LED interior lighting

forgotmyname

You may need a standard bulb fitted somewhere in the system.

If it uses a capacitor to store the energy to keep the interior light on for 10 seconds after opening/closing a door the LED may stay on for a long time.

Also sometimes the LED may never fully go out. You might get a faint glow from them.
Mondeo footwell lights can have this issue.

Use LEDs for those and they light up all the time. Although fairly dimly.
Simple cure, Leave on standard bulb in the system and they work properly.

muddyl

forgotmyname wrote: »

You may need a standard bulb fitted somewhere in the system.

If it uses a capacitor to store the energy to keep the interior light on for 10 seconds after opening/closing a door the LED may stay on for a long time.

Also sometimes the LED may never fully go out. You might get a faint glow from them.
Mondeo footwell lights can have this issue.

Use LEDs for those and they light up all the time. Although fairly dimly.
Simple cure, Leave on standard bulb in the system and they work properly.

That's a great little trick. I'll keep that in mind.
Decided to try cheap ones for now just to see what they do, so bought a 10 pack for £5. They look exactly the same (from the pictures anyway) to the ones that are 5 a pair and at that price if they are no good I don't care.

forgotmyname

Only time and money will tell

From China?

muddyl

forgotmyname wrote: »

From China?

Nearly all of them are.

muddyl

Well the led lights/bulbs turned up today.
Swapped a few in the car, I'll do the rest tomorrow. left some new and old side by side to compare.

In my opinion, much better. Much crisper, whiter light. Not sure if they would be officially brighter i.e. higher lumen rating, but they certainly seem it. They illuminate the cabin area much more clearly and I think give a more modern appearance.

A simple, cheap and effective "upgrade". Very pleased.

Lum

JethroUK wrote: »

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

Replacement exterior lights is something you have to approach very carefully.

For each given bulb type you will find that a number of different designs are available, e.g. tower types where the bulb is replaced with a cylinder surrounded by LEDs, these are good for bulb housings that have a reflector inside, e.g. most foglights, but not so good for brake lights. Or you can get the ones that have a single large LED on top but none on the sides which work better if your light has a diffuser on the top (less common these days, unfortunately) and doesn't use a reflector.

JethroUK

Lum wrote: »

Replacement exterior lights is something you have to approach very carefully.

For each given bulb type you will find that a number of different designs are available, e.g. tower types where the bulb is replaced with a cylinder surrounded by LEDs, these are good for bulb housings that have a reflector inside, e.g. most foglights, but not so good for brake lights. Or you can get the ones that have a single large LED on top but none on the sides which work better if your light has a diffuser on the top (less common these days, unfortunately) and doesn't use a reflector.

Maybe - but if they are advertised as "LED Fog Light", "LED Side Light", "LED Brake Light ,Canbus No-Error)", "LED numberplate" (which in fact, they ALL are)

then the consumer has a right to run away with the assumption that they have already put the LEDS wherever they need to be for that purpose

for what it's worth - i bought about 4-5 different styles to replace exiting bulbs - and can honestly say that not one single LED was a suitable replacement for the existing bulb

i would say less than 1/2 as bright and probably dim enough to get you into an accident

and the extra i paid for "Canbus No-Error LEDS" caused an error

so on that basis I would have to challenge your post as I did not find ANY of them

Lum wrote: »

.... these are good for .....

"good for" anything at all

they did fit, and they did light up - but certainly none were "suitable for purpose"

and I am totally pro LED and cant wait to get some that are even 75% suitable for purpose

I would be interested in which ones you found "good for" something - because i will fit them asap if you have a link

Lum

Ahh I was fitting them to a car that pre-dates all that canbus rubbish. They also didn't have any resistors in so it was necessary to change the indicator relay to prevent fast flashing.

Unfortunately the ones I used appear to no-longer be sold, but they were from ultraleds.co.uk. This is annoying as I was planning to LED the Cefiro at some point when I got around to it (been about 3 years now, but none of the bulbs have blown yet)