Y'all: Remember to look at the description on an E-Bay purchase carefully. When I bought both left and right clear tail lights for under $400 total I thought - wow am I smart - that is until I discovered the right turn signal did not work. This was actually explained clearly in the description as needing to change the 'bulbs'. The bulbs cannot be changed.

So what is one to do in this situation? I searched the internet and discovered the LED panel is made in Lakevile, Minnesota, a short 30 minute drive away, so I visited with them and they were very concerned about failed lights. I then tried to figure out how to get a sealed unit open and replace the parts. My customizer of my 928 show cars (recession victims), Vescio's told me about Flyryde in California that opens up tail lights to create custom LED's even from non-LED applications. (www.flyryde.com). Then I asked the manufacturer if the panel is the exact same for clear and red tail lights, and they were, so I sent both tail lights to Chris at Flyryde and he opened up the clear light, transferred the innards from the red one and sealed everything up again. With shipping less than 320 dollars! So I'm now just about $700 for my clear tail lights and getting to be quite the expert on taking these things in and out! So if you need clear tail lights, just drive on up to Minneapolis and I can take the old ones out and the new ones in in 10 minutes.

Chris with Flyryde says he has cool customized DB9 headlights he's done if any of you DB9'ers are interested. He also said he's got some cool ideas with the Aston tail lights now that he has opened up one. I asked him how much for sequential turn signals which he can do, but I'd need both lights and that would be about another $800 or so.

Chris thinks he's the only one in the US that can do this task, it was a hobby that became a business.

I'm sending the failed components to the manufacturer so they can determine the cause of failure and if possible take action in the design so it does not happen in the new lights.

Pictures below

 

I like how he was working on your headlights while eating a bag of gummy worms haha

 

Actually I took those pictures - my gummy bears!

 

Link to Flyrydes pictures:

https://flickr.com/photos/46668569@N...57649287135199

Note: No gummy Bears (now you all know my secret to install tail lights - gummy bears make great sealants!)

 

Cool, but what's he the only one to do? Open them up? Hehe kind of looks like it was attacked with a chainsaw and silicone..

Think it was them that I saw at SEMA last year..here's a pic I took from the show

 

Same guy... he also said the lens is very fragile on the Aston's thus had to do some surgery to make it work.

 

Awesome info btw. Looking at those beautiful tail lights makes me wish I was out driving my car

 

what do they do, gut the body of the tail light assembly to get the thing open, but it looks like from the middle picture that they got the outer lens off. hard to tell from the picture. how did they open that sealed set up?
Is it cheaper to have a tail light fixed , then finding a used one for about $3-400? ( I had the rear driving light go out, but brake light worked and bought used one from ebay)

 

Typically Chris would heat up the tail lights in a way to open sealed units, but he indicated that these had very thin plastics so he decided to do some other surgery as to not destroy the rear lens. In my case I had already paid $150 for a defective tail light (my error), and used clear lights with working innards (my next choice) wold have been more than the $320 fix.

 

Do they work with LED headlight components also? I have a set of my original headlights that I replaced with brand new ones from Aston Martin for way too much. If he could fix the non working LED on the passengers side and the drivers side turn signal LED's I could sell them and at least get a few hundred bucks back!

 

Yes - They have done DB9 headlights, so use the above web site and contact Chris to see what he says.

 

Thanks for the info! I have a left clear in my garage for months, can't seem to find a used right one or CHMSL either... :/
Well, not for a decent price.

 

Please do not post active links to non-sponsor vendors (I disabled the one in the original post).

Not sure if tail lights are the same, but headlights are easy to open up. Remove screws, stick the assembly in an oven for 5-10 mins at 300F to soften the glue. Carefully pull apart. Assemble in reverse, adding more glue if needed (recommended). I've done it on a couple different cars' headlights and I'll be doing it again on my 4Runner when some parts come in.

Unless of course AML's headlights are funky and have something else going on with them, which wouldn't be surprising.

 

Yes similar process, but the plastic on the headlight is much stronger than on the tail light according to Chris who worked on mine. The problem is not opening up the light, but what afterwards? Also what I found very interesting is that there is a single light bulb in the system! It looks like to would be accessible behind the plug module, but a nightmare to replace. Why have 99.9% LED's and one bulb that can burn out, and why make it extremely difficult to access?

 

Because hand made low volume cheaply designed car?

Many many things like that in our Astons...