Painted tail lights and side lights
 

I have seen many vetts with the tail lights and side lights blackened. I found a body shop here in Houston actually sprays them for a reasonable fee. They look awesome!

With that said, I went as far as removing all 8 lights and was going to bring them to the body shop. Then I started thinking..... (I know, I should have never done that!)

In the event I was to get rear ended by someone, could their insurance company get out of paying by claiming my tail lights were not legal? Are they legal?
Has anyone had any issues with yearly inspections?

Bingo.
The same with tinted lights. You could be looking at either criminal charges if the crash was serious and the DA wanted to push it. Reasoning that you intentionally made it harder for someone to see your car or that you were stopping and that caused injury to someone. And definitely a huge civil liability. Forget about ever getting your car fixed and it would just be how many zeros to put on the check for the other car in the crash. It is not an accident or lack of creativity that every single vehicle has the exact same color brake and marker lights.

I am not exactly sure how that would fly in court... I have painted tinted lights on my c6, I can tell you they are still brighter than most cars made 10 years ago. I pulled my car up next to a friends 1990 s10 blazer, and a 1998 VW Jetta in daylight (sunny even) and my brake and marker lights were still brighter than their stock lights.

I am not implying that it doesn't knock down on the brightness of light from the painted lenses, because it does... I am just saying that I don't think it would fly in court as a reason for the accident... But that is just my opinion...

The brightness of the tail lights is only part of the safety/legality issue. Most states require that cars have *reflectors* on them so that the car has a chance of being seen when there are no lights on. Most cars (including our Corvettes) have those required reflectors embedded in the taillights. When you tint the lens you block the reflectors from working. If someone hits your parked or disabled car and the lawyers and/or insurance company discover that your reflectors were intentionally blacked out...

Z//

Maybe the legality varies state to state but tinted light covers have been around since the late 70's, if not longer. I've had them on several mustangs in the past and never once was stopped for them ( now speeding? that's a different story :D).

It never seems to dawn on folks that the cops leave most cars with minimally illegal things like this alone so they can have "probable cause" to stop you when they want to and to be able to help fill the local/state government's coffers when they need to. Just think of all those illegally equipped cars as money in the bank for them. And if everyone went the speed limit and everyone's cars were 100% legal what reason would they have to pull you over and see if you were wanted for something else? :ack:

Anyway, the fact that you have been getting away with something for years (as have I on something else :)) is kind of beside the point as it relates to an after-an-accident lawsuit. Then it won't be the cops who are interested, it will be the lawyers. Not good.

Z//

My tail lights still reflect at night when hit by light from a car... I have tried that as well. Again it is not as reflective as without the tint... But you have no issues seeing a reflection, in other words, you know the car is there from the reflections in tail lights. I was very interested in how that part would perform as I was preparing to use reflective tape on my tag surround. There is a tape that appears in black during the day and reflects white at night. I had used this on my TransAm when I tinted the lights on that car to comply. I have many friends that are TN State Troopers, I had two look at my car since installing the tinted lights on my vette, they both said they could see no safety issues with my car.

Another option that I am going to play around with is using the 3357 bulb in the tail lights. It is a brighter bulb both the low and high settings, to the tune of 100 lumens when the brake lights are applied. I am going to check out how these bulbs look, the down side is they will have about a 25% reduction in bulb life...

I honestly think that you're over analyzing it. I had smoked (not black, mind you, but considerably darker than stock) tail lights on my Cobra and I was pulled over a few times and the officer's never even gave me a fix it ticket.

Here in California, the law state's that your tail light must be visible at night from 200ft. back so if they are, you're completely compliant.

I think doing tail lights is a bad idea, I did my side markers.. but only because I have a black car, its absolutely retarted to do to make your red side markers black on a red car.. hello, you completely missed the point!

Nope.

Here in California the (one) law says:

http://www.dmv.ca.gov/pubs/vctop/d12/vc26101.htm

Translation = "if it's not stock you are ripe for a ticket" (especially if the cop can tell just by looking at it that it's not stock.)

And that's not a fixit ticket, either. Almost $200.

The tailight equipment law is this one:

http://www.dmv.ca.gov/pubs/vctop/d12/vc24600.htm

which states that taillights have to be visible from all distances up to 500 feet except for all cars made after Jan 1, 1969 which then have to be visible from 1,000 feet (!)

It also states that tailights have to be red :)

And here's the reflector law:

http://www.dmv.ca.gov/pubs/vctop/d12/vc24607.htm

Z//

It may vary state to state,but here in NC if they can show you contributed to the accident in any way(no matter how small) it becomes a no fault case & you're on your own to get your car fixed...even if you were sitting at a traffic light & got rear ended.

If someone rearends you and claims they did not see your break lights I think you would be screwed....insurance companies would do all they can not to pay on a claim....you would then have to hire a lawyer and fight it....not to even mention if someone was injured in the accident....IMO the vanity isn't worht the possible aggravation.....

Note to self, do not drive the vette to CA... LOL :thumbs:

:)

I know the "not a fixit ticket" thing first hand as my wife had the black cherry LED lights on her C6 and got that ticket. Kind of weenie, I must say, but then it *is* in the vehicle code. Ya buy yer admission and ya takes yer chances :)

Z//

Just a little background, I have actually had the displeasure of being sued over an accident by a driver that was behind my TransAm on the interstate, long story sort of short, I was in the left hand lane, going around 75 in a 70 zone, a driver cut me off from the right hand lane, I had to hit my brakes to avoid being clipped by the person cutting over (yes it was that close) and the driver behind me lost control of his car and wrecked... He never touched my car, just lost control. I stopped and gave a statement at the scene, including my rate of speed to the officer. I was contacted by his insurance co to give a statement, and it was then I found out about his claim of a black car that cut him off, clipping the front of his car and causing the accident, of course this was not in any of the statements to the police that he gave, or that I gave. I received a subpoena a few days after the one year anniversary of the accident. 4 years after that the case was dropped after finally getting to court. I was taught much about the civil court system, at least in TN, after that adventure. But in the end, the right thing was done, my insurance co provided the legal representation so nothing came directly out of my pocket (my rates never went up, etc) but I was still very angry because I knew this person was just trying to get money from the system.

I do appreciate the laws that are written, and I am very much about safety in things that I do, that is why I took the time to check out the lights after having them tinted/painted. I certainly would not want to be responsible for injury to someone for something cosmetic on my car. I can replace my car if something happens, no matter how much I love and enjoy it, it is after all a material thing. I was satisfied with the results from tinting the lenses, however I am not breaking in laws in TN by doing so, or so I was told by State Troopers. I am going to even install the brighter bulbs to further enhance the light coming from the taillights during sunny day driving just for my own satisfaction.

Thanks to everyone for the comments.

Your comments have re-enforced my decision and makes me feel better about leaving the lights stock.

So I added some real nice Lloyd floor mats and a set of splash guards instead!