7443 LED turn signal warning. Check their functionality regularly.

I have LEDs all around, except for the front turn signals. I have a 10 ohm resistor wired into each tail light.

The other morning I had a tailgater on my ass as I was approaching the parking lot at work.
I usually arrive as the third shift workers are leaving, so I always signal from a longer distance out to let them know I plan on pulling into the lot.

When I signaled my turn, I noticed that the tailgater wasn't slowing, or moving to go around me. He finally whipped around me at the last second and laid on his horn.

My truck was telling me that the turn signals were working perfectly, and I could see Meso's awesome mirror LED turn signal lights flashing away, so I whipped the guy off and mumbled a few expletives to myself.

When I got home that night, I let the garage door close and checked the rear lights:
Tail lights, check. Brake lights, check. Right turn signal, check. Left turn signal, NOTHING.

I swapped the 7443s between the brake and turn signal locations, and found that I didn't have a brake light, so the LED was bad. The running light part of it was working, but not the part that acts as the turn/brake light. The truck, however, did not realize there was a problem, so neither did I.

I won't mention the vendor, because they are very well known, and they honored the warranty on the LED, but it was a dangerous situation.

So if you run 7443s, be sure to check your lights often (probably ever damn day).

 

That goes for any bulbs that may be an indicator to other drivers what you plan on doing. I had a stock brake light go out with only 10k~ miles on my truck. I didn't know until my buddy was following behind me on our camping trip.

 

The load resistor is acting as the bulb the truck sees. The truck wouldn’t know if there is a bulb plugged in or not unfortunately. Surprised the guy couldn’t see the mirror signals from behind