Cheap ebay LED bulbs?

[manga_blue]

The other car blows a few standard 12V/21W stop/turn/reverse bulbs every year and it's a pain to keep checking and replacing them. The car's electronics are far too complex for anyone to ever have a hope of working out and fixing why this happens.

There are plenty of ebay LED plug-in equivalents, starting at less than $2/pr delivered.



Are they worth it? Do they work well? Do they actually last longer than filament bulbs?

[taminga16]

LED's do not produce heat in order to illuminate, are not affected by vibration (Motorcycle use) and illuminate almost instantaneously, I have a tail/stop LED in my BMW m/cycle that is six years old. There is a link to dx.com in the thread below, they are easy to deal with and the back up is brilliant. viewtopic.php?f=55&t=60790#p763573
Greg.
P.S. Jay Car sell LED's and the T-5 and T-10 (front parkers and dash lamps) are very good and well priced. when you install them remember that they are polarity sensitive.

EditPostscript.

[M1474]

I have had $1 eBay park lights in my forester for 2 years no problems.

+1 on the polarity thing.

[Mr Morlock]

there is another post where a guy is having probs with an led said to be interchangeable. The venerable stop tail or single filament bulbs work very well and ,for many, rarely ever get changed. Heat is not an issue at all because the products are designed as a unit. If a bulb is blowing regularly it might simply be poor quality bulbs - if possible use Philips or Osram Euro manufactured. You can also buy or at least you could long life versions of these bulbs which triple the life or thereabouts. LL were often used on trucks. The LED hybrids are often very poor quality with little or no process control. There is a gulf of difference between quality and no name brands. A standard incandescent is also readily procurable and cheap. I have not replaced any bulbs in my MX5 in 5 or so years and leds apart from drls is not on my radar.

[manga_blue]

I'm over Osram. That's exactly why I'm checking if claims of LED longer life hold true. BTW, Morlock, if you don't live in the big city then online is the only "easily procurable" option.

Thanks Greg, M1474 for the info.

[Mr Morlock]

I bet you cannot get any test data at all for these hybrid leds. If some one is getting regular premature failures on incandescent lamps the causes can be poor quality bulbs , a problem with the vehicle wiring or mounting.. or very poor roads with a lot of shock etc Major makers e.g. Osram Philips GE all publish data for their bulbs. Car makers would not have used the standard bulbs if bulb life was so bad i.e. leading to customer complaints- OEM do not warrant bulbs but it does not mean that they do not take action for reported failures that appear to be abnormal.

Osram quote a Tc figure ( failure of 63.2% of lamps) on the 21/5 as 290 / 4000 hrs. For the long life versions it is 800/6000 hrs. One can do some sums to get an idea how often the bulbs are likely to last.

Some Euro makers also get bulbs made in China and at one stage these were never offered to OEM users.

Bursons stock Philips and Narva ( not sure who makes their bulbs) and all the standard bulbs are readily available.

[Guran]

BTW, Morlock, if you don't live in the big city then online is the only "easily procurable" option.

Bursons stock Philips and Narva ( not sure who makes their bulbs) and all the standard bulbs are readily available.

There you go Phil. Just pop into your local Bursons ... I believe it's only 3.5hr drive each way. Very convenient. Remember to show your MX-5 Club member card so you can get the trade price.

[Mr Morlock]

Guran- you can buy standard bulbs in virtually any auto outlet- Bursons is only an example - they have only been making these products for decades and the idea is that you buy a spare and when its used buy another one- not hard.Even some of the grocery outlets stock std bulbs albeit maybe no brand. One thing for sure you will not buy leds so readily.

[manga_blue]

Great advice, thanks Bryan! (He's always thoughtful like that). "Scarlett honey, I'm just going outside to buy a light bulb and may be some time."

My bad, Morlock. All the blown bulbs are Narvas, not Osrams.

I've just ordered enough LEDs to do all the parkers and brakes on my car and Scarlet's, also reversing bulbs that should light up Perth from my place. Yeehaa, no more bumping into wombats backing out of the shed!

[PhilM]

I'm replacing mine with LEDs all ebay as the incadescent ones fail. Just done the instrument lights as a couple of 25yr old globes had blown.
Replaced the festoons in the cabin lights (I think they were about $2 delivered from China) now if the door is ajar in the daytime the battery will not go flat
The parkers in the front I replaced with bright LEDs, make good running lights on dull days, instead of having the lights up making the wind buffeting. they are bright enough to light up 30m in front of the car.

[Regie]

im highly against Ebay LED's for tail lights and Indicators

they are very ineffective and dangerous.

at night there is little difference (tail lights) between just having the rear parkers on and the brake lights.

a mate had LED tail lights from Ebay, much like the ones in the above pictures. he braked at night, the car behind didn't see the difference between the brake light and the parking light. That car is now scrap metal

[manga_blue]

Thanks for the warning, Regie. I'll check it out well before I venture out on the highways. Plan is to do sidelamps and reverse first, then brakes. If that's good I'll try indicators.

I'd forgotten all about the interior light festoons. I haven't switched them on for 8 years. Always too dark to do anything except flatten the battery.

[Vat]

I've just done the front parkers (happened to have the globes handy, and liked the effect...once I figured out how to get the buggers out), the interior festoon light (much better illumination) and the reversing lights - we had a Gen IV Liberty wagon which had fantastic reversing lights that actually illuminated stuff behind the car, and was looking to replicate that, which worked pretty well.

I won't be bothering with others, unless I get inspired and decide to do some additional custom interior lighting like footwells and under the doors. The slightly yellow colour of the dash lighting suits the car's colour, LED's don't play well with the indicators (flash rate went way faster, which made sense electrically once I thought about it) and Regie confirmed something I suspected regarding brightness for tail and brake lights.

[PhilM]

I replaced the brake/park when it blew, with incadescent as I did not like the LED offering.