this is what my female neighbor did. there is still white paint from her crapuv and hers is the only one that matches the high of the cracked area. but anyways like i said maybe just the outside lens would be nice i haven't seen broken housings but cracked lens are all to common. and aftermarket lens to fit and look as original would be so sweet.

 

a little filler and some paint and you can get that good again

 

That was my reply before I ever clicked on the thread.

 

Aftermarket tail lights are for fwd ricer cars. Not for cars that come with ***** from the factory. Ever seen aftermarket Porsche 911 tail lights, no! S4, and S5 lights are epic out of the box! I know... then why does the 3rd gen have them? It's because they so tiny, and not that big of a deal. Plus, rich kids will buy anything for their fd, haha.

 

I think I can inject some insight as to why this likely will not happen.

Bringing something like this to market takes a significant amount of time, money and R&D. Any company that would look into this can not see any way to make a profit. There is a lot of business and accounting #'s behind why, but to simplify it comes down to this.

R&D = $15,000
Selling price = $200
cost per unit = $50
profit per unit = $150
You would need to sell 100 to break even.

Note that the above numbers are made up and just used to illustrate what a company thinking about doing this is going through.

Now you think.... "there were over 100,000 FC's sold in the states, there would be a HUGE markent for these!". Well, no. You then need to think of your target market. What would that be? 16-21 year old males with disposable income who value how there 20 year old sports car looks more than how it performs. Okay, so there is a market there. I give you that. But how big is this market? For the sake of arguement and me ranting on further lets say that it is big enough to keep this train of thought running down the tracks. So we have a break even point and a target market big enough to look into this further.

Now we run into the biggest problem. Competition. The s5 tail lights are very hard to beat. Don't ask me. Just look at them. Now try and make some that look better. Go ahead, try. I'll wait............................ *Jeopardy theme playing*................ "Thats what you mother said last night Trebek!"................. Okay, what you came up with is decent. Lets ask the target audience what they think. "Um, they are okay, but I can get a clean set of s5 tails for one'fidy and those just aint as tight". So, after all that you lose money and your ebay startup is out $15k in R&D. Guess what, the $15k R&D is on your credit card and now you are about to go bankrupt and can't even pay the rent. Welcome to 2010. Welcome to anyone who has a legitimate aftermarket car parts business would never make this product.

Hopefully this has been insightful and maybe even a little humorous. For me, I just get a kick out of injecting some of my 9-5 accounting jargon on RX7club.

Steve

 

the beauty of our cars is there are not aftermarket tail lights..

back with the 89-93 240sx hatchback, you had the option of spending $400+ for the jdm 96+ tail lights. But a few years ago the whole euro altezza trend caught up with them and now alot of people rock those instead.

Make them yourself
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YD97GuTqetI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xw5V0H_Tfl8

Ive had people ask me to make them for people, but when i tell them the cost of materials and little money to compensate for my time, they cheap out, so its really a DIY project.

Theres a few who have done it after me in the states *its been done alot in Japan*, im perhaps the only one out here tho that has documentation of my experience with it.

You could paint the inside of the housings. If your good with plastic molding, you could copy the original lense and produce it in clear etc..

 

got bored with hypertek's led tails pretty quick when i had them on mine. so im making these

obviously not street legal but **** it, like i give a **** lol

 

hmph... S5s and their cool LED lights...

S4s have no love...

im gonna change that.

 

Let me know how that goes, mine look horrid. lol

 

3 led for the win lol



and modernized s5 lights



s4 needs love like fat chicks need....

 

i made an s4 led. its soo hard for them to look cool.

 

dude those LED replacement things are a joke, go look at your car from a third person view at night, those things are like little spots and soo dark.

 

^ me or ian?

i don't have 3 leds in my lights by the way i just took the picture like that.

 

a company in japan sells these... not sure of their name tho. you can find them on yahoo japan

 

sexyknights sells those. they have the clear ones as well. ungodly expensive for lights though

 

maybe if we can get enough people...we might be able to convince Theorie and SBG to make these for FC's...what say you?!

https://www.rx7club.com/vendor-classifieds-276/gb-fd3s-led-tail-light-conversion-sakebomb-garage-902148/

 

hmm, i might have to buy another set of s5 tails just to do it.

 

I think it works for FDs because alot of FD owners are willing to invest in cosmetic appearance, majority of the FC crowd likes it simple. A completely stock S4 with S5 LED tail lights would probably not look right without other supporting cosmetic mods imo.

 

fd people have money to throw around.

 

I have seen those sake bomb tails, you really do not notice them.

if you are another FD owner you know the difference, but to the person behind your car they would have a hard time telling one from another, not enough of a difference honestly

when you are behind 15 of same cars and 3 of them have different tails you realize that the stock ones work best.

 

haha yeah like $700 or so.

 

yea see, **** that lol

why buy em when you can make one. its soo easy its not even funny

 

if i ever get a fc again i will do a led tail light and hid retro diy for you guys.

 

haha it is pretty ridiculous

 

S5 deff. just fix what you have or get some cheap S4's for now. but aftermarket is just such a horrible idea