Recently, I replace the taillight and my license plate light with a set of LED light. The chief reason is that on the Subaru, the marker light appears to burn out a lot. I am looking through my service record, and there's a lot of market light replacements. Of course, this may be a electric issue, but replacing them with a LED is probably a good test.
Based on some reading, there were warning that the LED light should be visible at different angle and that you should match the color of the lens. I installed red led for taillight and white led for license plate light. I used some dielectric grease as advised by the store employee that I purchased it from.
What I have observe is that the LED that I purchased look more like a frosted version of the original bulb. In other LED, it often look like a rod with lots of led lighting elements. Frankly, it's probably looks like that underneath the bulb. The light put out is higher than the in incandescence bulb, but the LED is new while the old bulb is old, so maybe the old bulb would have been brighter out of the box.
What I did not like in the taillight is that I can see a visible bulb when lighted. In the old bulb, the light sort of blends in while in the new one, you can clearly see a single point of light in the center. Because I used the red bulb, the light at least look red for the taillight. For the license plate, there were no issue except that the light is again brighter and whiter.
The outback has separate brake and taillights. I notice that on some vehicle, the light are combined. In those cases, I am wondering if there may be an issue with the LED. May be there is less separation between the brake and non-brake.
I wonder about temperature, too. The bulb is small and don't have a lot of cooling area, but perhaps for taillight the amount of heat generate is small. I wonder if the outside temperature is 100F, would the LED be dimmer.
Paul
Based on some reading, there were warning that the LED light should be visible at different angle and that you should match the color of the lens. I installed red led for taillight and white led for license plate light. I used some dielectric grease as advised by the store employee that I purchased it from.
What I have observe is that the LED that I purchased look more like a frosted version of the original bulb. In other LED, it often look like a rod with lots of led lighting elements. Frankly, it's probably looks like that underneath the bulb. The light put out is higher than the in incandescence bulb, but the LED is new while the old bulb is old, so maybe the old bulb would have been brighter out of the box.
What I did not like in the taillight is that I can see a visible bulb when lighted. In the old bulb, the light sort of blends in while in the new one, you can clearly see a single point of light in the center. Because I used the red bulb, the light at least look red for the taillight. For the license plate, there were no issue except that the light is again brighter and whiter.
The outback has separate brake and taillights. I notice that on some vehicle, the light are combined. In those cases, I am wondering if there may be an issue with the LED. May be there is less separation between the brake and non-brake.
I wonder about temperature, too. The bulb is small and don't have a lot of cooling area, but perhaps for taillight the amount of heat generate is small. I wonder if the outside temperature is 100F, would the LED be dimmer.
Paul