so im looking at the thread where a 96-99 member recently tinted his tails. go ahead and guess. and that got me thinking.

the main thing with tinted tails is the reverse lights. you dont want to tint the reverse lights, as that would impair your ability to see at night. but what if you tinted the reverse lights and removed the bulbs from those spots.

and moved the reverse lights to the "PONTIAC" word in the middle of the lights? similar to the brake light mod done [a la Sunfire], but wired to the reverse lights with white LED'* instead of red?

this would give the smooth tint all the way across without compromising safety, and still look cool.

[please note that i dont have a 96-99 or i might consider doing this to my own - just throwing the idea out there]

You'd have to have awfully bright LEDs to equal the amount of light that the back-up lights shed. The shape of the inset lettering would tend to scatter light randomly, rather than focusing it like the reflectors and lenses of the back-ups.

This wont work because it will tak like 10 or more 3watt LEDs to give the same light output as the normal Halogen bulb would.
also there would be now way to Focus it to the ground.

You would not be able to see very well :(

the only thing you could do is mount some lights under the bumper and back under a bit so you cant see them buy just standing next to the car but still light up the ground.

Other then that, your stuck with either having no back up lights or not tinting them.

I like the idea of auxiliary reverse lights under the rear fascia. They wouldn't be visible from behind, and would put out quite a bit of light.

like something Low Profile like these or something...

Put some 55watters in there. they would work awesome!

my tint is on the reverse lense too with a stock bulb and i can see fine.

Haha. I like the idea, but I also like how the clear reverse lights look with the rest tinted. I think if you do a search there is another 96-99 user that tinted over the reverse lights and I don't think it looks as good.

can't you get brighter reverse lights to overcome the tint?


at one point i thought about replacing the reflectors in the rear bumper with lights, just another random idea...i think it could work better than the Letters on the back of the '96-'99s

higher wattage lights will melt the lens somewhat, maybe affecting the VHT as well.

Frankly they look better with white backup lights IMO.