Originally Posted by supton
Originally Posted by WyrTwister
I personally am OK with what I have . The LED's would save a little electricity , but I doubt you would ever realize it at the fuel pump .
LED headlights would save more energy / fuel , I think . Still do not know if you could tell the difference at the pump .
But if that is the way you wish to spend YOUR money , knock yourself out .
Wyr
God bless
I like LED tailights, they turn on faster and thus might shave precious milliseconds off reaction times. OTOH less heat being made means possibly being coated in snow in bad weather. They certainly can be brighter and sharper.
In my experience, LED taillamp bulbs are rarely worth bothering with. Major manufacturers don't give a [censored] about your safety. I find it riseable to expect a safety improvement from a no-name Amazon brand.
1) Philips Vision LED installed in place of incandescent bulb: killed the side-marker functionality of the taillamp. So now people are less able to see your car from the side. Second, the LED lit up fine when I turned on all the lights. But, when I had someone hit the brakes, the entire LED bulb shut off. The back of the car went completely dark (save for the CHSML). Neat function! And this is a "5-star" LED with the package saying it's "road legal" and it's all backed by a 12-year warranty. For some reason, brake light bulbs that shut off when you hit the brakes make me think that you won't be around long enough to cash in on the 12-year warranty
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2) Sylvania LED installed in place of incandescent bulb: killed the side-marker functionality. The LEDs lit up fine with the lights on. But, when I had my helper hit the brakes, the brake light did not get any brighter, which is the expected/correct behavior for this car. So, again, people behind you don't realize that you've hit the brakes. The package says "lifetime warranty" but for some reason, I don't think that you'll have a particularly long lifetime with taillamps that don't work
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These are products sold by Sylvania and Philips. Who do you think is more likely to be sued for selling crappy products--Sylvania and Philips, or some random factory in China pumping out LEDs that are only sold on Amazon.com? What are we going to do, extradite some poor chap from China for causing people to get rear-ended? The reality is that few people give a crap about whether you live, die, or end up paralyzed for life--not even Sylvania or Philips seem to care
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If we really want to improve our taillamps, there are several things we can do that are guaranteed improvements.
1) Swapping out blackened bulbs for fresh bulbs. The glass on taillamp bulbs turns black over time and reduces light output. Swapping out the bulbs for fresh incandescent bulbs isn't as sexy as buying LEDs, but new incandescent bulbs with clear glass, not black glass, is a guaranteed improvement
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2) Swapping to LED center high mount stop lamps if your car came with an incandescent CHMSL. There are legitimate aftermarket LED CHMSL units made by Hella.
3) Moving your CHMSL to the top of your vehicle. It's more visible and effective when it's higher up on your vehicle and less likely to be blocked from peoples' line-of-sight. No, this isn't as sexy as buying new LEDs, but it's basically a $0 improvement. All you really need is wiring and crimp connectors, and maybe some screws or double-sided tape.
Too many people have the "parts-hanger" or "throw parts at the issue" mentality when it comes to vehicle lighting. No, throwing random LEDs at your headlamps and taillamps isn't likely to solve anything. It's the equivalent of thinking "my car won't start, let's go throw a new battery, starter, MAF, fuses, battery cables, etc. at my car without doing any careful diagnostic work!"
If your car won't start, it would serve you well to sit down and think carefully about why it won't start and doing some careful diagnostic work instead of throwing parts at the issue. It would certainly save you money to sit down and think about what's going on instead of hanging parts.
Same with taillamps--instead of throwing parts at the taillamps, it would serve you well to think about what works and doesn't work. Those Amazon LEDs are a non-starter. They don't throw light back at the reflector; therefore, they are automatically disqualified from consideration in most modern vehicles. Thinking carefully about taillamps could save you money and possibly save your life
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