Not a sponsored post, just thought I'd share a purchase with you.

I recently replaced my daytime running light (DRL) bulbs with these LEDs - Auxito 1156 White P21W LED Bulbs (https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/126645526984).

Swap was fairly simple. Light units accessed very easily using advice on this forum, and the bulbs were a straight swap. Unless it was sheer luck and I got them right the first time round, they don't appear to be polarity sensitive either (although obviously if you're getting them, test they work before putting the units back in!)

Bright without being too blinding, making the car a bit more obvious when the headlights aren't on. And being LED they have a more complementary colour than the standard warm filament bulbs.

I'll keep an eye on the bulb life and update this post if required.

Edited 2 October, 20252 Oct by persimmontom
Clearly not thinking straight when I posted this. They were DRLs, not fog lights!!

I used these and they work really well

OSRAM LEDriving SL, ≜ P21W, White... https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0D8JNW6Q4?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_share

@persimmontom and @KirkJames : What about the broken bulb message? Many LED's cause a broken bulb error on the dashboard. I recently had that issue when upgrading my high beam H7 bulbs to LED.

Do your bulbs generate an error message as well? Or are they just a straight swap without any issues?

2nd question: Many cheap LED's cause DAB signal loss (due to a cheap DC-DC conversion circuit). What are your experiences with these LED's and DAB reception?

Edited 4 October, 20254 Oct by andrehj

Mine were a straight swap with no issues and no error messages. I don't have DAB so can't comment.

No issues here either but I dont believe the DRL's give off an error message but the fogs do if I remember correctly.

Mine is a 2012 pre-facelift estate (“combi”). Everything in this post is applicable to a 2008-13 pre-facelift car, and I’m not sure about differences with hatchbacks.

When replacing with retrofit LEDs, even ones that claim to be “canbus compatible”, some bulbs work and others don’t. It’s trial and error to find ones that work.

The DRLs definitely do generate bulb failure warnings with some LEDs, but not with others. Likewise with rear indicators and reversing lights.

I have fitted “Antemoon” LEDs (link below) for DRLs and they work fine with no bulb faults. The only peculiarity is that they flash three times, left then right, when you turn the ignition on. I suspect this is simply the test pulses that the car sends to see if the bulbs are working, and the pulses are normally too short for a halogen bulb to actually light up, but LEDs do because their response time is quicker.

Antemoon P21W for DRLs: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0DP4PYW2K?ref_=ppx_hzsearch_conn_dt_b_fed_asin_title_5&th=1

I have tried replacing the front fogs (H8 if I remember correctly), but they don’t work because when turning left or right the car ramps the brightness up and down, and the LEDs aren’t dimmable so don’t respond properly.

I’ve also replaced rear indicators. This took a bit of trial and error because some caused a bulb fault, and others were simply too bright and would dazzle following drivers at night. I settled on the following, which work and are a sensible brightness:

Argo PY21W for rear indicators: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/374844629873?var=643919891661

Note that PY21W filament bulbs do not fit for the rear indicators because the bulb glass physically won’t go through the hole in the light fitting. For conventional bulbs on a pre-facelift you need RY10W, but PY21W LEDs generally do fit.

And I’ve done the reversing lights. These are now very white and fairly bright (but not enough to blind anybody). No faults with these particular bulbs.

Antemoon W16W for reverse lights: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0F5B4LK16?ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_fed_asin_title

I’m not bothering to try the brake lights or the rear fogs, because the Superb mk2 is very unusual in using single-filament bulbs for both of these and they both do double-duty as tail lights as well. Most cars I’ve owned use dual-filament bulbs for this purpose, but the Superb must be switching the voltage to drive the bulbs at different brightness - which doesn’t generally work with LEDs. Also, matching the brightness with the single tail-lights bulbs will be difficult without it looking like your brake lights are permanently on.

I am currently testing a pair of H3 which my car uses as the auxiliary full-beam halogen lights (in addition to the bi-xenons). This pair were the only ones I could find that didn’t have a ridiculously big base, which I suspect wouldn’t fit in the housing. HOWEVER, I have had intermittent bulb faults from one of the bulbs, so I can’t be sure about them yet. Further testing required.

Katur H3 bulbs for halogen full-beam (on car with bi-xenons). Note I’m not 100% sure about these: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0CB5YK3MW?ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_fed_asin_title&th=1

It’s worth bearing in mind that LED retrofit headlights and full-beams are an MOT failure if the tester can see that you’ve fitted an LED into a reflector lens, so if I do keep these I’ll have to swap them back for the test.

The last thing on my list are the front indicators. On my pre-facelift these are a very unusual bulb - PH24WY, and they look a bit of a pig to get access to. I’ve only found one LED retrofit bulb, and haven’t tried it yet. But these do specifically mention 2008-13 pre-facelift Superb, so I’m hopeful.

PH24WY for front indicators (not yet tried): https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/304561517995

And the above are slightly cheaper direct from the Car Mod Shop web site.

Great post!

When I got the white W16W bulbs for the reversing lights I did try plugging one of them into a brake light to see what would happen. When I switched the side lights on, the bulb lit up at full brightness (hence it looked like the brake light was lit on that side) and gave an instant bulb fault. So it looks like some of these LEDs will produce their full brightness at a wide range of voltages - some even say they work between 8V to 24V.

I’m therefore sceptical whether it’s possible to retrofit the brakes and rear fogs. I’d love to know how these work - maybe there’s a resistor in each of these circuits to lower the voltage and current when just the tail lights are on, and perhaps the brake pedal switch and the fog light switch short their respective resistors to bring the voltage up to 12V.

It is possible to code-out the bulb checking for each lighting circuit by changing some bits in the hex coding for the electrics module. VCDS makes it easy by decoding it for you and I think it presents a list of nice friendly tick boxes to enable/disable the checking for each, but my tool just gives you a big long string of hex digits and I wasn’t sure which byte I needed to fiddle with (or what would stop working if I got it wrong).

Anyway, I’ll update this thread with any more info on my dodgy H3 bulb that throws a very occasional warning. If/when it happens again I plan to remove it and give it a clean up with contact cleaner, and also the mating surfaces that it sits against. H3 bulbs earth themselves through their body and the body of the light fitting, so if there’s some dirt reducing the current that could be the issue.

Just an update on my attempt to replace the front indicators with the following LEDs:

PH24WY: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/304561517995

Available slightly cheaper direct from CarModShop’s own web site: https://carmodshop.co.uk/product/pair-ph24wy-canbus-led-turn-signal-indicator-bulbs-amber-orange-yellow/

However, these were not successful. The bulb didn’t really seem to fit properly into the connector, and didn’t light up. I suspect the pins in the bulb were slightly misaligned, and didn’t engage with the holes in the connector. With some extra force it did eventually slide in further, but one of the bulb’s pins had retreated up into the body of the bulb instead of going into the connector and it still didn’t light up. I didn’t actually get to the point of fitting the bulb into the light fitting.

CarModShop were excellent at accepting the return and refunded me very quickly.

Here’s another PH24WY candidate, which I might try in due course: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/274963723745

I’m still not 100% sure about the Katur H3 bulbs for halogen full-beam (on car with bi-xenons), but it’s looking more hopeful: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0CB5YK3MW?ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_fed_asin_title&th=1

One of these was giving intermittent bulb warnings, so I took it out and cleaned both the bulb and the light fitting using electrical contact cleaner on a cotton bud. H3 bulbs earth themselves through the body of the bulb where it touches the light fitting, so a dirty connection may have been the issue. Since doing this I haven’t had a repeat of the warning, so fingers crossed.

Note: It’s worth repeating that LED retrofit headlights or full-beams in fittings not designed for them will be an MOT failure if the tester can see what you’ve done without removing covers.

With apologies for spamming this thread again, but here’s another update from me. Hopefully this may be useful to people searching for this kind of info in the future.

So I was unsuccessful with the PH24WY front indicator LEDs from CarModShop, because the pins didn’t correctly engage with the holes in the connector.

However, I have tried a different pair: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/274963723745?var=575243879512

I have just fitted them, and they appear to work without bulb faults, for the time being at least. They’re quite nice and bright, too. And of course they have a nice crisp on-and-off.

Removal and refitting is a right pain. In hindsight it would probably be easier to jack each corner up, remove the wheel and the arch liner - and then I think you’d have access to the indicator fitting from behind. But I did it the hard way, working from above.

As you can see from the picture I’ll put at the end of this post, there’s a single torx T20 screw holding the plastic collar of the bulb. Someone on another thread has said that you only need to loosen this; I was sceptical but he was right. Slacken it about 4 or 5 millimetres (careful not to lose the screw altogether!), turn the bulb anticlockwise to release it from its bayonet-like fitting, and you have just enough wiggle room to persuade the plastic collar to go past the screw head.

Refitting is “the reverse of removal”, but it was quite hard to turn the bulb to re-engage it. I don’t think I managed to turn it more than a few degrees, but at least the screw should hold it. Note that one of the plastic lugs on the bulb is different from the other three - the different one needs to align to the right (as viewed from the driver’s seat), then you try and turn it clockwise.

Here’s that picture of the back of the PH24WY fitting. The screw “inboard” on the left-hand side and not too difficult, but on the right-hand side it’s between the light fitting and the inner wing and is hard to access. Probably less so with the wheel arch liner off…

Edited 25 November, 202525 Nov by Dr_Mike_Oxgreen