We have a 2005 Suburban. The LED 3rd brake light bar above the rear hatch glass is not working. The dealer has the nerve to ask for over $250! What is a better alternative?

 

Have you checked all the fuses?
Verified voltage is getting to the light bar?

 

google much?

 

Ditch it. For about the first 80 years of cars/trucks, there was no CHMSL.

 

The 3rd break light is NOT a requirement in any state that I am aware of for safety inspections so doing nothing is certainly an alternative...

 

Good point. Since KS doesn't inspect, never even thought about it.

 

the 3rd brake light reduced rear-endings by almost 50% in it's first year.


Effective with the 1986 model year, the United States National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and Transport Canada mandated that all new passenger cars come equipped with a CHMSL. The requirement was extended to light trucks and vans for the 1994 model year. Early studies involving taxicabs and other fleet vehicles found that a third, high-level stop lamp reduced rear-end collisions by about 50%. Once the novelty effect wore off as most vehicles on the road came to be equipped with the central third stop lamp, the crash-avoidance benefit declined. However, it did not decline to zero, and a CHMSL is so inexpensive to incorporate into a vehicle that it is a cost-effective collision avoidance feature even at the long-term enduring crash-reduction benefit of 4.3%.[69]

Automotive lighting - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Cars that don't have one, or a working one, make me want to read-end them out of spite.

Especially when GM is too lazy to separate the (should be) orange and RED lights for turn / brake.

When I become dictator of the world, LED tail lights will be LAW.

LEDs are being used with increasing frequency in automotive lamps. They offer very long service life, extreme vibration resistance, and can permit considerably shallower packaging compared to most bulb-type assemblies. LEDs also offer a significant safety performance benefit when employed in stop lights, for when power is applied they rise to full intensity approximately 200 milliseconds (0.2 seconds) faster than incandescent bulbs. This fast rise time not only improves the attentional conspicuity of the stop lamp, but also provides following drivers with increased time in which to react to the appearance of the stop lamps.

I'm so sick of burned out tail lights, or broken ones, etc.

LEDs light faster, last longer.

.2 seconds at 75 MPH is a LOT of distance.. 22 feet. which is MORE than enough to save lives.

 

Any state that requires safety inspections require that all exterior lighting be in good working order. Many states require these inspections when registering the vehicle in their state if you move.

 

The State of Texas has yearly safety inspections, and only require that 2 rear stop lights have to be functioning....Other states of course may have different requirements but to the best of my knowledge that requirement of 2 is pretty broad, its also why you can find brake( stop) lamp bulbs just about anywhere... but as the original poster has discovered not so much for the CHMSL....

 

you people talk to much.

HERE:

http://www.google.com/search?q=2005+...iw=933&bih=607


Merry Holidays! Ho Ho Ho... etc.