Is there something special about German vehicle tailights that make them susceptible to variations in brightness? Now that winter is here I spent a lot more time driving in traffic in the dark. It seems to me that a relatively large percentage of German cars (particualrly VWs and BMWs) have miss-matched taillights. By this I mean the running lights on one side of the vehicle are significantly brighter than the other. And I am not talking about old clunkers, I have seen several virtually brand new BMWs with very significant differences in apparent brightness from side to side. Is this a result of replacing the OE bulbs with non-compatible US bulbs, or is there some sort of flaw in the design of the lights? It often seems like one side will be either especially bright or especiallly dim. I occasionally see the same sort of thing on US or Japanese cars, but usually the cars are older and often appear to be poorly maintained.
Ed