By blackening the two bumper retro reflectors, you have become a road hazard when your vehicle is parked at night or when all your electrical system malfunctions at night in a roadway especially during heavy fog or rain. By regulation, all vehicles are equipped with retro reflectors on the bumper or built into the rear tail light.
For rear lighting, get a 2013 Forester light switch, add LED and place into ceiling board near the hatch. Have done that to my 2014 XT Touring and now my 2018 XT Touring. Awesome cargo lighting and don't have to worry about the side netting blocking that little cargo light. I changed lighting everywhere to LED's. Looks great.
I did this red pinstripe thing back in 2013 and everyone started doing it too. XD Its kinda funny to me. I don't know If I started it but I had my Forester XT preordered back in 2013 before they were sold in the US...when I got it I pinstriped the front bumper because it looked so plain. Now its 2018 and its still going strong. (^.^)
I removed my license plate to make the stripe in one piece, and maybe move the license to the right side of the bumper later. I was thinking about to tint the rear deflector, but I didn't. Changed all my internal LED last month. Good video :)
So from what I saw you just swapped out the lights no issue - the maintenance manual says to remove the battery ground every time before changing the bulbs out. Why would you need to do that?
I just put on the red pinstripe onto my XT following your video and it looks awesome. Thanks for the idea and posting up the tutorial...it worked great for me. I did it before attaching the license plate bracket so I used a single strip of tape for the front. The license plate bracket is screwed on and stuck on with sticky tape so it's pretty hard to remove afterwards.
Had them on my 2014 XT Touring for 3 years with no problems. Now, did same for my 2018 XT Touring. Not one stock bulb left, not even on vanity mirrors.
The Human Car Jack because the reflectors are a safety feature. I guess if your tail lights are out the the reflectors are all you have to be in any way visible. I had a car before and wanted to upgrade the rear light cluster to the newer model but as the newer model cluster didnt have the reflectors built in like the older model(newer had reflectors on the bumper instead. I was told i could change to the newer lights but come time for the test i would have to swap the older ones back as they had the reflectors built in. Now in saying that, its possible that they may not notice and your laws are different
I think the same is true for most of western Europe, in Netherlands I think you will have to get your car towed and fixed because your not driving it anywhere.
