Need explanations for various different colors of a tail light
 

Dear friends:

I have never paid attention to different colors that a car's tail light has. Today, when I was trying to check my 300SD's tail lights' bulbs, I noticed that there are 3 different colors: RED, ORANGE and WHITE.

For either the left or right tail light, the order of these colors are as follows (counting from outside to inside):

________________________
|red|orange| red |white|red|
--------------------------------------

I know that the big middle red is for darkness illumination and brake light (it has 2 different bulbs of 21W with a reflector, and 10W). The red area of the left (above drawing) is also for darkness illumination (10W bulb). However, I don't know what the purposes of the orange area, the white area, and the red area on the right side (above drawing) are. There is a 21W bulb in the orange area, a 21W bulb in the white area and no bulb in the red area on the right side. The strange thing is that I never saw the bulbs in the orange and white areas lighting up.

Could someone explain the purpose of each color?

Thanks a lot.

Best regards,

Eric

Well, it basically goes like this:
Red - running light, brake light & possibly rear fog light.
Orange - Turn signals.
White - Back-up lights.
Hope this sheds some light on it for you. ;)

manny is right:

In the order you posted:

running light, turn signal, brake light, backup light, fog light.

Haasman

Dear Haasman and Manny:

Thanks a lot for your clear explanations.

BTW, Haasman: you said that the last red (on the right of the drawing) is the fog light. However, I did not see any light bulb for
that red area on both of my tail lights. There is a bulb socket for that red area of each tail light, but it does not have any metal electrode to indicate that a light bulb can be inserted.

Thanks.

Eric

Eric

That is correct.

Some of the U.S. models didn't have them. When I had an 82 300SD I went to a junk yard, got the socket, attached it and soldered a wire from the existing brake light so that there were four brake lights in the back instead of two.

Distinctive and seemingly effective.

Haasman

Dear Haasman:

Thanks a lot for your explanation.

Best regards,

ERic