Opinions on led bulbs please

[gordon stephenson]

My previous Touareg had very good reverseing lights, My current Touareg Escape reversing lights are very poor, The bulbs are W16W, any recommendations for a good make of the LED replacements that are ok with canbus systems, Thank you.

 

[Turbo]

I'd be interested in this too.

I've gotten used to the excellent reversing lights on my van, they're as bright as headlights on some older cars. I had to reverse my Dad's Auris on a dark road tonight & I could see nothing, the reversing lights are useless, there would be more light from a birthday candle! I had to resort to switching on the hazard lights & guessing where the road stopped & the grass began - single track road so not much room for error!

 

[RonA]

Hi Gordon,
I have used LED replacements for all the bulbs on my resto project excluding the headlights which have been upgraded to Quartz halogen.
My main motivation was the fact the car is fitted with a dynamo rather than alternator & fitting LEDs will (hopefully) leave a decent amount of power for the headlights, which being now QI should give twice the light output of the previous bulbs for no increase in power consumption.
Ive not tried the lights on the road yet but on test they are visibly much brighter than tunsten filament types they are replacing. As a bonus the Lucas pattern tear drop style sidelights are fitted dual colour bulbs which like many modern vehicles change from white to orange when the indicators are being used.
Hope this finds you in rude health.
RonA

 

[zx9]

My previous Touareg had very good reverseing lights, My current Touareg Escape reversing lights are very poor, The bulbs are W16W, any recommendations for a good make of the LED replacements that are ok with canbus systems, Thank you.

Not sure if you can with the ToeRag but my E61 BMW can turn off lamp checks when fitting LED lamps, if you don't it will throw a lamp out error and / or the LED lamps flicker at the 5V (?) lamp check pulse. @premmington would be able to advise.

 

[Robotstar5]

Have a look at Autobulbs Direct
https://www.autobulbsdirect.co.uk/
I've been using them for years, good aftersales service too.

 

[Bryan Williams]

Best 'mod' I did to my 95 t4 camper was fleabay interior festoon lights, replaced the three in the roof.
I was going to try to fit a fancy splitter/leisure battery system for lighting and other stuff, but I can leave these on all night (I have done by mistake) they don't touch the massive battery, so bright you can't directly look at them and cheap as chips. Been in years now.
Would appreciate some advice on uprating front and back lights though as in original post, Night Breakers ect, always worried about burning out 25 year old wiring, I have a brown wire wire going from the column dissappearing behind the dash that has charred a couple of inches, somethings got hot insulation, I just taped it up and waited to see what failed.. Nothing did so I left it..

 

[hotponyshoes]

You might be ok with the current touareg as some of them come with led lights as standard so should be able to code out any faults.
I had a gen 1 and had issues finding bulbs that worked with that but that was probably 10yrs ago.

New amarok and transporter does have the coding options to remove the bulb checking in reverse.
On the amarok I just added extra ones below the bumper. There is a feed on the 13p tow bar wiring.

 

[premmington]

Not sure if you can with the ToeRag but my E61 BMW can turn off lamp checks when fitting LED lamps, if you don't it will throw a lamp out error and / or the LED lamps flicker at the 5V (?) lamp check pulse. @premmington would be able to advise.

Don't do it....

 

[hotponyshoes]

Don't do it....

What are the downsides?
Apart from losing the bulb out warning obviously.
(And his bcm may even support led monitoring)

 

[gordon stephenson]

Still o same theme, I have just discovered that filament bulbs W21W are available just five more watts than standard, Will these be ok with Canbus please?

 

[8ob]

Still o same theme, I have just discovered that filament bulbs W21W are available just five more watts than standard, Will these be ok with Canbus please?

Gordon aside of canbus how do LED`s affect cars with bulb failure systems, does an LED play havoc with this

Edit, cancel that, Hotponyshoes has already answered the question.

Bob

 

[premmington]

Gordon aside of canbus how do LED`s affect cars with bulb failure systems, does an LED play havoc with this

Edit, cancel that, Hotponyshoes has already answered the question.

Bob

Bulb failure systems:

1. Some work by sending a 5volt pulse to earth - before the lights go on - your LED light bulb - may just not absorb the current required to get the volt drop at the logic chip.
(Thou bulbs are avail' with a blocker diode on the return path and a parralel current path to earth at the load desired - so not so energy efficient).

2. Others work by measuring current (volt drop) accross the moffset that switches the light in the BCM - so cheater bulbs will not work with this system - VAG's mostly use this system. But some can have software options for lighting and can be programed to measure differing - volt drop. This is a "pig of job" but it is possible with VCDS - you need to understand "block data" plus the host BCM needs the software in it to do it. Strangly identical BCM units on identical cars come off the factory line with differing "push S/W". Who knows why?

3. LIN bus (CAN). The flicker you describe is simply the LED bulb does not pull enough load to hold the micro relay in - inside the node to CAN.


My quote "don't do it" - I do mean this - I spend most of my time writing huge bills out to correct lighting problems for people who "have done it"


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I have had to price up a few Bi Zenon "active" headlights this week.

Proper money - £1650 for a newish BMW - £700 ish for an 09 plate Insignia.

Even at these prices - some of the modules and ballast/bulbs are not included.

Understandably (had to google how to spell understandably).

Customers pushing for second hand units - "not with my money - you buy it!" is my stock answer when pushed to buy in used parts.

I don't think I could personally afford to repair a car with these active headlights - so I am not going to buy myself a car with AFL lights!

As for Halogen headlights - just at the point they got them right - design wise - got the reflectors perfect - they then fit Zenon lights made of gold.

I think everybody wants "ice white" lights. It is a trend.

We will get to the point soon - where a headlight fault/damage may "write a car off".

 

[hotponyshoes]

Premington has pretty much covered it.
The bulbs with the built-in "canbus compatibility" show the same power draw as a filiment bulb. So they don't actually save you any power whatsoever and they run hot. Sometimes hot enough to damage the wires/housings.
Having said that, I would be happy enough to use them for reversing lights just for the brighter light as they are not on for long periods anyway.

Gordon, have you tried removing a reverse light bulb and driving backwards?
You may find the reverse bulb is not even monitored by the car so you might not get any errors whichever bulb type you fit.

Regarding the vw electrical controls,
There are at least 3 different systems fitted to the current range of cars. One system for the lower range (polo, amarok) one for mid range cars (passat, golf, Audi A4) then the top range (touareg, phaeton, audi A8, Bentley)
Out of these 3 platforms there are an additional 3 levels for each, lowline, midline, highline. The control modules for each level are physically identical but may have connector pins in different positions or missing altogether. There are also often internal components missing. Even on highline modules extra parts for extra functions are often added on a later revision.

The coding is one issue but at least that can be done from the comfort of the passenger seat. If you have to physically swap a module its normally done upside down inside the muddy footwell and there are loads of sharp edges in there.

There are plenty of abnormalities in the configuration options. For example, my amarok let me fit led numberplate lights from a golf and supported bulb monitor functions on them. The led numberplate lights are not offered as an option on my truck.
I also fitted the led rear lights. These were genuine lights factory fitted to another model of amarok and I could not get my control unit to support bulb monitor on those so had to turn it off.

As for the ice white lights being trendy, the only reason I bought the amarok is because it was the first work truck i had seen that had bi-xenon headlights. On my previous truck I struggled to see at night when somebody else with the bright whites was coming towards me. I was seriously considering an eyesight test before I upgraded!

Must admit, apart from the reverse leds, the other leds on the back end are just to look cool and impress girls.

 

[gordon stephenson]

Thanks chaps for the replies, Don't pretend to understand 95% of it, Clear message to me is don't mess with it, What is the opinion on just fitting normal bulbs but with wattage increased to 21W instead of the standard 16W, or will the "electronics" not like that as well. Designers can make all sorts of "wonderful" things but in my case not have reversing lights that are bright enough to see where I'm going

 

[hotponyshoes]

I do not know why vw reverse lights are so pathetic but they are all the same.

The only issue I can see with replacing with a higher wattage bulb is if the ecu thinks it's a short circuit. If it thinks that it will shut off power to the reverse lights. Probably be fine if you put the normal bulb back in again but there is a (small) chance it may need to be reset by computer. I don't think you will do any permanent damage by trying it.

I would whip a reverse bulb out first and see if you even get a bulb warning with it missing. If not you can stick a basic led in with no problems.

 

[Turbo]

There is another option - fit a reversing camera with built in LED lights. I'm going to fit one to the van this weekend & if that goes ok I'll look at fitting one to the car. The back window is tiny & my dad struggles to reverse it so he might be getting a camera for xmas!

 

[gordon stephenson]

I removed a reversing bulb today and it did activate the bulb warning on the dash. Think I'm going to try 21W bulbs, unless that may cause any problems?