When you click on links to various merchants on this site and make a purchase, this can result in this site earning a commission. Affiliate programs and affiliations include, but are not limited to, the eBay Partner Network.
A little side-by-side of old vs. new rear lenses if anyone is interested - was trying to decide myself if I prefer the new ones or not, but still undecided...
A little side-by-side of old vs. new rear lenses if anyone is interested - was trying to decide myself if I prefer the new ones or not, but still undecided...
I certainly prefer the V6 that's in the top car. I still can't get over the f type in a 4 cylinder. Don't care what color the tail lights are.
A little side-by-side of old vs. new rear lenses if anyone is interested - was trying to decide myself if I prefer the new ones or not, but still undecided...
I think smoking rear lenses would be bad for your lungs...that being said, while I think they look good with some color combos, don't they drastically cut down on light transmission?
CRS
Darkened lenses transmit less light: translation: the cars following you are not getting the message you want them to get with the force intended. Possible result? A good bit of damage to the rear of your beautiful F-Type, and a whiplash injury to you. Not nice, regardless of the appearance of the lens. And as I write this I am in month 5 of whiplash recovery, with a long way to go.
Darkened lenses transmit less light: translation: the cars following you are not getting the message you want them to get with the force intended. Possible result? A good bit of damage to the rear of your beautiful F-Type, and a whiplash injury to you. Not nice, regardless of the appearance of the lens. And as I write this I am in month 5 of whiplash recovery, with a long way to go.
Now now... its not that simple. A two way mirror appears to have no light transmission to the other side, but in reality transmits plenty. OEM smoked tail lights operate on the same principal; they are engineered to transmit an adequate amount of light through the lens despite their darker appearance.
This afternoon I followed a car in traffic with darkened tail lamps - darkened to about the same depth as those suggested for the F-Type. When the brake lights of all the cars came on at a stop light, those of the car with the darkened lenses showed at about 50-60 % of the brilliance of all the other tail lamps. So with respect I have to say that I completely disagree with your statement that the brake lights will have "adequate" brilliance with darkened lenses. Brighter brake lights just may avoid some very costly damage.
Jaguar did fit darkened lenses to certain versions of the XJ40 model - and they too transmitted a less brilliant light (possibly the reason they did not continue this practice). I do agree that the darker lenses look good (possibly better than the bright red lenses) ... but....
This afternoon I followed a car in traffic with darkened tail lamps - darkened to about the same depth as those suggested for the F-Type. When the brake lights of all the cars came on at a stop light, those of the car with the darkened lenses showed at about 50-60 % of the brilliance of all the other tail lamps. So with respect I have to say that I completely disagree with your statement that the brake lights will have "adequate" brilliance with darkened lenses. Brighter brake lights just may avoid some very costly damage.
Jaguar did fit darkened lenses to certain versions of the XJ40 model - and they too transmitted a less brilliant light (possibly the reason they did not continue this practice). I do agree that the darker lenses look good (possibly better than the bright red lenses) ... but....
Perhaps the solution for those wanting smoked lenses is to attach a pulsing module to the center LED brake light. I have one of those on my MINI and it wakes people right up. Once I figure out how to remove the interior trim on the hatch I will be installing one on the F-Type as well.
This afternoon I followed a car in traffic with darkened tail lamps - darkened to about the same depth as those suggested for the F-Type. When the brake lights of all the cars came on at a stop light, those of the car with the darkened lenses showed at about 50-60 % of the brilliance of all the other tail lamps. So with respect I have to say that I completely disagree with your statement that the brake lights will have "adequate" brilliance with darkened lenses. Brighter brake lights just may avoid some very costly damage.
You cannot compare someone's tint job to an OEM tail light housing. They are not even remotely the same.
You're just making uneducated assumptions about the design and functionality of Jaguar's smoked tail lamps. Hell, you could increase the light output by using different bulbs with more wattage and have a brighter tail lamp than non-smoked lamps.
BMW blacklines have been proven to work even better in the daylight than stock BMW tail lamps because they offer more contrast to defeat glare... They sacrifice no light output.
I would like darker tail lights, and I'm a DIY kind of guy, so I was thinking about having a go at putting on some tint film myself. AFAICT the only way to do it properly would be to remove the tail lights and do it on a bench, but even with the factory repair manual I can't figure out how to do this. It also suggests that you need to remove the whole rear clip to get the tail lights out, which seems a bit OTT to me! I reason that the only way to do it properly is to remove the tail lights because the gaps between the lights and the bodywork are pretty damn tight, less than 1 mm in almost all places (which is a good thing!), which would make it very difficult to "cut and fold" the edges of the tint nice and neat and clean with the tail lights in place, well at least beyond my meagre abilities. Or could a pro tint shop do this no sweat?
Smoked rear lenses - comparison
