IpexMotoring Smoked Tail Lights -- Full Review

About three weeks ago I purchased and installed a set of the IpexMotoring Black Smoked Tail Lights available on eBay.



The picture looks cool and I bought them on an impulse. I have since found some negative reviews about the quality of products with this brand. The following is what I have to say.

The Unboxing


First impression: Nice. They are in perfect condition and appear as dark and stealthy as I expected.

The Side By Side


After dismantling one side I was able to put the IpexMotoring light next to an OEM Toyota light.
The shape and fit of the IpexMotoring light is right on the money. But the IpexMotoring light definitely lacks the sense of engineering refinement and quality that Toyota delivers. For example, the yellow/black wire pair leads to what appears to be a CANBUS load resistor. Apparently this was added as an afterthought and there's no accomodation for it in the foam weather seal. I improvised by peeling a bit of the foam weather seal up at the bottom (where water is not likely to seep in) and stuffed it through where it will be pinched between the plastic and the weather seal. That's lame.

The Installation Procedure


Ripping into your brand new Prius is not for the faint of heart. But with a decent set of composite trim tools, and after reviewing some YouTube videos, you can go at this without compromising the factory polish. A couple of tricky areas, 1) the light fixture is held in with two studs and two body snaps -- careful not to damage the snaps, 2) when re-installing the bumper cover -- careful not to curl the lip near the rear corner as your snapping it in. Also, you should get some good quality tape (or some zip ties) to make sure that CANBUS load and it's wire are not rattling any time in the future.

The Smoke Check

After getting the left side all wired up I gave it a functional smoke check. There was no smoke. It was right about this time that my wife came out to see what I was up to. She said, "Oh, it's looks much better! You're doing to the left side next -- right?" Erm, no ...
Truth be told, (although my cellphone picture doesn't make it obvious) the OEM Toyota light is much brighter. The LEDs in the IpexMotoring unit are not the high intensity LEDs that you'd expect in a product with smoked lenses.

The Look


I think the smoked lenses look great with this color paint.


Final Thoughts


These lights look pretty cool. But I am not impressed with the intensity of the LEDs and the caliber of the engineering does not compare to the OEM Toyota equipment. Any engineer contemplating the design of a dark lens tail light must obviously be looking to apply some very high intensity LEDs to compensate for the dark lens. This was not the case here.

I'm going to experiment with some light tint film on my OEM tail lights and see how that compares. I'm also considering the possibility of opening up these IpexMotoring lights and swapping out the individual LEDs for some more worthy LEDs.

 

No, I haven't seen the Valenti lights.
A little searching around I'm finding nothing but good things.
Part II: Installation and Initial Review of Valenti JDM full LED tail lamps from TWP | PriusChat

Looks like they go for about $150 more than what I paid for the IpexMotoring units.
TOYOTA PRIUS III Full LED Tail Lamps