LED tail light failure

[Baffy]

The rear tail light on L&K Estate has failed after only 8 months.

 

From what hat I can find online this is an LED bulb/strip in the cluster and can’t be changed by a visit to local Halfords, probably requiring new cluster.

 

I don’t think this is acceptable for the life of an LED bulb.

 

Should I reasonably expect main dealer to replace under warranty?

[penguin17]

Yes it should be a warranty replacement.  8 months usage isn't good enough for a system that should be durable enough for at least 10's of thousands of hours.    It's near enough a sealed system so I can't see how 'wear and tear' could be an issue/excuse; the light has failed at doing it's primary (only) function, and it's failed prematurely. 

 

I've just googled this and using an LED (automotive) bulb for 10 hours per day should give you a life expectancy of 13.7 years.  

 

I would speak with your local dealer. 

 

 

 

 

Edited 6 February, 2019 by penguin17

[Baffy]

Thanks penguin17 I think a trip to local dealer before work today is order of the day.

[Baffy]

Dealer is fixing tail light under warranty.

[penguin17]

2 hours ago, Baffy said:

Dealer is fixing tail light under warranty.

Result.  Keep us posted as it may be a dodgy batch and could help someone else, further down the line 

[Adrian55555]

Yeah leds in sealed units are covered for the entire warranty period 

[Baffy]

Looking at rear cluster I suspect there may be an issue with the seal which has caused LED to fail. The photo shows the moisture inside the lens.

[Adrian55555]

Aslong as it wasnt caused by an external influence (damage) it will be covered under warranty.  We used to replace quite a few rear lenses with water ingress under warranty. 

[silver1011]

I'm surprised you waited for the LED's to fail, with that much water ingress I'd have had it back to the dealer pretty quickly after noticing it.

[Baffy]

12 minutes ago, silver1011 said:

I'm surprised you waited for the LED's to fail, with that much water ingress I'd have had it back to the dealer pretty quickly after noticing it.

Only noticed water ingress when I looked at light failure and only knew about light failure when message came up on dashboard. 

[Chris48]

I've had a similar issue with my Superb Mk III 2.0 TSI 280 4x4 Sportline Plus. I had an alert pop up on the dashboard to check the left rear tail light and it was indeed out. However, when I got to my destination it was back on again. This happened quite a few times so I took the vehicle into my service partner but they couldn't replicate the fault. They did a reset and asked me to monitor. The next time the dashboard alert came up, I noticed that the light had come partly on - back in the day I would have thought it was a dodgy rheostat but I guess they don't exist any more... Pic attached to show what's going on.

 

Back to the dealer once more and this time they believe the culprit is the LED rear light assembly so they're going to replace it - eventually! Apparently the part is on back order and will need to come from Germany, so what with Covid and Brexit I could be hanging around for a while. Fortunately it's being done under warranty - nearly £300 for the assembly is quite a bit more expensive than a bulb... So whilst on the face of it there might be a dodgy batch of tail light assemblies out there, I'm not totally convinced - it seems more like a gremlin in the electronics to me because I would have thought the cluster would be either on or off if it was faulty. As you can see from the image, the light on the boot lid isn't coming on either. Watch this space for updates!

[Colin170CR]

Beginning to think I'm better off with regular rear bulbs - albeit converted to LED fittings.

[edbostan]

I have got humble bulbs in my Roomster and in 8 years have only replaced a registration plate bulb. Cars are becoming over engineered.

[SurreyJohn]

On 06/02/2019 at 14:44, Baffy said:

Looking at rear cluster I suspect there may be an issue with the seal which has caused LED to fail. The photo shows the moisture inside the lens.

Don’t want this to sound like a stupid question

 

Some are describing it as a sealed unit assembly, but others mention seals going.  Why would anything that is sealed also have seals (as these are normally used at joint of opening parts).  

 

Can anyone clarify if it is sealed and unopenable, or just part sealed

 

[Chris48]

Out of curiosity (and to see how long I might have to wait) I've been checking on the availability of the tail light assembly.  The outer unit seems to be readily available but the inner (the one on the boot lid) isn't. When you try to order the outer, a message pops up to the effect that you'll also need the inner.  Does anyone know if you really need to get both, bearing in mind it's an intermittent fault and both come fully on when the mood takes them?

[Colin170CR]

44 minutes ago, edbostan said:

I have got humble bulbs in my Roomster and in 8 years have only replaced a registration plate bulb. Cars are becoming over engineered.

Amen to that.

[Chris48]

4 minutes ago, SurreyJohn said:

Don’t want this to sound like a stupid question

 

Some are describing it as a sealed unit assembly, but others mention seals going.  Why would anything that is sealed also have seals (as these are normally used at joint of opening parts).  

 

Can anyone clarify if it is sealed and unopenable, or just part sealed

 

I've had a good look at mine and they appear to be sealed, i.e. you would have to break them to get at the gubbins inside. But I suspect the joints aren't as good as they should be. I've noticed condensation inside all of the light units on my car - not as bad as Baffy's example but nonetheless present. Not a problem I noticed with my previous (non-LED) vehicles...

[unclerichy]

3 hours ago, Chris48 said:

I've had a good look at mine and they appear to be sealed.

One of mine has a dead spider in it so either he was trapped during construction or there is a gap somewhere.