Fog Light bulb rusted

Taco Team,

PLease help me find root cause and solution. I bought an LED light and now 2 years later it rusted. I think it may have been me not connecting the bulb to the connector plug properly, but at the same time, it's hard to mess that up as it clicks together.

1) What caused this

2) What are my options? Buy a new plug (cut splice and tape up?) or try to put some rust remover on?

 

Oh this is gen 2 2012 tacoma

 

1) Cheap garbage parts.
2) Using di-electrical grease on the connectors may help, but seems unlikely.

Those look like you are running them in the fogs. LEDs should never be run in the OEM fogs as it just blinds everyone and reduces your own poor weather vision. Instead look at this:
https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/the-ultimate-foglight-upgrade-not-led-or-hid.435419/

 

Did you get water in them? May want to look at sealing up the lens to prevent water from getting inside.

 

Looks like you fell victim to cheap Chinese LEDs. Sorry about that chief. And it looks like you probably have three problems ad not just two like you mentioned.

First, you have a wiped out bulb. It's toast and there's no fixing it short of replacing it. The problem with most aftermarket LED bulbs is twofold. First, they have very lax manufacturing specifications. This leads to lots of variation in how they fit and work - or don't fit and work. Second, they generally have almost no process control so the result is products that don't even fit their lax specifications.

Second, you have a rusted out connector on the truck side of the fog light. Unfortunately, it looks too far gone to do anything with, so you'll have to source a replacement end and splice it in carefully. As crashnburn80 has already correctly stated, dielectric grease might have prevented the corrosion from starting in the first place, but it's too late now.

The third problem you most likely have based on the first two issues is water in your fog light housing. This will eventually (if it hasn't already) cause all sorts of havoc within the housing causing it to also need to be replaced.

What would I recommend? First of all, crashnburn80 was very correct when he stated that you shouldn't run most aftermarket LED replacement bulbs in fog light housings due to improper light distribution and therefore glare for oncoming drivers. You also found out the second reason which was crap fit.

So I'd recommend something that will solve two out of three of your problems. Get yourself some Morimoto XB replacement LED fog lights. You get two complete housings with bulbs that not only provide optimum light on the ground, but don't bother oncoming drivers or leak water either. And yes, they're fairly easy to install too. Trust me, you'll be money ahead by doing this and be much happier with the performance of your fog lights.

 

Sometimes one side could "click in" so you think its tight but the other side didn't so the seal does not seat properly. Edit: hard to tell from the picture but I think my explanation above my be your issue. Notice how the red gasket seems darker on one side. The bulb itself is probably not sealed, relies on the light housing to seal it from the elements.

 

Well, these lights were bought from someone on here. Guess ill stay away from him, for some reason I thought he made them.

What i'm trying to do is sell this truck by replacing the bulbs. I dont think ill replace the housing but ill let the buyer know what happened. Where do I buy the connector?

There was definitely corrosion in the housing, thought it was dirt at first but nope, chrome was eaten away.

Bannerman, so I clicked it in and twisted it. Shouldn't that have ensured a good solid fit?

 

The connector is a standard H11 female. We sell 'em or you can likely get them at local auto parts stores.

https://www.theretrofitsource.com/accessories/misc/common-connections.html

 

Id it easy to cut, splice and tape?

 

Yep, pretty straight forward.

 

Cut, strip, splice and shrink wrap would be better.

 

Thabks for your help guys. Bought H11 st o reilys, cut, strip and crimp. Do I put a lighter to the paralell connectors so that it seals aroubd the wires?

 

Put some heat to it and it didnt shrink. Also it looks like this doesnt have the water protection? Shouls I have gotteb different connectors?

Cant seem to upload. 84104 paralell connectors. Theyre red butt crimps

 

Did you buy regular butt connectors or the style with shrink ends built right in? You can tell the difference by looking at the size. The shrink versions are longer on both ends - which are the parts that shrink.