LED interior lighting

muddyl

I recently had a lease car that had led interior lighting and I have to say it was much better.
Are there any specific types to go for or to avoid and where would you recommend buying from?

DUTR

muddyl wrote: »

I recently had a lease car that had led interior lighting and I have to say it was much better.
Are there any specific types to go for or to avoid and where would you recommend buying from?

Lighting on many modern cars is much improved, which car was it that you had? My Golf (8yrs old) has some permanent led lights on top of the regular front/rear and reading interior lights, that said my MK4 Golf was was good too.

muddyl

@ DUTR The lease car I had was a Hyundai i800.

@ Savemoney. Thanks for the link.

I'll have to find out which bulbs I need. The one in the boot and also the glove box don't work (power is present so just the bulb) so they will be first. Then there is the map lights, 6 in total.

Johno100

One quick tip, if you are fitting LED bulbs, they are polarity sensitive. So if you put it in and it doesn't work, take the bulb out and rotate it 180 degrees.

wezwee

One thing, I'll warn you to not buy the cheapest LED's you find on the flea bay.

Last year I replaced various dead bulbs with bright LED's which I found were fitted with the cheapest resistors which burned out within weeks:
s4.postimage.org/xj255d4n1/2012_1.jpg

Go for SMD's

muddyl

wezwee wrote: »

One thing, I'll warn you to not buy the cheapest LED's you find on the flea bay.

Last year I replaced various dead bulbs with bright LED's which I found were fitted with the cheapest resistors which burned out within weeks:
s4.postimage.org/xj255d4n1/2012_1.jpg

Go for SMD's

Yes, that's the main reason I thought about asking for recommendations. I didn't want to purchase sub standard led's for the sake of a few £.

forgotmyname

Beware some interior lights that maybe oddly switched.

Positive feed for the switch on the light but negative feed from the door switches.

So if the light only comes on with one or the other you know what the issue is.

Plenty of LEDs on ebay.

The SMD's seem to be the best presently.

Usually a case of pot luck, Most will be from China, Sometimes repackaged and a large price increase to make it appear like its a better product. But maybe the same cheap item.

Buy a couple from different sellers and see which one lasts the longest.

squack

also be aware that most LED's are not dimmable so if you have an interior light that fades to darkness rather than switches straight off, it may not like it.

you usually get a choice of warm white (yellowish tinge) or cool white (bluish tinge), there are other funky colours available, maybe blue not a good idea though because the police can get jealous about other road users using "their" colour, also red because it could confuse other road users :money:

JethroUK

muddyl wrote: »

I recently had a lease car that had led interior lighting and I have to say it was much better.
Are there any specific types to go for or to avoid and where would you recommend buying from?

The benefits of LED lighting isn't that they are 'better' at actual lighting (conventional bulbs are much 'better' for lighting)

Benefits of LED lighting is that they consume much less power (6 watts instead of 60 watts) - and should last almost indefinitely

Car Factory fitted LED lighting (like on Audis) is veeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeery expensive

I've replaced some of our household lamps with LED - great for my 7 outside lights which are on all night every night (7 x 3.5 watts instead of 7 x 40 watts) and they look good too

I have them in 4 wall lights 3.5 watts which seem slightly dimmer than the 40 watt candles they replaced

Haven't used any in main lighting yet until i see some better reviews

Bought 8 LEDs for my car to replace everything but headlights - they are terrible - virtually invisible and even canbus (no error) bulbs caused my warning lights to stay on

Took them all out and put the originals back in - very expensive lesson learned

Not sure how they can even sell them as car replacements bulbs since they are quite clearly 'not fit for the purpose'

vikingaero

I've replaced all the interior lights in our cars with LEDs from FleaBay. I have them to minimise battery consumption when parked up - daughters gymnastics and having the boot open for long periods when caving.

It is very much that you get what you pay for. If they look cheap then they are cheap. The more expensive LEDs have lenses and metal shrouds.

muddyl

vikingaero wrote: »

I've replaced all the interior lights in our cars with LEDs from FleaBay. I have them to minimise battery consumption when parked up - daughters gymnastics and having the boot open for long periods when caving.

Well we are looking into caravanning too for next year so there will probably be times (when first on site perhaps) that the idea of reduced power consumption will come in handy.


With regard to an earlier post. My car does have lights that dim so I'll get one first to see if it works then may get others.
If nothing else I'll get them for in the boot as its a pain messing about with the woefully inadequate light in there.