Making the most of pre-LCI tail lights

[heitzke]

My current qualm: I LIKE the pre-LCI tail lights. The horizontal lines fit the flow of the rear of the car, mimic the lines on the bumper, and. generally feel really nice to me.

I know the obvious answer is... swap to LCI, GTS, VLand GTS, or whichever other vendor but I'm really just wanting to have "better looking" rear tail lights that flow with the rest of the car.


That being said, I'm totally unhappy with my trials so far and figured i'd share what i've been doing, my results, and also what not to do IMO. I have some additional vinyl coming in soon that i'll try again.

Trial #1 - https://www.amazon.com/VViViD-Air-Ti...01D5CNEZW&th=1

Product: not super easy to work with, but achieved decent results without bubbling.







Results: Too dark imo, cheapens the look of the car.


Trial #2

Product: https://metrorestyling.com/collectio...37242676773033

"Gloss smoke light" was utilized





Results: Even darker, this is a big fail. Do not want.


Trial #3

Product: https://www.rvinyl.com/Red-Smoke-Tint-Film.html

Still waiting for arrival, but hope is for it to ever so slightly tint the lights a shade or two darker into a "cherry red".



Trial 3 also a fail.


Trial #4

If all vinyl fail, it's just time to do some different tail lights and do the shadowline or something.

[MINERALGREY_F80M3]

Interested in seeing trial 3! I also tried 2-3 "light" smoked vinyls and they were all too dark or too hard to work with.

I also like my pre-lci lights but ended up going with blackline on the F80.

I still have the OEM so if trial 3 works out good ill also give it a shot to be able to switch between the two.

Thanks for sharing!

[heitzke]

Originally Posted by MINERALWHITE_F80M3

Interested in seeing trial 3! I also tried 2-3 "light" smoked vinyls and they were all too dark or too hard to work with.

I also like my pre-lci lights but ended up going with blackline on the F80.

I still have the OEM so if trial 3 works out good ill also give it a shot to be able to switch between the two.

Thanks for sharing!

Totally, glad to share all my good/bad mods so people know what they're getting into.

The new vinyl just shipped so hoping it ends up somewhere between trial 1 and the factory color. Something to tone down the red, but also not scream "hey i'm a modified tail light!"

[heitzke]

Updated with trial vinyl #3. Also a fail. It ended up making the red tails more... red. I was hoping for a darker cherry overall.

I'm about to have some extra tail lights so maybe i'll work on splitting a set and seeing if there's a way to internally darken some accents within the lights themselves.

[dzxy]

I think trial #1 looks pretty nice, looks similiar to shade of the B9 RS5 tail lights

[RugbyBro]

I was/am in the same boat as you with regard to the pre-LCI tails. Had I kept my F82, I would have looked for a spare set to open up and black out some of the internals since pre-LCI tails are dirt cheap. That would pretty much replicate the shadow line look I think

[heitzke]

Originally Posted by RugbyBro

I was/am in the same boat as you with regard to the pre-LCI tails. Had I kept my F82, I would have looked for a spare set to open up and black out some of the internals since pre-LCI tails are dirt cheap. That would pretty much replicate the shadow line look I think

That's what i'm thinking too. I broke my passenger side over the weekend, so I have a whole used set coming and have some extra spares to play with now. I imagine I can at least lightly darken the non-lit components to make something interesting.