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LED replacement taillamps has anyone tried this?

Hello

In the interest of safety I am looking for LED replacement lighting for the

1993 965 and my 1999.5 VW Golf. The VW has a rear centre brake light that is LED's, but its side brake lights are standard bulbs, the Volvo uses standard bulbs everywhere. I want to at least upgrade the brake lights to LED's as they light up quite a bit faster then normal bulbs.

I am worried about the light not scattering correctly in my reflectors - is this a concern?

Does anyone know of a source for these lights, or know of anyone who tried this modification before?

I am actually more worried about faster acting LED brake lights on the VW (and have posted in the correct group for it as well) - it's my daily driver (diesel TDI... good fuel economy) and I have upgraded the brakes on it... so I tend to stop a little faster then some people on the highway if there is a slowdown (I've seen some cringing faces in my rearview mirror - then I have to reduce my braking inputs by modulation of the pedal).... so whatever helps my car be seen would be great... I have read that on the highway the difference in the faster reaction time is a noticeable/usefull span of quite a few meters of road travelled... The reasons for upgrading the Volvo would be the same - plus it's a Volvo, gotta try to make it as safe as possible ;-)... Think I might wire up the fog lights as brake lights too if I get LED's for it :-)...

Reply to
Rob Guenther
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They're junk, well the bulb retrofits are anyway.

If you want to do it right, get some taillights at a junkyard (or mod your own if you're brave) and a bunch of bright red LED's, try

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for cheap ones. Wire them in groups of several in series and build a little bi-level PWM driver circuit and you can have real LED taillights.

You could skip the PWM idea and use a few power resistors instead, less efficient, but probably no worse than the incandescent bulbs.

Reply to
James Sweet

So it's what I feared? Unless I create an array of LED's like the current-gen high end Euro/Japanese luxo sedans have I will have one ugly looking dot of light shinning poorly from the back of my car?

.... I think i'll stick with incandescant

Reply to
Rob Guenther

Not so much a dot, more of a blob, but nowhere near as bright or uniform as it should be. Also when used on turn signals it causes them to blink fast, looks pretty stupid if you ask me.

Probably wise, LED's are great, but in this case they really need to be designed into the product from the start.

Reply to
James Sweet

Rob:

The problem with LEDs is they use too little electricity. Volvos have bulb out detection so when a bulb goes out, a light goes on in the dashboard. LED's use so little voltage that the system thinks there's a bulb out when there's not one. I googled this a while ago and ran across an article for MB or BMW conversions. Some work needs to be done to trick the system.

Hella makes some nice aftermarket VW lamps.

Reply to
Jeff Lesperance

LED lights should work just as well in a Volvo as anything else. The bulb failure indicator works by measuring the difference in current draw on the two sides, so long as you have LED's on both sides the sensor should be happy.

Reply to
James Sweet

I saw the Hella lamps... they look okay, too aftermarket-ish tho, unless they look better in person... I like my OEM look too much.

The bulb checker is a current comparator... LED's would draw the same current so i'd be okay... or at least should be.

Reply to
Rob Guenther

This is a concern as the reflctors are designed to reflect the light from the back of the bulb forward too and increase the light output the LED bulbs dont do this

the quick turn on of LED lamps is good as this increases the warning to motorists coming behind you any increase is an advantage, LED lamps have to be designed to use LED's Joe

Reply to
Joe

Starting with the '88 760, all 960s, all 850s and all S/C/V named cars don't have comparison type bulb failure sensors. They all use a current sensing type sensor - too little current = bulb failure light no matter how balanced the current is from left to right. Only 200s (and the '74 and '75 140/160), early 760s and 740/780/940 have balance sensing bulb failure sensors. And all with a 3rd brake light have a current sensing element for that bulb, since there's nothing to balance it.

Reply to
Mike F

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