some require obscure covers too.

On the tinted tails, I don't personally care as long as its still visible (day time too!). I don't think it really "looks" good on most cars though.
 
LOL. I see a lot of white trash Cherokees with this mod...

https://www.cherokeeforum.com/f59/angry-eyes-head-lights-how-93969/index5/

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I had bought some cheaper ($100) LED headlights from Amazon. Tried them one night and the pattern sucked. Sent them back the next day. Bit the bullet and bought a set of J.W. Speaker 8900 Evo 2 series and could not be happier! My wallet not so much but these are what I was expecting, better than my 2016 RAV4 with factory LED projectors, which was the best lighting I have had on a vehicle. I can't stand people with incorrectly aimed lights, HID or LED conversions in factory housings that just scatter light everywhere. Buy quality, tested lights or leave them along.
 
On the tinted tails, I don't personally care as long as its still visible (day time too!). I don't think it really "looks" good on most cars though.

It significantly diminishes the reflectivity of the red reflectors built into the lens assembly. Reflectors are required and necessary. I added C2 DOT tape to the back of my van just because of my experience with rear end collisions, especially at night with significant differences in speed. There are some SAE papers that discuss research that has occurred, but I'm more than sure no one but me enjoys reading such things.
 
It significantly diminishes the reflectivity of the red reflectors built into the lens assembly. Reflectors are required and necessary. I added C2 DOT tape to the back of my van just because of my experience with rear end collisions, especially at night with significant differences in speed. There are some SAE papers that discuss research that has occurred, but I'm more than sure no one but me enjoys reading such things.
I don't disagree at all, I didn't think about the reflectors. I do see a lot of cars having them separate, but I am sure someone who tints their tails would do them too.
 
Kind like when the CHP had the 1 single rear flashing amber light years ago. They got rid of them because DUI drivers would zero in on them and cause a crash.
 
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