New reverse lights - flush mount bumper

These pictures are Stock only reverse and with QuakeLED on also. Factory Camera shot you can see the difference for my sidewalk. Truck was not moved. The "stock" pictures look brighter on the cell camera picture than they do in real life. In reality it is not that bright. The QuakeLED added is about correct. Much more light to back up by. My neighborhood has no street lights. Family and friends have longer dark driveways that sometimes need to be backed out down (or up). If these are not enough for her, larger brighter surface mounts should not be an issue since wiring and holes are there now. Power is coming from trailer wire harness reverse lights wire and grounded with screw to wiring bracket (paint cleaned/ground off, Kopr-Shield, fluid filmed). All connections have Kopr-Shield and covered with water proof marine heat shrink that has the glue.

Radioguru said:

I would look into LED equivalent bulbs before hacking up my car!

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What is the fun in that? Worst case if I ever wanted to the "matte" black portion actually unclips and can be replaced.

The '19 and up Pilot's already have LED reverse lights. They are part of the taillight assembly on the tailgate unlike prior years where it was low with regular bulbs. Nothing to change or upgrade unless you get really creative and take stuff apart. Picture below. I actually did that on her old Sequoia. I unsoldered the LED's in her aftermarket 3rd brake light in spoiler. I replaced with brighter and wider viewing angle LED's. You could barely see the stock in a sunny day and never if a car length behind in next lane. new led's were easy to see in all conditions and next lane.

The other option that I have sitting in garage is an XTR reverse light. I tried it on one car and it was too close to camera and caused a lot of glare on it. As it's her truck I gave the wife the option of the XTR on top or bottom of the license plate or somewhere else like mounting into the trim plate around the hitch. She liked the bumper mounted ones. Happy wife, happy life. I saw someone use a square flood light and made a mount that goes into the hitch and plugged into trailer connector. That is good unless you actually use it for towing.

Highspeedbail said:

Looks like a super clean install and glad your wife is happy with the improved lighting.

I highly doubt anyone outside of this forum would know that's aftermarket let alone the noobs at the dealership. Regardless in this car market you'd probably be better off buying out the lease and then reselling or trading it in yourself.

Only thing you could do to improve it now would be a light bar on the roof. I've been debating putting one in the front grill. You're giving me ideas!!!

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Thanks! We actually did buy out the lease. I could have traded it in for almost $6k more right after I bought it out but I would be out the 3 year monthly rental fee, my down payment and would need something else for more money.

The roof lightbar is OK if you have a basket or something and for the purpose like @Flybox1 has. I found on friends trucks/SUV's even at the beach that they added a lot of glare off the hood and dust glare in front of windshield. The Pod hood bracket ditch lights work pretty good but again some glare. 2x 6" bars would fit on the sides of the H, just need to cut some grill stuff and fabricate mounting. They also make the front bumper license plate mini push bar looking thing that you can mount a bar to. On the list I will probably cut the lower grill some and add a pair of Diode Dynamics SS3 or SS5 lights. Not sure if driving or combo. My driving lights are always relayed and tied into high beams. If I can't use the high beams because of other cars, I have no reason to blind them with driving lights. My driving lights have always been for distance (Hella Rallye 1000, Rallye 2000, Hella 500 and 550) Now if I'm on my own on rural highway, off road areas then I can use the high beams. WAY back in time I had some that were separate switch. that got old real fast trying to turn off when cars came the other way. On car with small round 4 headlight system "possibly" had some larger wire 250W 12V aircraft landing/taxi lights. Other cars got Hella or Cibie H4 and H1 headlights with brighter bulbs, relays, wiring etc but all aimed correctly. Mountains roads get dark at night in winter.

The Pilot is daily driver and trip vehicle so a little more subtle but excellent performance is more the goal. The fogs on Pilot will probably be upgraded to DD SS3 or the new Elite and changed to go on with parking lights and stay on with high beam. If I was off road a lot more than maybe different.

Now if money was more available I would probably add a set of Lightforce HTX 2's.

Here is the XPR LP. I just touched it to the battery. It works well and is convenient. My son said same thing on the camera added glare. Not too awful unless you change the camera view to look down toward hitch. The cell camera again makes it look a bit brighter but it is good. This was JUST the XPR no other lights.

ARB1977 said:

V leds makes a licenses plate frame that has reverse leds on it.

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The plate frame currently on VLED's is made to accommodate their LPR reverse light, it doesn't have any actual LED's in it. The LPR by looks appears to be a glossy a version of the XTR LP (from xenon depot, headlight revolution, the retrofit source) that I showed picture of performance. Mine will be installed on one of the vehicles at some point. It is pretty discreet and lights up well.

Now for those that are considering a version of the license plate light think about wiring it. On the '19+ Pilot, my '17 Accord, son's '10 Forte it should be pretty easy. All of them have the factory reverse lights in the tailgate, pull some panels and tap in.

On the the '16-18 Pilot and previous generation the reverse lights are in tail lights on side. You will need to run the wire through to top of tailgate, through big flex grommet and to the reverse light on side to trigger it. I don't think the the camera feeds have enough power if you want to try that (I probably wouldn't). My daughter's CRV and FIL Renegade have lights on sides that way so would need wires run all that way.

There are multiple options these days to add extra or better lighting. Changing bulbs is easy if an option but some also trigger bulb out warnings in CANBUS systems as not enough power draw. This one from iJDM just has clips. This one for corvette's. Many new trailer light strips have reverse lights. Small off road lights are an option but it's all about how discreet you want to go. Even the XTR LP will require drilling a hole or something "hacked" to get the wire to the inside of the tailgate. Some include a grommet just make sure you paint or protect the bare metal inside hole you drilled unless you drill into the plastic.

Diode Dynamics has a Hitch Mounted Pod Light and wire harness. It will function as an extra tail light and reverse light that can be removed if needed for towing.

Just putting it out and option for others that have a hitch.