Why no one makes custom taillights for the 4th gen

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FastDriver60

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As the thread title suggests, I am wondering if there are any custom (preferably blacked-out) taillights available for our cars? I can't seem to find anything nice that looks custom or at least different from the factory design.

I really like how these newer Impala tallights are designed (3rd option here https://www.carid.com/chevy-impala-taillights/ with smoked lense) I assume this LED bar lights up with parking lights and stays on all the time...I mean why even Impala gets the attention from the manufacturers, while the Taurus is being ignored completely.
 

SnuffyTheSeal

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Just tint them. That's what I did. If you do a good job it'll hold up for at least two or three years, and if you get an agitated cop who wants to give you the run around you can peel it off.
 

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FastDriver60

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I inquired about a custom job to retrofit LEDs into the Taurus tail light housing (a guy from Instagram does that and paints the internals black) but the price he asks is way to high. Not worth it. I will just go ahead and tint them, but it just makes me sad that Taurus doesn't have any aftermarket support.
 

SHOdded

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i think shorod has actually opened up the taillights, but its been a few years since this was posted ...
 

SnuffyTheSeal

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I inquired about a custom job to retrofit LEDs into the Taurus tail light housing (a guy from Instagram does that and paints the internals black) but the price he asks is way to high. Not worth it. I will just go ahead and tint them, but it just makes me sad that Taurus doesn't have any aftermarket support.
Aftermarket support on these cars is very low, both in body and motor/trans. There's a few guys here who have gone bonkers with their builds (If I had the time and money I'd totally look into going down those routes) and achieved great results, but if flat out performance and customizability are what you're after this is *not* the platform for it unless you want to be a trailblazer and have a good pocketbook or are extremely handy.
 

SHOrod

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i think shorod has actually opened up the taillights, but its been a few years since this was posted ...
Yep, I did buy the one aftermarket LED kit that I could find back in the day for my 2011 SHO. The quality of the boards was pretty nice, and cutting apart the housings was not horrible. The mistake I made though was buying a spare set of original (ie: chrome trimmed) housings. Before I was done, the chrome started to peel and flake. I assembled them enough to confirm the functionality and appearance, along with the diffusion film that I placed between the boards and the lenses to hide the wires and smooth out the discrete LEDs. They looked nice and worked well. I had the housings re-sealed, new connectors wired to the LED boards, acquired load resistors, and felt they were ready to go other than deciding what to do about the flaking chrome. Ultimately though I sold my SHO before installing them so I didn't fully complete the project. Shortly after that I moved and in the process of scaling down what I wanted to pay the movers to move, the assemblies went to the landfill. I can probably find information on where I bought them from to see if they are still offering the boards.

-Rod
 

FastDriver60

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Yep, I did buy the one aftermarket LED kit that I could find back in the day for my 2011 SHO. The quality of the boards was pretty nice, and cutting apart the housings was not horrible. The mistake I made though was buying a spare set of original (ie: chrome trimmed) housings. Before I was done, the chrome started to peel and flake. I assembled them enough to confirm the functionality and appearance, along with the diffusion film that I placed between the boards and the lenses to hide the wires and smooth out the discrete LEDs. They looked nice and worked well. I had the housings re-sealed, new connectors wired to the LED boards, acquired load resistors, and felt they were ready to go other than deciding what to do about the flaking chrome. Ultimately though I sold my SHO before installing them so I didn't fully complete the project. Shortly after that I moved and in the process of scaling down what I wanted to pay the movers to move, the assemblies went to the landfill. I can probably find information on where I bought them from to see if they are still offering the boards.

-Rod
I watched many YouTube videos about this and considered a DIY project. Do you still have any photos of what you made?
 

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