I do take my Gladiator cross country and may take the YJ along sometime instead.
LED Headlight and Taillight Choice
- Thread starter Whiplash2130
- Start date
Very cool and good to know as well. These are IMHO the best LED taillights out there. They aren't cheap, but you get what you pay for when it comes to these things.
Yeah the best part is they keep the Jeep look for the most part, and IMO actually improve it big time. I’ll never use any other LED tail on a Jeep as long as these are made.
The great part about them is that the only portion of the taillight that is proprietary Savvy is the CNC portion. The LED taillight itself is just a generic LED board like this one:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01KLPXWHQ/?tag=yjforum-20
So all you have to do if the LEDs ever burn out is get some of those as replacements. I've got a set laying around just incase
Huh. Did not know those were the lenses but I just checked and sure enough they look identical to mine. What I really need is more wiring for the damn side marker. I had to warranty mine, some water got into the red portion via the reverse window. I had to pay to ship to savvy to get a replacement lens and it took like two weeks. Not my favorite experience but whatever. Anyways, now my side marker wires are pretty short. I keep meaning to take it apart and lengthen them up again but never get around to it. The hard part is doing the extension with heat shrink and a terminal, and having those two wires and their new bulk all still fit in the groove built into the housing, behind the lens.The great part about them is that the only portion of the taillight that is proprietary Savvy is the CNC portion. The LED taillight itself is just a generic LED board like this one:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01KLPXWHQ/?tag=yjforum-20
So all you have to do if the LEDs ever burn out is get some of those as replacements. I've got a set laying around just incase
Yes, I confirmed with Savvy that they are indeed just these generic Chinese lenses. All Savvy is doing is machining a housing for them that allows them to sit almost flush with the body. I agree that with the amount of wiring, it can be very tricky to fit into the grooves on the backside. I would think though with some new wire, some very find soldering and heat shrink, you should be able to make it work.
In the end, it's worth it. These are the best looking YJ / TJ lights out there as we've agreed upon.
I'm going to get one of the thomas and betts crimpers and use the really skinny butt terminals with thinnish heat shrink that blaine uses. They are the lowest profile I can manage to do and should hopefully take care of it. I really need to pull the lights back off and tape them up and wrap with loom. I installed them long ago as bare wires meaning to be temporary, and haven't ever got back around to it.
Well I swapped to the Quadratec LED tail light set today. They are surprisingly awesome for the price especially considering they are a house brand. They literally look as premium as savvy besides the shape of the bucket. The Savvys just didn’t make sense for me anymore. I rewired them and got them to be better for that, but it was still a bitch and now I’m out of wire to do anything else with. On a YJ they make less sense than a TJ because the YJ license plate is over the gas filler, and the savvy lights are of course huge so the plate has to be moved down. But not only that, the savvys start to interfere with the fuel filler area too. Have to trim up the bezel and it sort of looks like ass. So, the solution for that is to move the license plate to the spare which is its own set of fun. Have to tap into the parking lamp circuit for the license plate light, as well as find a license plate light that looks good and actually works. Those light bolt things don’t count because they are seriously the worst. I love the savvy lights but they don’t make sense on my non rock crawling rig.
The Quadratecs are just as bright, maybe even brighter, plug and play which isn’t a necessity but certainly convenient, and they’re a lot cheaper for sure. Downside is the bulky plastic housings. Savvys serve a purpose and obviously that purpose is to help stand up to rock crawling obstacles. For me I don’t need that so the slightly uglier plastic buckets are fine. Overall very happy with the swap. I’ll find the savvys a good home soon.
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Yep, I had those same Quadratec taillights on my old TJ. They use the same LED taillight as the Savvy, just with the extended housing. As far as my TJ goes, these would be by second choice, only because I like the low profile of the Savvy housing. But if you can get over that, these are a much better option as far as the YJ is concerned, for the reasons you mentioned.
These aren’t actually the same as the savvy lens. They are quite different when you see them up close. They illuminate about the same but definitely different. I think Rugged Ridge and PartsA are the ones that are same as savvy, and believe they also require wiring.
But yeah, these are surprisingly top notch. I am picky about stuff like that and these are great, so overall I’m happy. Nice to have a stock style setup; I really was not much of a fan of moving the plate to the spare tire.
It's been a long time since I had these taillights, probably about 2014, so I can't recall. That's interesting to know though, I always thought it was just the same lens on all of them.
Like you, I am very picky about this stuff as well, especially when it comes to good lighting. Nice to know these do the job, and at a reasonable price too.
Rather than LED i elected to run two on the bumper for running lights which now allow vision over the road an two above for off road and special circumstances