Has anyone found out why the tail light assy seems to darken over time?
I know mine has a seal leak but I can't figure out why that would matter.
I even washed it out as best I could and short of cracking it totally open, I don't know what causes the blackening.

Check out the pic.

See how the rh one looks darker? ...and no, it's not the angle of the lighting....it's truly darker.


Any thoughts here??

 

It is caused by condensation getting inside and eating away at the chrome causing it to look darker. This is a picture of mine, it was like this when I bought it. Later on I bought a better used one off of ebay and it did the same thing but only on the right side light. I took each of the light bulbs out and put gasket sealer on both sides of the black seals which fit very loosly in the first place. Since I did that no more water has come back in the light or the back up light. Hope that helps!

 

Thanks for the info. Have you actually opened one up?

I'm going to get a new one and open the bad one to see first hand what it looks like.

 

It looks like the chrome is stained, pitted, and sometimes peeling away. Looks pretty ugly. A couple of guys have fixed theirs by taking both of them apart via the Whistler-mod method of disassembling a light housing (heat it up for a while to soften the glue), painting the reflectors with silver/reflective paint, and reassembling with black silicone. Me? I just bought one used one to replace the bad one. Then I screwed those two up by melting the reverse housings (long story), and bought another set of used ones in good condition.

 

Dude.. Douglas county!

I live in Paulding. Whats up?

 

Seems that the birds are much more prone to this?

So the bird tails can be taken apart like a headlight? I don't think the Camaro tails could. Differences in sealing... the seals on the birds must go bad or something. I think the Camaros are plastic welded IIRC.

 

Zex - I'm curious as to how you melted the reverse light housing?

 

It's not the lens seal that goes bad. It's the bulb gasket. You know, the little foam/rubber ring on the socket, that seals the socket to the housing.

I installed some high output reverse lights. Essentially, they were 55w H3 bulbs, with a 3155 style base. Worked GREAT. I went on a roadtrip in February of 09 and was going up a winding mountain road in New Mexico near Angel Fire at around 4AM (NOBODY was on the road). It was about 22 degrees and the road had just been freshly plowed and was damp. Then it started snowing. Then the first amount of snow melted and then froze into black ice (salt/sand, I guess). The temp had dropped to 18*F. Then the snow started sticking on top of the black ice. In just a few minutes, the road went from OK to "**** this. I'm in an F-body with 275/40/17 summer tires at 4/32 tread." So then I tried to put some tire wires on. Hands kept freezing and I couldn't get them to stay on properly. So my only option was to reverse down the mountain (there were NO turnouts or safe places to turn around without sliding into a tree or down the banked road and into a guard rail), and try to go around the snowed-in pass on a different, clearer road further south. The last thing on my mind at the time was removing the reverse light bulbs in 18* temps with the car in the middle of a 2 lane banked winding mountain road with 2" of snow on top of black ice, at 5AM... Anyways, the lights aren't melted through, but they have a "cat-eye" like vertical bar of white plastic, which looks kind of like somebody put white glue on the inside of the lens centers. I still have them sitting in storage, in case I ever decide to get creative by putting an aftermarket driving light in the reverse light location... My car has been in some interesting situations.

 

It seems common that one of the lights is usually darker than the other from the factory.

 

NICE WS6! best color IMO and you really don't see to many of them.

 

That is NOT true at all. This is a process that happens over time, and gets worse as time goes on. They are IDENTICAL when they are brand new. As said several thousand times before, it is a failure of the socket gaskets that causes this condition.

 

I've seen it on low mile garage kept cars

 

I'm just stating the facts. You can believe them, or not. Those lights did not leave the factory with corroded reflectors.

 

^ I'm going with what he said. My passenger side tail light is doing the same but mine has a crack in it that caused water to get in it and sit so I got tired of having water stand in it so I took the tail light out and drilled holes in the bottom of the housing to let the water drain out if any gets in just to hold up till I can find another tail light.

 

I'm not saying they came with bad connectors, but I'm not going to sit here and pound the keyboard arguing with you. I'm also stating the facts on what I have saw.

 

And what you have seen are used cars. I don't care how many miles they have on them or where they were kept. Seals break down with age and moisture seeps in. These cars did NOT roll off the lot brand spankin new from 1998-2002 with corroded taillights.

 

Again I never said they were corroded, where do you see I posted this?

On some cars the lenses are slightly darker than the other. A lense can be darker without corrosion.

 

Take apart the lenses and place them under controlled, equal lighting, and then make that statement. The only times that one tail light is darker than the other is due to reflector corrosion, which can vary in degree depending on the amount of moisture in the housing.

 

Defective lights from the factory...
I guess it's not an impossibility, but highly unlikely.

As stated multiple times, moisture inside the lens causes corrosion, which causes the darkening.

 

Entertaining story.