Why are the Wire Colors different on some LED Tailgate Lights and Other Accessories?

Updated 08/04/2017 | Published 08/03/2017

Question:

Why do the 60" led tailgate strip lights on eBay use the brown wire as a ground then white as brake light and leave their blue and green as turn signals? This no where matches standard trailer codes - why would you fuse a ground wire when all 12 v systems are fused on the hot wires? Look up any 60" tailgate light strip online - its in their wiring diagram to follow that pattern.

asked by: Greg

Helpful Expert Reply:

This is a really good question. You are correct, the wire assignments you mention do not correlate with standard trailer wiring. Standard trailer TAILLIGHT wiring colors in the USA are:

Brown = running light circuit
White = ground
Green = right turn/stop
Yellow = left turn/stop

There are several reasons you might run across lights or electrical accessories with different wire colors. Some manufacturers use all black wires on their 4-way plugs to better camouflage them around the tailgate area of your truck, like Putco's Universal LED Tailgate Light Bar, part # P92009-60. Some use different color assignments based on the country of origin's wiring color code. (Europe has a different color assignment than the US.) Finally, some manufacturers are constantly changing their wire colors based on what is currently available to them at the lowest price.

So, it is important that you check the wiring diagram and/or instructions that are provided with your light or accessory to make sure that you are installing it correctly.

I've provided a link to our FAQ article on Trailer Wiring which provides the 7-way wiring color code also.