DIY Install: Low Profile LED RV Tail Light on your 2021 Coachmen Apex Ultra-Lite Travel Trailer

Click for more info and reviews of this Optronics Trailer Lights:
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Click for more info and reviews of this Optronics Trailer Lights:
https://www.etrailer.com/Trailer-Ligh...
Check out some similar Trailer Lights options:
https://www.etrailer.com/dept-pg-Trai...

Search for other popular Coachmen Apex Ultra-Lite Travel Trailer parts and accessories:
https://www.etrailer.com/vehicle/2021...

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Full transcript: https://www.etrailer.com/tv-install-o...
Hi there Coachmen owners. Today on your 2021 Coachman Apex Ultra-Lite, we're going to be taking a look at and showing you how to install Optronics' replacement taillight assemblies. We're going to be replacing both the driver and passenger side. On our driver's side, our license plate was not on this side, so we're using the Optronics light that has the included bracket. Both of them are going to wire up exactly the same way, and they're both going to have almost all the same features. The only difference between the two is you have the bracket for your license plate, as well as a light down below to illuminate the license plate, keeping you DOT compliant in all states.

This light's going to provide you with all the necessary functions, which includes your left turn signal, right turn signal, tail lamps, and brake lamps. Both of the assemblies, regardless of the license plate bracket, are going to have nine LED diodes inside that will produce those signals for your stop turn and tail light. The ones that have the license plate bracket do have an additional three LEDs here at the bottom to illuminate for your license plate light.So you can see our factory one here, it was a regular incandescent bulb. The incandescent bulbs don't last nearly as long as LED lights. LEDs typically last about 50 times longer than an incandescent.

So you can see how that's going to pretty much benefit probably the life of this trailer. The bulbs inside are also typically brighter than your incandescent. You can see it produces kind of a wider light, a little bit higher frequency than what your incandescents would. And LEDs also draw less current, which that means if you're trickle charging your truck when driving down the road with your trailer, there's less load going on the batteries on your trailer, so it's easier for your truck to keep it topped up and potentially even charge it all the way up. Whereas a lot of incandescent lights could potentially exceed the charge from your truck, depending on how many you have.And if you're wanting to add more lights, switching over to LED will allow you to do so without increasing your cap for how much amperage you're drawing if you're taking out those old incandescents, because most of these are going to draw way less, probably less than half of what an incandescent would in most situations.

There's only three wires coming out of the back of our lights, so it's extremely easy to hook up. If you follow along with me now, we'll show you how to remove your old ones, get the new ones installed, sealed up, and wired in.We'll begin our installation here at the back of the vehicle by removing our old taillight assembly. The covers on these do have release tabs on the side. I like to use a screwdriver to push in on the release tab. I just find it makes it a little bit easier than using your finger.

And then that'll kind of just pop off of there. Once you get one side off, the other side comes off, usually without having to press it on the release tab. Once that's out of the way though, you can see we've got four screws, one located in each corner that we're going to remove with our Phillips screwdriver. Oftentimes on these trailers, whether it be your camper, fifth wheel, or even an RV, they also support number two square bits as well if you've got that laying around, that can sometimes speed up the process if one of those in a gun.Now that we've got all of our screws removed, we can take the light off. It is going to be stuck on there, so I do recommend using something like this plastic trim panel tool here. I did take it over to just a grinder real quick and just made the end a little bit smoother to make it easier to get up under there. And we're just going to get up behind the light here and then just carefully work our way around, releasing it from the body. If you need a trim panel tool, we do have sets available here at etrailer. behind each of your screw holes there's also butyl tape that the manufacturer used to help seal those up to prevent any moisture from getting in down into those.