L.E.D. Globes

[colcol]

Recently i discovered the benefits of L.E.D. festoon globes in the 33, the benefits included more light from less power and they don't melt everything around it and the fluro blue light emited is very pleasant on the eyes, armed with this knowledge, i converted the 156 festoon interior lights to L.E.D.'s as well, O.M.G., what a dissaster, the interior lights wouldn't switch off, i drove to work and home with the interior lights a blazing and the L.E.D. boot light wouldn't switch off as well, and the dash board display kept telling me that the boot was open, it wasn't!, conclusion, the computer cannot sense that instead of 40 watts interior lights draining the battery, it is only about 5 watts draining and won't switch them off, and the boot light instead of 10 watts, it is only about 2 watts and the computer can't tell, and thinks the boot is still open, standard  festoon 10 watt globes back in 156 all good again, but they aren't as cool as the 33, you have been warned!

[Evan Bottcher]

Where do you buy the globes from Colin?  Is it straightforward to match the fitment and wattage?

[colcol]

I buy the globes off Ebay, they are about 1\4 price of buying them in a shop locally, the main thing is length, thats how they are actually rated, but this is confusing, the normal festoon globe end the male part on the end is about sixty degrees, but the L.E.D. globes, the ends are about ninety degrees so sometimes the overall length won't quite be the right length, and you may have to bend the mounting tabs to suit, the globes have to be correctly installed, they have a positive and negative end, and the cheap L.E.D. globes have maybe 3 lights in them, the more expensive ones have more lights in them, best to buy minimum amount in case they don't quite fit,  i have reversing L.E.D. globes in the 33 and its back up lights are as good as the normal ones in the 156, i can actually see the carpark gutter at work in the morning when its dark, awesome!, Colin.

[Victor Lee]

I've used Carwear.com.au in Cheltenham for lights.  They have globes that have error cancelling circuitry built in.

They've got the brightest T10 white LEDs I've seen (of the 5 different sets I've bought over the years) that I've installed on the 159 which match the white Xenons.  They are also error-free.

[shiny_car]

I tried LEDs in my 155. I didn't like the 'cold' blue light, and they were not bright enough (more LEDs per festoon may have been available).

In cars with 'fade away' interior lights, LEDs usually aren't suitable.