I've noticed that some Prius' have a tinted upper portion of their tail light (aligning the the lower hatch window). Is this a model year change?
Yes. I think they were present on the 2004s but I think they had melting issues due to sunlight so they removed the tint for 05? I might have the years wrong.
they are on the 04 and 05's.. they changed the cars in 06... including standard rear wipers.. vsc, rear view cameras (not available on 04 and 05), higher res screens with different "formats"... etc.. etc.. also... the interior was changed out. the 04 and 05 models have plum interior... since it peeled, they changed it out for a textured material.
The top portion of the taillamp housings (where the brake LED's are) was black plastic on the 04-05 models. They had some issues with excessive heat and melting so the 06-09 models have that section of plastic chrome plated.
Hmmmm . . . melting? The puppies below have driven across 120 degrees Vegas & Mojave more than once ... and yet not a crack / melt / peal to be found. I think the clear came about just to make the red lights look more bright ... but who knows. It wouldn't be my 1st bad guess. .
Take a look at the LED brake lights. Each LED is within its own cell. The bottom of each cell should be perfectly flat. On my 2004, they are sagging, almost like this Salvador Dali painting: [ame=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Persistence_of_Memory]The Persistence of Memory - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame]
