Are there better back up lights than OEM?

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I have a 2016 Honda Pilot with back up camera, which is pretty poor at night in reverse. Was wondering if a different back up light might help. Have heard LED's are brighter but you can't necessarily see any better or further. Pilot has a 7440 bulb. Thanks.
 
It really depends on the reflector size on the vehicle. I have installed a lot of them in crown vics, which has made a very good improvement on illumination because they have a very large reflector. We tried them in some 95-97 chevy trucks, which have a very small reflector, they put out whiter light but not much improvement on range. We ended up mounting a couple of combination led spot/floods on the under side of the receiver and that made a 10 fold increase in range. We had the best luck with the extremely bright JDMaster leds from amazon. Ignore the sylvania or phillips leds, they actually have less output than a standard bulb.
 
Phillips was actually making a nice led bulb but then out of no where replaced it with a cheap bulb under the same part number, all the ones available now are junk.

If you back over someone because you modified the oem bulb because they couldn't see your lights you'd be in some legal trouble. Oem reverse indicators are designed to have specific viewing angles and replacing a halogen bulb with led yields very poor viewing angles.

Installing separate lights that you can activate manually or automatically with the reverse indicators could help a lot, but finding the perfect housing for that could be tricky.
 
An add on light would be best. Most leds could be wired to your reverse light,with a 3 or 5 amp fuse. You can get quality or you can go cheap.
 
Originally Posted By: Colt45ws
I put LEDs in my Crown Vic and can see way better behind me.


Same here for the truck. No backup camera.
 
Good ideas. Glad I asked. Thank you. Those JDMasters look interesting. Part of the frustration is the lack of comparable technical data about all these bulbs. Lots of marketing hype, but consistent amps, watts, voltage draw, lumens, life span, and color scale info ... pretty spotty.
 
Changing the backup lighting is probably illegal. The OEM has to test for compliance to Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards (FMVSS) which mandates the illumination angle, height, and brightness of backup lighting.

As you reduce the distance between obstacles and your vehicle, the object will become more brightly illuminated in any case. What, exactly, are you trying to see?
 
Lighting is tough in our Odyssey, but it's really due to the dark tint that limits light coming through. Im surprised you're having issues with the backup camera. Digital sensors get noisy as they boost in low light conditions, but you're not taking a photograph. Is the lens dirty?
 
My Impala has little 921 bulbs but in huge reflectors, my reverse lights are really REALLY bright. I think part is having them up higher, and the size of the housing.

 
Originally Posted By: Johnny2Bad
Changing the backup lighting is probably illegal. The OEM has to test for compliance to Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards (FMVSS) which mandates the illumination angle, height, and brightness of backup lighting.

As you reduce the distance between obstacles and your vehicle, the object will become more brightly illuminated in any case. What, exactly, are you trying to see?
Lots of minimums, few maximums in the Federal Standard.
 
I don't know if changing a backup bulb to an LED bulb is illegal or not; I would imagine brighter is better. I have seen cars with darken taillight assemblies on the road and think -why? And how come they haven't been pulled over? Putting an auxiliary backup light system could work.

As was mentioned, not all LEDs have the same lumens which is the new measure for light output where it used to be watts. Also, some LED bulbs don't have top firing LEDs; I would imagine how the bulb is oriented in the socket makes a difference. If it relies mostly on reflector then you want LEDs around the whole structure and maybe not any top firing ones. My wife's last car had incandescent bulbs that were parallel to the ground so if I had replaced them I would have wanted bulbs with top LEDs so that not only was the reflector doing it's job but there wouldn't be a dead spot facing out - just like a normal bulb. Her car now has only 2 incandescent bulbs - license plate and front amber parking/turn signal (wouldn't even think about replacing her headlights with LEDs) and it points up so it probably wouldn't benefit too much with top firing LEDs. At least that's my logic.

Take a look at: https://www.superbrightleds.com/ and you'll see LED bulbs with various lumen outputs. Also keep in mind that some cars may have issues with LED bulbs to to their low current draw the little I've read up on it it seems that some cars will tell you when any bulb is out ... don't know how true that is.
 
I put LED bulbs in the back of my Focus. It did pass an actual inspection, surprisingly enough.

Also made the mistake of putting the picture up on LifeInvader and started a battle of people who hate LED headlights and people who love LED headlights.

I can actually see while backing up now!
 
I put LEDs in a Ranger one time and you could see all the way down the block in the dead of night
 
Since it is a Pilot, is there a towing hitch with a trailer harness? You can buy aux reverse light kits that mount under the rear bumper and connect to the towing harness. This way you can add to the OEM setup without modifying anything.
 
Originally Posted By: NJ_Car_Owner
Take a look at: https://www.superbrightleds.com/ and you'll see LED bulbs with various lumen outputs.


+1

Just because you install generic "LED's" doesn't mean they will be brighter than stock. There are so many variables to consider.

If you really want the brightest possible, go to that site and select the highest output that will still fit in your bulb housing.
 
If the FMVSS has a spec for viewing angle or sweep angle or reflector angle every automaker is flat out ignoring it. Compare the the backup lights on a 99-11 crown vic with chevy truck or a ford escort, the vic has the largest reflector area and best angle of projection. Both the chevy and escort have the smallest reflector area and the poorest angle of projection. My daughter has a 97 escort and with stock lights are practically useless to see behind the vehicle. I got her some 50w high power led lites and it was an improvement, but with the small recessed reflector, seeing off to either side of the vehicle was not much better. A couple of weeks ago I nearly got backed into by a BMW, he was backing out of a parking space beside me as I was waiting for the guy in front of me to move. I could not tell his backup lites where on until he was almost perpendicular to me. They where inboard of the corner of the car and flush mounted with a very small reflector/lens.Viewing angle of probably less than 45 degrees.

I'm ok with backup lites, ruuning lites, turn signals and drl lamps as led, but led headlights are not there yet even in projector housings. There is almost always stray light from aftermarket led headlamps. Aftermarket led lamp makers can say they are dot approved, but as they don't submit the actual lamp to the dot for testing, they just submit a testing report saying it's compliant if they even go that far. There are led headlamps that are compliant, but they have been engineered and tested by the individual automakers themselves.
 
Originally Posted By: Reddy45
Since it is a Pilot, is there a towing hitch with a trailer harness? You can buy aux reverse light kits that mount under the rear bumper and connect to the towing harness. This way you can add to the OEM setup without modifying anything.


This I think would be the best solution.
 
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