Tuesday, January 7, 2014

'12+ Impreza LED Taillights

There's not much in the way of aftermarket parts for the '12+ Impreza, so when the new 2014 XV Crosstrek Hybrid had LED Taillights, I was more than interested in seeing how they might work on my car.  If you haven't already figured it out, the Crosstrek and Impreza Hatchback are twisted sisters, so they share many of the same parts.  Headlights and taillights are swappable between the two as far as mounting points are concerned, so now that there's a different option available, I wanted to see how it might work, what kind of modification (if any) would be needed, and how it would look on the Impreza.


Subaru's XV Crosstrek Hybrid, the company's first hybrid vehicle, was slated for a "Fall of 2013" release, though they didn't start hitting dealership lots until late December of '13 and early January of '14.  I was able to test-fit one and check a few things out so I could know if it was as easy of a swap as I thought it might be.  To the right, both the Impreza and Crosstrek Hybrid taillights are sitting next to eachother.  The dirty one is the Impreza one (off my car).  You'll notice the points that mount to the body are identical, but the arrangement of the lights is different.

The biggest hurdle is the plug for the lights.  There is a 6-pin connector that plugs in to the assembly that has a different shape on each version.  The plastic housing for the Hybrid LED Taillight is a different shape, although the pins are in the same place, than the Impreza's housing.  They will not plug into eachother in their stock format.

There's a couple of ways to address this mismatch, of which I'll be exploring later.  Once I've found a solution, I'll post a link here to it.  List Price on the taillights are $209.95 each.  Below are the part numbers.

RH Lamp - 84912FJ240
LH Lamp - 84912FJ250

Just another way this Impreza of mine is confusing fellow owners.  Quad exhaust?  Side skirts but no roof rails?  What IS this thing?

10 comments:

  1. Hi - I was wondering if you have gone any further with the hybrid tail lights. I bought a set and am looking for the part number for the wiring harness. Hoping to make this work for my black '13 Crosstrek. Thanks

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    1. Been a little tight on cash recently, so I've held off actually doing this. I had planned originally just to use the connector off of my old tail lights and modify the housing instead of modify the wiring harness.

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  2. I think the part number is 84981FJ140. Ordered them, but haven't received them yet to verify or check that it is plug n play.

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    1. No need to verify if you read the post. Both the pre-production model I first checked and the new one I looked at have different size connectors. Same 6-pin design, but the housing is shaped differently.

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  3. Hello,

    I did it!

    I got the wiring harnesses yesterday. To disassemble the wiring harness plugs, you pull out the white plastic spacer with a pair of pliers. Then, for each contact pin, theres a small plastic clip you need to push up with something small and pointy. After that, you can just pull out the entire pin along with its rubber plug and just insert into the Impreza's connector shell (after you've removed all of the pins from the Impreza's connector). After that, you push the plastic spacer back in and presto! Plug and play!

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    1. Wow! Nicely done! Got any pictures of it on the car?

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  4. That's great to hear. Thanks for the info - look forward to getting this job done soon.

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  5. Hi, I'm from Chile, I would like to know if you can give me the subaru spare parts dealer web adress, I really want to import these led taillights. Thanks a lot

    Pablo

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  6. http://www.partswebsite.com/subarupartswebsite/

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  7. Hi, would just like to thank you for posting this up! Great to have all the part numbers! Just installed a pair of these into my '13 today. Instead of swapping the pins out, we just shaved down the sides of the plug coming from the car and then cut down the tips off the white portion of the plug on the wiring harness. Got that idea from a Russian site https://www.drive2.ru/l/3451117/

    Finished product:
    https://flic.kr/p/rC6chZ

    Rest of the pics are on Flickr- https://www.flickr.com/photos/wickedryoki/sets/72157650943638670/

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