Without sounding like I'm making a snide remark, I'm not, what are the benefits of LED lighting in cars.
My side lights are led but I've not changed the mains, I couldn't get any to fit on the sides They're very 'blue' in comparison but it looks ok
Just a thought - are they MOT safe? In HK they aren't so they need to be swapped back before the test
After a lot of farting around, I have finally replaced both high and low beams with LEDs. I had to remove the whole front of the car to get the headlight units out. The first low beam ones I got on Ebay wouldn't fit, because H1 lamps have two bumps on the flat part of the base which fit into two holes in the socket to locate them properly. Without these two bumps they won't fit. Well, ok, they'll fit, but the beam will not be aimed correctly. After much searching on Ebay, I finally found some with the bump things on them. I wrote to some of the suppliers, pointing out the flaw in their product; I don't know if they care or not. I doubt that it would be possible to fit these without complete removal of the headlight assembly. There's no way you'd get the clip done up otherwise, even if you did manage to correctly locate the lamp. The high beams require removal of the headlight unit in any case. The LEDs were not difficult to fit, but I discovered that when I tried to reassemble the front of the car, the headlight assembly wouldn't go back in, because the heatsink on the rear of the High Beam lamp was preventing the assembly from going back far enough. There was no choice but to remove the heat sink, which fortunately just screws on. Unfortunately, the plug doesn't fit through the centre hole, so I had to unsolder the 4 wires connecting to the LEDs, take off the heatsink, and reconnect. This requires a fine-tip soldering iron and a steady hand. As far as I can tell, there doesn't seem to be any heat problem, and there hasn't been any other problem I know of. As far as lighting effectiveness, well, they are no worse than the original inadequate bulbs. Reflective signs show up much better than they used to, but the high beams are disappointing. They may or may not be as effective as the original halogen ones. The main advantage of doing this, to me, is that I should never have to replace them again. I don't imagine there's another car on the road that requires so much dismantling just to do such a simple task as changing a lamp. I've already changed the stop/tail lamps for LEDs, and they work very well. Just the turning signal lamps left to go, and I already had one abortive attempt at replacing the front ones. It appeared that the sockets are wired backwards; so that the tip of the lamp base is negative and the shell is positive. All LED lamps I've seen assume the tip is positive. So I cut the wires to the socket and reversed them. When I put the new LED lamp in, it still didn't light up. So I put the original filament bulb back in and tried to decide what to do. I ended up ordering a couple of sockets I found on Ebay. When they arrive, I will continue. The biggest hassle has been that most of the lamps I've tried have not had sufficient brightness. I finally got some, of the COB variety, which are more than bright enough. When I finally get them to light up, there will be another problem. The flasher unit expects to see the load of a normal filament lamp. A LED lamp draws much less current, which causes the flasher to pulse too rapidly. This is actually a design requirement, intended to notify the driver that there is a lamp burned out. There are two ways to fix this; either connect a low-value resistor (<10 ohms) across the lamp, or replace the flasher with a special one that does not exhibit this behaviour. I suppose if you live in the UK, this will cause no end of problems with the regulating authorities. Here in Australia, all they do is check that the lights all operate, and blink when they're supposed to.
Lamp we use in Australia are suppose to be ARD compliant which most LED globes you buy of eBay aren't. Some of the ones they sell in stores here are marked off-road use only to get around it. It probably won't cause you an issue unless you have an accident and they check then the insurance maybe void.
I personally would not fit aftermarket LED or HID lights on a Copen. The reflectors in the headlights are only made for halogen bulbs. You could blind oncoming traffic etc.
The only problems I've had with LED headlights, apart from those outlined above, have been with H4 hi/lo lamps. These are quite difficult to implement with LEDs. Even worse with HID. I know this, because I tried many solutions on the Sirion, which uses H4, and only one worked properly, but because of the heatsink on the back, the clip for holding it in wouldn't fasten. I ended up sticking them in with silicone, and they're still working just fine. The light pattern is nearly the same as with halogens. This wasn't the case with any of the others. Light was spraying out all over the place. The Copen doesn't have this problem, the spread of the beam is quite well-defined. No blinding of oncoming drivers. I wouldn't do that, since I don't like it done to me. Dazzling headlights are becoming more and more common around here. The police don't bother doing anything about it. What makes me cranky is that someone in the past has put car polish on the headlight lenses of my Copen, which has caused them to become a little milky, which causes diffusion of the beam. Why is it not made clear to the motoring public that polycarbonate headlight lenses should NEVER have anything put on them? One of the first things I did when I got the Copen was to take it to a detailer. They were able to partly remedy the foggy lenses, but they're still not perfect.
Well that's explained what I thought wa fogging on one of my headlamps. It follows the contour of where the light unit and wing aperture meet so someone must have been a bit careless with the polish. I bet they're the sort of people that step on the cracks in pavements Another job off my list though so kudos Freddy.
