hi all, was considering changing all of the bulbs on the car to LEDs including brake lights tail lights indicators etc. just was wondering has anyone had any issues with the car saying a bulb is blown and trowing an error up on the dash?

thanks

nope. however changing them all will cost a few pennies.... LED reverse bulb sets are about £15-20 for a decent pair, then you've got brakes.. which im sure similar if not more etc etc.. May be a wiser choice to change them to LED when stds blow..

no problems however do cost alot but last a long time so they do tend to pay themselfs off if they are very good! only problem is that your front led sidelights will need to be metal or very good quality as your headlamps melt the plastic casing and the diodes over time.... good site is: http://www.car-mod-shop.co.uk/Car%20LED%20bulbs

hope that helps

cant.. fully agree with that comment on 'pay themselves off' as normal bulbs are few £'s and LED ones are few ££'s so would need lifetime of at least 3 sets before it starts 'paying itself off' (referring to brakes/reverse).

cant.. fully agree with that comment on 'pay themselves off' as normal bulbs are few £'s and LED ones are few ££'s so would need lifetime of at least 3 sets before it starts 'paying itself off' (referring to brakes/reverse).

Life expentacy of a filament bulb -------------- 300hr

Life expentacy of an LED ----------- 50 000 hrs

Pay for itself? Yes :yes:

Life expentacy of a filament bulb -------------- 300hr

Life expentacy of an LED ----------- 50 000 hrs

Pay for itself? Yes :yes:

300 or 3000? :S

Anyway, point being, normal brake bulbs will last meh.. 3-5 years? reverse lights possibly longer.. so 3 sets will be minimum 10 years..?

Although.. I've seen stupid amounts of people missing 1 possibly 2 brake lights (sometimes all 3!) on the roads... no-one ever seems to bother to tell them..? (I try when if I have a chance to overtake, otherwise frantically flashing from the rear will look a bit suspicious :wonder: ).

Don't get me wrong Im all for electronics ftw, but don't feel those LED bulbs will last 10+ years personally.

One can argue it looks better/brighter though

One can also argue that the reaction time for the light to come on is quicker than normal bulbs thus giving earlier indication of braking/reversing etc..

(I've been their done that )

Edited 16 July, 201015 yr by JLneonhug

Don't get me wrong Im all for electronics ftw, but don't feel those LED bulbs will last 10+ years personally.

One can argue it looks better/brighter though

These figures are not made up these are in tests..........

Im not doubting you on the numbers, but they're 'tests' on paper. i.e. an LED life expectancy is 50k hours.. life expectancy of the product as a whole is untested. i.e. soldering joins, resistors, diode, PCB.

[geek alert]

On using multiple smd leds if one wanted the maximum 50k life expectancy the power must be consistent, the only way to have a very consistent chain of led's in parallel is to have a resistor next to each LED, if the manufactures only bung in 1, 2, maybe 4 resistors (norm case) to deal with all the leds it will not have the same voltage consistency thus eventually leading to different brightness on the LEDs.

you may have seen in a set, one LED is brighter than the others.. or few are brighter than others.. well.. that's due to manufacturing of LED's being not as consistent, but ALSO to do with what I've describe above, as this amplifies it no end, until over voltage and fries of the LED's, in which case when one fries they all tend to follow if power is at peak.

side note - If one used a PWM module the performance/efficiency of the LED will be much better, approx 3 times better (either in brightness or life of LED)

[/geek alert]

Edited 16 July, 201015 yr by JLneonhug

*high 5*

trouble is its all on paper ive known rear bulbs to last 6 months and you can kiss filliment life expectancy goodby if you touch the glass ore leave a tiny bit of dirt or greese on the glass, you dont get that with led's. a good led with good resistor and make up will last over a year on constant light where as a filiment bulb about a month or 2?

also the main thing to note is that the resistor plays more of a part in a car led bulb than the Light emmiting diode... if the resistor overheats it causes flickering caused by intermitant power bursts and failure of the bulb

Does life really expectancy matter for some bulbs? Take reversing, based on a fillaments 300 hours (as above) you'd have to reverse for 12 1/2 days solid to use the bulbs life. Can't really see 'paying itself off' being relevant as I reverse for maybe 1 minute at most a day, meaning it'll take about 50 years for the bulb to die.* Can't see many others reversing for much longer.

Like wise with brakes, although I can see why they'd be better to have than the reversing lights.

*300 x 60 = 18,000 minutes of life.

18,000 / 365 = 49.3 years.

That said, they do look better than normal bulbs. Don't think the light warning'll come on as it's only front lights it checks IIRC. Simpple way to check, unplug one of each bulb in turn, see if the warnings come on.

Edited 16 July, 201015 yr by TriggerFish

yes granted the reverse bulbs is not worth it unless you realy want them however, you have to remember a filiment bulb is more likely to fail from defects than an led plus they are warenteed unlike normal bulbs its all about cash and asthetic value