Hey guys. So I just bought out a spot in Theorie's LED taillight group-buy. This morning I removed my factory taillights to get them ready to ship to him, when I noticed something odd. My drivers side taillight appears to have raised circular bumps on the inside on the red and amber parts of the light, while my passenger side clearly does not. They are precisely where the circles would be on 99+ tails, yet these are not, and do not light up as such. Ive attached a few pictures, you may have to look close but you can clearly see the circles on my drivers side light which is not there on the passenger side one. Anyone know whats up with this?



Passenger side, no circles:



Drivers side, circles:

 

They don't looked raised, more like just circles. My guess would be that someone opened them up to do a 99spec tail light conversion, had the circles outlined and for some reason decided not to go through with the rest.

 

No, maybe you cant make out the depth from the picture, but the circles are definitely molded into the red/amber section of the lights. It appears very OEM

 

my guess would be that the light was replaced in the last few years for one reasons or another. I imagine after Mazda switched to the newer style tail lights they stopped producing two different types of lens inserts, and when these parts are ordered now if they are intended for the S6 models they are simply left unpainted.

 

I have seen this and have a set of inserts like this (somewhere in my garage).

Far as I know, it was done by Mazda sometime in 96-98. And obviously in 99, they blacken the surrounding circles.. That was what I was told back few years ago when I saw this..

But this could also be Mazda's replacement using 99 inserts for 93-98 FDs. Instead of making flat inserts, the just use the unpainted 99 inserts as replacement. I say this because usually one side is like this on US vs. both. This is third set I've seen like this.

 

i have one just like it

 

Starting to be interesting... When I found this several years ago (also just one side.. but can't remember which side), I asked the guy who I bought the lights from. He said, he didn't know one was like it.

Anyhow, can you post if you bought the lights as an replacement and/or what year your car is?

 

it comes from a 1994 JDM RX7 fd. have only one side to

 

I have seen this with four lights that I have converted for people over the years, three of them I believe was the drivers side, and 1 passenger side.

 

My car is a '94. As far as I know the tail is original,, but Im not the original owner so one can never be sure. I did get a detailed list of maintenance from the PO of the vehicle, and there was no mention of a replacement light.

 

^this.

ive replaced a light from mazda and received the same thing. no point in them producing the flat ones when they can just leave the circular ones unpainted.

 

Yeah,

That's kind of what I figured also.