Porch & Exterior Lights

How exterior lights break down

Exterior lighting is part convenience, part law. Your clearance, marker, and tail lights are DOT-regulated for color and placement, so this isn't a spot to get creative — an inspector and a following driver both expect to see the standard pattern. The porch light is the one purely-for-you fixture out here.

• Color and position. Front and side markers are amber, rear markers and tail lights are red, and the license plate lamp shows white to the plate only. The Peterson 215-series amber marker and the red oval stop/turn/tail here follow the rules as-is — match what you're replacing.
• Sealed LED vs. replaceable bulb. Sealed LED units like the Peterson Piranha and the Optronics kit have no bulb to change; when they eventually fail you swap the whole lamp. Older housings with a replaceable bulb and lens are cheaper to fix but let moisture in more easily.
• Mounting style. Surface-mount lamps bolt to a flat panel, grommet-mount lamps push into a hole in the skin, and each needs the matching pigtail. Check which your trailer uses before ordering.
• Submersible rating. If your lights get dunked — boat and utility trailers especially — a submersible LED like the Peterson oval is the only thing that survives. A standard lamp will crack its lens from thermal shock the first time it hits cold water hot.

When an exterior light quits, test before you replace: it's often a bad ground or a corroded connector at the pigtail, not the lamp itself. For the fixtures inside the coach, see Interior LED Lights.