Tail lights of Misery FTL
Why you shouldn't buy "JamStrait LED Automotive Bulbs" for use in your car. Yeah as if the name wasn't enough to clue you in.
As I was heading out to the Waffle House today, with my room mate Alyson (By the way, the Waffle House was packed, so we ended up going to Kerbey Lane with Julia). I noticed my "Lamp Out" dummy light was on. Sure enough when I signaled to get in to the right lane I got the quick flasher that blinked in time with that lovely lamp out button. So after we ate, I stopped off at the good old Autozone. Autozone is to parts stores as Wal-Mart is to, um, well just spreading the cheapest crap. So that analogy didn't work as planned.
I figure since it was just a tail light bulb no harm no foul in getting it from Autozone. I should have stuck with the Sylvania goodness, but In seeing this LED setup I couldn't resist. I've personally done a bit of work with LED in tail light applications, so I know that they can be quite powerful, and I love the digital response of on and off, as opposed to the analog that you get from an incandescent bulb. The first warning should have been how long these bulbs are. I know the light pattern of an LED and these did strike me as being a bit too much, but I thought eh, it can't be that bad. So after freezing my fingers off in this mysterious Texas weather, I finally got the tail light out and the bulb swapped. I will deal more with swapping the bulb in another post, as removing the tail light housing is an interesting process in and of itself.
Here is a lovely side by side comparison. Just look at that. Stock bulb to the left, new "Super-Bright" LED cluster to the right. Personally, if you're looking to get rear-ended and maybe pick up a few bucks in a lawsuit, I'd definitely recommend these bulbs. Needless to say I will be returning them shortly and picking up a pair of Sylvanias. These bulbs fail miserably. DEATH TO THEM!
