just bought a 07 ltz burb' and it came new to me with blown reverse lights. so i swap in a pair of new ones and done right?

nope. first one blew the next day. the second blew right as i was checking out the first one just a little bit ago. pulled the bulb and the hole inside is milky white/burnt brown. that makes me think huge voltage spike to nuke a bulb like that. i see there are a few tail light wiring problems but so far this seems to be the only one i have. ideas? thanks for the help in advance

 

Clean the sockets up with some Electronic Spray, then, ignition on but don't crank and put it in reverse. Do a voltage check on the contacts. That's a start. If it's normal 12v, then have someone watch the Meter, while you change it back and forth into reverse, step on brakes, just go through some changes to see when the outage (spike whatever) occurs. Also could be your voltage regulator, and it just happens that the backup lights are the most sensitive and go first. Also check your wiring, shorts to ground or between lines.

 

If you have some wiring issues, for sure address them, its not likely you are getting any more than 12 volts to them HOWEVER if someone wired something up wrong there could be an issue where too much current is being drawn through the lamp circuit and the bulbs are acting like fuses....

I'd also check the fuse boxes at the drivers door and under hood for any over sized fuses installed to compensate for poor wiring....

 

voltage regulator....seems to me i remember that my friend told me that on some of the newer gm's(like 02-09) that if the voltage wasnt Just right it caused all kinds of electrical glitches. even if it wasnt out of spec enough to be called 'bad'. lol, ill have to inlist the help of the missus so i can do meter duty.

when i asked him about the problem he mentioned that he went thru a ton of those odd little 912 bulbs on his 07 f(wait, can i even say the f-word here haha)ord for a while. something about the EIKO cheapy bulbs going through a bad production run and having issues just like mine, air seeps into the sealed bulb replacing the inert gass and Puff. smile for the camera lol. there is a hole lot of custom work done to this 'burb and ive just scratched the surface of it. at least im hoping its custom work and not major repairs not listed on carfax.