Accidents happen. I had to replace a tail lamp on a 2010 TL. As most of you know, these are LED lights and dealers want around $300 for the assembly. What some of you might not know, is the brake light wiring is highly integrated into the Hill Start Assist, SH-AWD, and VSA sensors. The OEM light is made by Stanley and the aftermarkets are made by DEPO. Ebay and Amazon sellers arent always clear on the distinction.

Imagine my surprise when I recently had all three warning lights come on. I quickly found a TSA regarding some faulty TL brake light switches. The dealer agreed and replaced them twice, problem still occurred.

Later in the week, a nice car wash attendant alerted me that my new brake light was not working. I also observed the driver tail lamp parking lights were extremely dim compared to the passenger side. I noticed that the dash warning lights were only alarming whenever I had the parking lights on or at night when the automatic lights were active.

I also found that the push button start could be activated without pressing the brake ONLY whenever the parking lights were on, which means this tail lamp was shorting out the brake override. When I unplugged the driver side tail lamp with the parking lights active, I was no longer able to start the car without pressing on the brake pedal.


Well that's not good, considering LED isn't user replaceable. It was also the same DEPO tail light I had ordered from an Amazon retailer.

I rarely drive this car. Now that more days than mileage (1,000 miles) has passed since I purchased the tail lamp, the Amazon retailer is so far refusing to refund money. I can't really fault them for that, but also the part is barely used and it malfunctioned.

The tail lamp is highly dependent to other safety systems that sense brake use. Due to the time and troubleshooting involved in solving this problem with the dealer, aftermarket parts are a big gamble and I've since read that DEPO Taiwan parts have a fairly cheap reputation.

I just wanted to warn others who are considering aftermarket DEPO lights because this is is a safety issue and one that needs to meet DOT standards, and could cause NHTSA concerns.

Please take this into consideration when choosing aftermarket parts. I just hope this thread saves another TL owner from problems. Thanks.

 

Thanks for the info. This will save a lot of grief.

 

Is the 4G TL tail-light unit just a plastic shell which houses all the tail-light bulbs, or is it a plastic shell integrated with controller units and wiring assemblies ?

 

Damn that sucks, Sorry to hear

 

Since my OEM was cracked, I took it apart. It's not very easy to do without cracking or scratching up the reflective pieces. But yes, inside is an LED circuit board. I took a 9 volt battery. One wire + ground activates parking light, additional wire + ground the LED's light up with full intensity, and it's extremely bright!

So I can see how a cheap Taiwan knockoff could interfere back to the brake pedal.

 

Definitely. Cheap, sub-standard LED's will also have reduced and non-uniform output light intensity too. It's always that "we get what we paid for".

 

I bought a pair of smoked depo for my awd 12 TL. They fit with no issues or check lights. All lights work including Hill assist

 

any pics installed?

 

live and learn right?