3rd brake light LED - do they really work?

I'd like to replace mine however I've read so many negative reports on these things I'm gun shy. Any opinions and/or suggestions on where to buy good ones would be greatly appreciated.

I replaced both of my third brake lights with LED units and they work great. Plug and play, no issue at all.

Dennis, where and what did you buy?

I bought the smoked 3rd brake light, more for the smoked look than the led. Works great, and I think it's much brighter than the stock ones. I think I broke the stupid plastic mechanism that locks it in place, but apart from that install was easy. Bought mine on ebay. Here are some daytime pics:

Yeh great mod and look nice at night because there led

I bought mine on ebay also, from a merchant named sportscarextras. I bought the smoked variety also, one for each light. They actually came as a pack of two. I also broke one of the locking pieces during my installation, so I sent them a note and they sent me another one at no charge.

Quotes source post: 8257005

Nice! Just wondering why you didn't go with the clear one? Apparently the clear one looks great on a silver car. Thanks again for your reply.

Really? Never thought about the clear one, as I'm going for a kind of "dark" look with my car. I'm toying with the idea of blacking out the rear strip & tail-lights.

hehehe.... just wait a year, hang on to your OEM lights.

Quotes source post: 8257258

Now is that for me or the OP?

There's no reason why the LED lights shouldn't last years and years and years. I have had mine on for a few years. The only advice I'd give from experience is that if you (like me) have also got the LED rear lights then you will need a ballast resistor in line with the LED 3rd brake light. This is because the LEDs draw a minimum amount of current compared with bulbs. Therefore it looked open circuit to the electric system and my cruise control didn't work (996 manual) until a load resistor was put in the circuit. Then everything worked perfectly well. Had them on a couple of years .

Quotes source post: 8257258

Please expand your reply. Is this about the aesthetics or durability?

I ended up going with smoked so I have this extra clear one for sale...pm me if interested...

Quotes source post: 8257465

mine (from ebay).... and a few others have chimed in with similar experience, a year later during a fun run someone told me that my third light wasnt working.... went home, played around with it, got it to work..... then stopped again, The prongs on the reps are thinner so I bent them to make a more solid contact..... it did the trick, but only to find out weeks later it stopped working again. Im sure the light still works if I play with it more.... but Im done playing around with it. When I put my OEMs back on..... it actually looked pretty good in red and it works. If you compare these and the OEMs..... the OEM beats the rep hands down quality wise.

X-UFO, can you elaborate what resistance you needed as I had same problem when I tried to install rear tail light led, my third brake light LED, was acting up, like staying on for no reason and stuff like that.

Sorry to hijack.....if the OEM 3rd brake has a bulb burnt out, will that make your cruise control stop working?

Redridge - Thanks. I also wonder about the aesthetics. I like the look of LEDs, but in a few years, when every light is LED, will our incandescents look out of date, or cool?

Dennis, did you just replace your 3rd brake lights with LEDs, or did you also do your regular tails (i.e. with turn signals)?

I just did the center brake lights for two reasons. First of all, I have a wide body car and there isn't an LED tail light option available. Secondly, I'm not sure I would do it, even if an option existed. I think the more modern looking LED lights might look funny with the C4S reflector strip on the back of my car. The third brake light is only noticeable if you're looking for it. I like the smoked lens for my darker colored car - I think it blends in better than the OEM red light.

Also - I did replace the amber front side marker bulbs and the parking lights (the ones inside the headlight assembly) with LED bulbs, although that was as much for bulb longevity as it was for appearance.

Quotes source posts: 8258169, 8258589, 8259089

thats a good ???, when bulbs burn out (not sure about 3rd light).... your ABS or brake light stays on. Dude.... I respect the guys that do it, I've seen all kinds of mod... Im the kind that likes cars that are modded..... But also like the look of it being ht factory. It just didnt look right on my car.... personal taste for sure. Yep I agree with you there.... those pumpkins, only a mother can love the look..... and Im a stay home dad.

I used a minature 12 volt relay's NC contacts to switch in a halogen bulb when the 3rd brake light is off.

I bought two of the smoked LED brake lights 4-5 years ago from Carnewal. Installed them and they worked fine. You do have to be careful on the polarity. Apparently the LEDs are sensitive to polarity. After a year or so neither was working. Checked and reversed the polarity but nothing worked. Reinstalled the OEMs and everything worked. Emailed Carnewal several times to see if they knew of problems or had a fix, but never got any response form them whatsoever, which surprised me as they have a pretty good reputation. Finally last fall I took the LED's out of the box they had been sitting in for 2-3 years and rested them with a 12V battery and they seemed to work, although one is intermittent. I reinstalled the one below the window and after fooling with the contacts (they are thinner than the OEMs) I got it to work. The one on the wing I could not get to work so I still have the OEM there. Plan on trying that one again when the weather warms up.

Quotes source post: 8258121

I used one of these. It is 21W. They also sell them with the wires already soldered on but I did that myself. There is a lot of room in the hole where the third brake light goes so plenty of room to use a sticky pad to fix the resistor near to the brake light on the inside of the bodywork. http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.d...EOIBSA:GB:1123

Thanks X-UFO, I'll give it try For those of us in the USA, I've just found a similar product from a reputable US shop (no affiliation) http://www.superbrightleds.com/cgi-b...dresistor.html

hey guys does anybody know the location of the head light relay ,my head lights wont come on ,the park lights do and the brights ,checked fuse they are good 03 cab4, help!

Quotes source post: 8259615

I don't understand how oyu hook up these resistors to the 3rd brake light. Please help....

I don't understand why you need resistors. My LED third brake lights were plug and play, with no issues at all.

You'll only need resistors if you change all of the tail lights, as the resistance drop causes the car to think it has a short circuit. The 3rd led by themselves don't need a resistor to work.

The cruise control senses the brake light voltage for automatic shutoff. With LEDs in place of halogens there is a ~1.5V "float" voltage due to the CC "keep-alive" circuitry even with the brake lights not on. That low voltage is enough to disable CC entirely or even make it intermittent. Look carefully at your high mount LED in a dark garage and you will see that they remain illuminated ever so slightly.

Quotes source post: 8259089

Hi Dennis. Know I'm reviving an old thread but do you still know which make and model of bulb these were or where you got them? Keen on something brighter as people don't always seem to notice the factory ones on my yellow car. What year was your car? Thanks. You may not find this so will PM you too.

I wish I remember... I think it was a vendor called Super Bright LEDs. You might give ECS Tuning a try. I just ordered some new LED license plate bulbs from them. My car is a 2002. At this point, the exterior LEDs that I have are as follows: - side markers - 3rd brake light (both) - parking lights I haven't done the turn signals yet, but I'd like to do that.

A 6 ohm 50 watt resitor in parallel will make the 256k ohms that the LED brake light has appear to be approx 5 ohms to the car, one end of the resistor to one wire and the other end to the 2nd wire so it is connected just like the light is. Do not put it in series that will dim the light. this will prevent the abs and psm light from coming on when you turn the lights on and keep the cruise working. Hope this helps, Tim

Inside the flasher under the drivers dash, remove it and open it up there is a small axial capacitor, changing the value of this cap changes the blink rate. smaller cap quicker larger cap longer. This is how the blink time is controlled. this will allow LEDs to blink correctly. Hope this helps, Tim

Quotes source post: 8257341

I had the EXACT problem that you did. Your post proved valuable in my research for a solution. Got home and pulled the DEPO LED tail lights. Put the OEMs in and went for a test drive. Cruise was working again....so we know for sure it was the LED tail lights. So, I had 50w 6ohm reistors on hand. I pulled the lights and as in videos posted by Saturn of Delray Customs, rather than have it dangling or attached to the plastic housing, spliced the sleeve around the six wire harness to make a one inch gap about 4 inches from the grommet. Pulled the orange/black tail light positive and the brown ground that Ahsai pointed out to me and ran them parallel. I mounted them on the back of the cavity near the other factory resistor that came with the DEPOs (presumably the one for the blinkers to prevent hyper blinking)---Did same on both sides (x2). Just came back and my cruise is working again! Thanks for your post. Perhaps it is a '99 thing because the DME changed from '99 (first year of production in US although in Europe I understand that it was actually introduced in '98) to the later models. The cruise system is presumably different to later models in that my throttle is not electronic as they introduced on the Turbo and then later years (drive by wire vs. e-gas). Perhaps that system on my '99 is more sensitive to the resistance.... Thanks for posting!