I picked up some 7443 size LED brake light bulbs as I wanted to try and get brighter brake lights and have the long life of LED. I put them in and they do work. However, when the truck is stopped and the lights are off, if I hit the brake, all of the exterior "running lights" and dash lights come on for as long as I hold the brake down. This happens even when the truck is not running. At first, I thought it was kinda cool to tap the brakes and the dash and gauges would light up and then, it started to bother me on what the long-term effect might be on my truck. I am going back to the traditional bulbs and setting these aside for now.

Any thoughts? Have you had a similar experience?

Try a different brand of bulb. Cheap LEDs can cause all sort of different electrical gremlins.

Or take the LEDs and dip them in the Ceratec to see if that helps.

Thanks for the tip on the Ceratec dipping. I might even rub it all over my sore muscles to see if that makes them feel better.........

Seriously, which bulbs and brand does everyone recommend for the 7443 brake light bulbs in LED. I am taking these pieces of crap back. I would like to have the brighter brake lights but every single LED bulb I have tried over the years has SUCKED!

I had strange issues start to appear with exterior LED bulbs, ended up putting regular ones back in. Thought about trying these, but they aren't cheap:
7443 LED Philips Bulb | W21/5W LED bulb | Philips 7443 Vision bulb

LED's are polarity sensitive. If it doesn't come on, flip the bulb around and install it the other way. Be aware, if it is used as a brake light or turn signal, you'll to wire in a small resistor to prevent light out indicators or hyper-flashing on turn signals. This is because LED's don't draw as much power as halogen bulbs so the vehicle will think the light is out. We carry the Philips 21W Canbus Control Unit which works on 1156, 1157, 3157, 7440 and 7443 bulbs and the Philips 5W Canbus Control Unit which works on smaller 194 and festoon bulbs.

John

Yes first try turning around the bulb around.

3rd gens do not have a bulb out indicator so do not worry about wiring in a resistor. Also, do not bother wiring in a resistor for the turn signal. You can either get an LED compatible flasher relay or take the flasher out and cut the bulb-out indicator circuit on the board inside.

Im bumping this cause this is exactly the problem i have atm, I bought LED's fromt he same supplier and they never failed me and i saw on some forums thats it was some thing to do with the pins. ill be fiddling around with my LED bulb see what happens cause this really is trouble some. and so annoying having all the lights go into "night mode" with park lights on whne i hit the brakes, but thats not all, all the rear lights turns on as if i was braking, regardless if i got only park lgiht on or not. so even if im cruising down the highway at night people will think im braking. (third brakelight turns on too) i dont believe a load resistor will do the trick here as they are dual function sockets. one for brake and one for tail. no actual flashing.