Decided to give my vRS the LED look with LED sidelights front and rear and brake lights, if only it went to plan.

Having double checked to make sure my fabia had seperate brake and tail lights as opposed to a duel filament bulb (getting my mum to sit in and press the pedal a few times, good old mum), i ordered a pair of super bright red led bulbs for the brake lights and a not so bright pair for the tail lights, along with some smart looking front sidelights.

Arrived today and i set to getting them fitted.

Problem number 1 - some bright spark at skoda (pun intended) decided that even so the taillight bulb only has one function (a tail light funnily enough) they would still make the fitment for a duel filament bulb and only use one filament. GENIUS! so i have a single contact bulb that doesn't fit.

Problem number 2 - one of the brakelight bulbs i ordered is faulty (although this is completely forgiveable due to the superb service i got from the company i ordered from)

Problem number 3 - my skoda is too damn clever (or not in this case) for its own good. It immediately reconised that i had a bulb out even though i didn't because there is an LED in its place and proceeded to beep and flash a warning light at me.

GGRRRRR !

Solutions on a postcard please !

No seriously, i now know that i can put a resitor acrss the back of the bulb to trick the waring system into thinking that there is a standard bulb fitted. Can anybody advise me of the resistor size that i will need for the front sidelights and the rear brake and tail light bulbs.

Thanks for your help

Simon

LED's draw less current.

you need to add a resistor, or get car-specific LED bulbs

Decided to give my vRS the LED look with LED sidelights front and rear and brake lights, if only it went to plan.

Having double checked to make sure my fabia had seperate brake and tail lights as opposed to a duel filament bulb (getting my mum to sit in and press the pedal a few times, good old mum), i ordered a pair of super bright red led bulbs for the brake lights and a not so bright pair for the tail lights, along with some smart looking front sidelights.

Arrived today and i set to getting them fitted.

Problem number 1 - some bright spark at skoda (pun intended) decided that even so the taillight bulb only has one function (a tail light funnily enough) they would still make the fitment for a duel filament bulb and only use one filament. GENIUS! so i have a single contact bulb that doesn't fit.

Problem number 2 - one of the brakelight bulbs i ordered is faulty (although this is completely forgiveable due to the superb service i got from the company i ordered from)

Problem number 3 - my skoda is too damn clever (or not in this case) for its own good. It immediately reconised that i had a bulb out even though i didn't because there is an LED in its place and proceeded to beep and flash a warning light at me.

GGRRRRR !

Solutions on a postcard please !

No seriously, i now know that i can put a resitor acrss the back of the bulb to trick the waring system into thinking that there is a standard bulb fitted. Can anybody advise me of the resistor size that i will need for the front sidelights and the rear brake and tail light bulbs.

Thanks for your help

Simon

OK, firstly your tailight bulbs are also the foglight bulbs - hence the dual filament, one is the brighter 21w filament for fog lights and the other is the 5w tailight bulb.

LED brakelights won't work unless you put a resistor load across them to simulate the same current draw as a normal filament bulb. Otherwise not only will the car think the bulb is out, but also IIRC it will trip the 3rd high level brakelight into constant operation.

Thirdly, in my opinion aftermarket LED brake/tail bulbs may look fancy and might produce a "sharper" light but I don't think they produce the same area of light (which is a major factor in noticing brake lights in front of you) and the angle they produce it at is a narrow one, so unless you're dead on behind the car, you won't see it.

HTH.

OK, firstly your tailight bulbs are also the foglight bulbs - hence the dual filament, one is the brighter 21w filament for fog lights and the other is the 5w tailight bulb.

LED brakelights won't work unless you put a resistor load across them to simulate the same current draw as a normal filament bulb. Otherwise not only will the car think the bulb is out, but also IIRC it will trip the 3rd high level brakelight into constant operation.

Thirdly, in my opinion aftermarket LED brake/tail bulbs may look fancy and might produce a "sharper" light but I don't think they produce the same area of light (which is a major factor in noticing brake lights in front of you) and the angle they produce it at is a narrow one, so unless you're dead on behind the car, you won't see it.

HTH.

i.e. get rid:rofl:

hth

21W/5W bulb Vs a 50mW odd LEDs i presume..So something along the lines of 10k? I dunno,cant be bothered to work precise ohms atm at the moment.. Will tell you later when i work it out but 10K odd i thought would do it. When people say a "load resistor" I presume they mean a resistor after the LED bulb back to ground..?

LEDs will get noticed alot more than normal bulbs by comparison however they dont have the "throw" as much as normal bulbs [generally!] (I.E. some (most) LED's can be used as distress lights as it can be seen up to 1-2miles blah blah, however they're not great as torches compared to bulbs as they dont "light the surroundings" as much). All a brake light needs to do is to get people noticed that it is on, therefore LED's are fine if not better for that purpose. Correct me if im wrong btw

thanks for clearing the fog light issue up, i forgot about those (oops now i feel stupid).

Just started a new job and i happen to work with an electronics wizard so he's gonna sort it for me. Cheers anyway guys. will let you know how i get on.

LEDs will get noticed alot more than normal bulbs by comparison however they dont have the "throw" as much as normal bulbs [generally!] (I.E. some (most) LED's can be used as distress lights as it can be seen up to 1-2miles blah blah, however they're not great as torches compared to bulbs as they dont "light the surroundings" as much). All a brake light needs to do is to get people noticed that it is on, therefore LED's are fine if not better for that purpose. Correct me if im wrong btw

My opinion is that LED bulbs have a very sharp on/off operation, so they are more noticeable than incandescant bulbs on that basis as the "appear" more suddenly in your field of view, however, the narrow angle of light that LED's produce compared to the broad angle of light from normal bulbs is surely a disadvantage? You are not always squarely behind a car that is braking, especially if at junctions etc., where you may be coming across at an angle. In that situation, you may be out of the narrow light cone eminating from the LED bulb, whereas a conventional bulb and reflector has a very wide viewing angle and would be seen clearly.

HTH.

Led brake lights bulbs, also cause your cruise to fail :(

A lot of LED bulbs for brake lights also have rear facing LED's in them now in order to light up the reflector and give the full spread of light, overcoming the narrow angle problem.

You shouldn't need resistors for the front sidelights (the 5w wedges) as they aren't on the faulty bulb warning circuit on Skodas for some reason?

Where did you get them from? My Superb was all LED'd up, need to do the Mondeo now, never change a bulb again!! bliss!!