The AUSubaru.com.au Forums

While I'm in the mood to make enquiries...


Has anyone replaced their tail lights, indicators, ect with LED modules? Is it worth it? They use alot less power for the same brightness, so in theory it should save you fuel. Though the headlights are the big current drawers, you can't yet get LEDs bright enough for those. Though I believe they're close.


Nearly every truck I see around nowdays has LEDs for most exterior lights, and I know you can get the modules from Jaycar or similar. I'm just wondering if it's worth the effort.

DSE is having a sale on those LED lights in Jan.

I've made a custom LED interior light for my car, it's awesome! Nearly seems brighter that the headlights.

I'm sure the power difference between a few 1/2W LEDs and a 5/21W stocko bulb is negligible when your engines should be making in the order of 60,000W or more. But yes, fuel ain't going to get cheaper.

PeeJay wrote:DSE is having a sale on those LED lights in Jan.

I've made a custom LED interior light for my car, it's awesome! Nearly seems brighter that the headlights.

Ah! I didn't know that, I might have a looksee. Thanks!

Subidaz wrote:I'm sure the power difference between a few 1/2W LEDs and a 5/21W stocko bulb is negligible when your engines should be making in the order of 60,000W or more. But yes, fuel ain't going to get cheaper.

Heh, yeah that's true. But every little bit counts. If nothing else they are physically tougher than the old thin glass bulb incandescents, and should last longer assuming you don't push too much juice through them.

What I'm waiting for is LED replacements for headlights. They're getting closer, there's a couple of new cars in the US that use LED headlights, but they have six smaller LEDs, rather than two big incandescents. That would be an appreciable difference, I think.

My front indicators are LED's, and I have auxilary brake lights, and indicators on the rear of my Brumby. I like to have the higher brake lights, so that when a truck is right up your arse, they have some chance of seeing that you are on the brakes.

I have LED interior, bloody brilliant. I built the LED lamps for my boat trailer and they are also brilliant. Which reminds me, my cable ties broke, must get stainless screws for that....

ive got a LED setup on my spare wheel carrier, very bright, they work great.

alex

In my experience LED globes are not worth it! I have tried several types over the years and they are not worth the cost. I do use them in my park lights and the work well (park lights = clear plastic lenses), almost too well! However, they are just not bright enough for brake lights and indicators, especially if your car does not have clear lenses such as the 'Altezza' style or the latest clear Impreza tail lights.

The following link shows LEDs that may be suitable (and bright enough). They are not cheap however and they do not seem to be available in OZ yet (Although you could, of course, get them from the US via eBay).

Super bright LEDs

When you say they are not bright enough for brake lights and stuff, are you using white LEDs behind a red filter? If so, then you're losing most of the light being emitted by the LED. Putting red LEDs behind it should bring the brightness up to reasonable levels.

At least, that's what the little bit of reading I've done today says - makes sense to me.

Be sure you have enough luminous output from the LEDs to keep the standards that the car was designed with (ADRs). Not that I've heard of many people being defected for it.

Somewhere in this mess: http://www.infrastructure.gov.au/roads/ ... nline.aspx

I've used LEDS before and I think they're waste of time and money. I dunno really as they're expensive to buy and buy just to try it out..
Cheers
AP

The camera was opened up too long and overexposed It doesnt look like it is on the photo as they're a bit darker -

Cheers
AP

That's not a Subaru dash is it?

SUBYDAZZ wrote:That's not a Subaru dash is it?

Yes it is, Its Gen2 Liberty.
Cheers
AP

Ah, OK, you haven't got much fuel left then.

SUBYDAZZ wrote:Ah, OK, you haven't got much fuel left then.

Heh.... that was from my previous Liberty, fuel sender unit was uarked and goes down to E after 200kms!
Cheers
AP

I changed my park lights with pre-focused LED's, ones with a magnifier in front and have a bulb like appearance, not flat like most LED replacements. I wanted a bright daylight type light visable in the day, seems ok and appear blue at night - a bit ricer really!
Changed the H4 headlight globes to 50-Plus, some noticeable improvement.

With indicator lamps, you will need to change the flasher unit to suit LED's, do some googling for LED's, there is a few Aussie sites with this info too.

can i ask wt is so intersting on the phot of the dash

is it just coz the lights used are LED's?

I bought a LED festoon(?) bulb from supercheap for the interior light of the wagon, found it kinda dull in comparison the original, also had a mate give me a block LED (about 20ish leds' in a compact base) to try out near the inner tailgate space. The original fluro has gone kaput anyway, so i will post if it's a signifigant gain in brightness...

subanator wrote:I changed my park lights with pre-focused LED's, ones with a magnifier in front and have a bulb like appearance, not flat like most LED replacements. I wanted a bright daylight type light visable in the day, seems ok and appear blue at night - a bit ricer really!

I started researching this after pricing Maglite LED replacement bulbs for my torch, which are like that - Guys at work have them and instead of replacing batteries every few days, it's once a month or so!

subanator wrote: Changed the H4 headlight globes to 50-Plus, some noticeable improvement.

So you replaced your headlights with 50watt LEDs? I didn't know you could get them at that power yet. I'd heard of 50w downlight replacements halogen downlights in houses, but not for cars.