I changed my rear lower brake bulbs for 19 LED bayonets some time back and have finally got around to replacing the high level bulbs with LED too. I noticed that without the high level lamps connected, the 19 LED bayonet lamps had the centre LED lit. I refitted the high level unit and orientated the LED lamps correctly where necessary. It appears the bayonet lamps are in the same situation as if the high level were not connected, with the centre LED lit. Any ideas chaps and chapesses?

Dodgy earthing maybe?

With the high level light disconnected what voltage were you seeing across for where the normal stop/tail bulbs fit (with your 19 unit LED units removed)?

Will be the bulb fail system, it puts a small voltage across. Had this when I put led bulbs in my old merc and sierra. Think all octys have the system built in for the mfd display even if its not fitted.

Could be wrong lol only a guess

Raf and mbames, thanks for the ideas. I knew the car didn't have a full on can-bus system, but wiring for maxidot is a good shout. As my car is late 2005, the MK II was in the showrooms and can-bus was a big feature on those I believe. Think I will put two filament bulbs back in the high level to add some load to the circuit and see what that does.

yh you need to put some load on the system, the trouble with led's is that they are very low drain hence the can-bus problem on newer cars however on older cars its a case of the extra load going to filiment bulbs...if you get rid of all the load it plays havac as you need some for the resistors to work.

Just gone out to put a couple of filament bulbs in the high level and the centre LED's have gone out in the lower lamps Didn't turn on the ignition, but did operate the pedal to light the lamps and they just work as they should. Will monitor what happens.

I know things like indicators play up as the relay uses the current draw to make the lamps "flash". As we can't get (that I'm aware of) a modded flasher unit with a timer circuit, am I right in thinking we have to go with "loaded" or "error free" LED's?

Saw a post somewhere on this site where someone changed all their bulbs to leds, he made a control box for the indicators or something

Saw a post somewhere on this site where someone changed all their bulbs to leds, he made a control box for the indicators or something

Oh yes, he had the indicator lights doing all sorts of funky things (for off road use of course).

Of course you could just measure the current draw of the original bulbs, measure the voltage drop of the LED's themselves, and calculate the necessary resistors to add in series, to produce the necessary voltage drop making the circuit think that the load is correct (which in fact, it will be, if you do it right)