re: 3rd brake/cargo light....want to upgrade to LED.....My impression of the LEDs

Light used to be measured in candlepower. Now the unit of measurement for brightness is lumens. The "color" of the light is measured in degrees Kelvin. Typical automotive headlights are around 3000K. The more blue lights you see are 5000K to 6000K. Most little LED bars and cubes are around 6000K. You can get into the bluish purple shade up around or above 8000K. It's funny because people think the more blue the shade, the better the light and vision. The truth is that the lights in the 3000K-4000K range are the best because during use there is less fatigue on the eye. The eye has to strain to see in the 5000K and up color temperature.



Any auto parts store has LED bulbs for basically any automotive application, like reverse or brake/tail lamps, or signal lamps, or running lights or interior lights. They are generally plug and play and are dimensionally the same/fit in the housings that regular bulbs are designed for.

Like these


Or these


You'll see that ^^ one shows 6000K printed right on the body.


I had a set of LED cubes mounted under the rear bumper of my lifted suburban. Tinted windows, lifted truck, I had no real visibility backing up in the dark and wanted to improve it. I wired the LED cubes to trigger off the reverse bulb signal in my tail lights, so they came on automatically in reverse. They were too bright. A couple months later I took them off.

Instead I bought each of the sets pictured above. The upper type were brighter, and they're in my tail light housings for reverse bulbs. They work well.

We swapped a lot of bulbs in my sons truck over to LED. Just go to your auto parts store, look up the bulbs for your cargo light and get the LED retrofit. Done.

Like I said I ordered the LEDs online; a lot cheaper than I thought they'd be.