tomasulo

Hey Guys,

I had an LED backup light that was mounted under my bumper on my old 2011 F150. I wired it into the reverse wire running to the trailer connector. With my 2015, can I still splice into the trailer wire under the bumper, and not get the trailer connected warning? I assume I would only get the trailer connected warning if plugging a 4 or 7 pin connector into the actual trailer plug on the bumper? Just looking to splice into the reverse wire so the bright LED will come on when shifting into reverse. Thanks for your help!

JJ Dane

Don't wire anything in to the trailer harness. It does not detect 4 or 7 pin. It detects load.
Since it's a backup light you may be lucky that it will only detect it when backing up, but I would t take the chance. I did the rear led bar myself, and it was a huge mistake wiring it to the trailer harness. Even after putting it back together again it still thought I had a trailer. I needed up having to pull circuit breakers to get it out of towing mode. Wire it to the trucks reverse light up by the reverse lamp. That worked for me

tomasulo

Wow. Glad I asked! Thanks. I had a Putco LED tailgate bar that I took off my 2011, but didn't bother wiring it on the 2015, with fear of this. I was just going to wire directly to the tail light assemblies but never bothered. Sold it instead. If there's not enough power in the reverse tail light wire (in the tail light assembly), I'll have to power it from the battery and run a switch into the cab. What a pain.

JJ Dane

well, here is a suggestion. replace your existing truck reverse light with LED, they draw less power and provide more light ( thats what i did) and that should give you a little extra headroom for your LED Backup light. My led bar does have backup light, and it is hard wired to the trucks backup light and it works!

tomasulo

Yep, first thing I did when I got the truck last summer was replace reverse lights and license plate lights with LEDs. I live outside of town and it's very dark at night, with a long driveway, I like to back my truck in. Even with LED reverse, it's not even close to bright enough. I took the LED flood lights off my 2011 that I had been using, and they're just sitting in my basement. I had one hooked up first, which worked fine spliced into my reverse wire thru the tail light assembly. When I decided to add a second light (one on either side under the bunker), they started tripping my fuse, drawing too much power. I thought if I just tried one light mounted n the drivers side rear bumper, that woukd give me plenty extra light and native it would run with just splicing into the reverse tail lamp.

MarkBinSC

I have my auxiliary LED back up light tied into the backup light in the 7 pin trailer connector on my 2016 Lariat with BLIS. It works fine and does not give me any trailer warnings.

I think that the other problems come from the running or brake light portions of the circuit. Seems that the computer does not monitor the backup light draw.

rliles1

Instead of running to a switch in the cab, use a 12v relay on the backup lamp to power a 12v hot to the added lights.

Meathead

iTrader: (2)

This^^

shortride

iTrader: (1)

It's becoming more difficult to do any electrical wiring modifications to these late model F-150. It's not worth the risk.