Recently I went through the process of replacing most of the incandescent bulbs in my car with LEDs. Why did I do this? Mostly because it reduces the risk of someone tail-ending my car. 
Many new cars these days, especially the more expensive cars, use LED bulbs almost exclusively instead of traditional incandescent bulbs. But my car is just old enough, and just inexpensive enough, that all of the tail lights, brake lights, turn signal lights, and running lights are old-fashioned incandescent bulbs.
Why do we care about this?
The chief reason we care about this is that when you tap the brake pedal of your car, it closes an electrical switch that sends an electric current through your brake lights. The tungsten filaments heat up, and about one-tenth of a second later, the brake lights light up.
If only you were to replace the incandescent bulbs with LED bulbs, the brake lights would light up instantly.
How far does the car behind you, speeding along at 70 miles per hour, travel in a tenth of a second? Turns out, about ten feet. So if you swap out your incandescent brake lights for LEDs, you might avoid some car accident where some inattentive driver behind you rear-ends your car. You give the inattentive driver behind you an extra ten feet to react to the situation.
There is also a physiology-of-perception aspect to this. It turns out that the human visual cortex is optimized to detect the first derivative (calculus again!) of the brightness of things. A brake light that lights up instantly is more noticed by the visual cortex than a brake light that gradually changes from off to on over a tenth of a second, because the first derivative is higher in magnitude. Look at a few car brake lights the next time you are driving around and you will see this for yourself. You can immediately pick out the cars that have LED brake lights. It’s just much more noticeable than incandescent brake lights.
Okay so hopefully I have convinced you to swap out those bulbs.
If you are going to go to the trouble to do this, you might as well also swap out as many other bulbs as you can. Turn signals, running lights, tail lights, all of them. The way I did this was by studying the user manual for my car and writing down all of the bulb types. And then I went to Amazon and ordered up LED equivalents. Note carefully that some bulbs are red and some are yellow.
Yes you could go to your local auto parts store to try to find these LED bulbs. When I tried that, I found that no single store had all of the bulbs I needed, and even traveling around to three different local stores, I was not able to find them all. Mail order is the way to go, I think. Plus it was cheaper at Amazon.
If you tackle this project, there are many things to watch out for.
A first problem is that with cars nowadays it can be really difficult to get at the various bulbs. In my car, a Subaru, to get at the front turn signal bulbs I had to remove a front tire, remove a plastic fender liner, and reach up through the car body to unhook a socket that cannot be seen but can only be felt because it is around a corner.
A second problem is that the replacement LED bulb sometimes will not fit into the space where the old incandescent bulb sat. A millimeter too large in this direction or that direction, that kind of thing. For one spot in my car I had to order three different LED bulbs, each of which seemed identical to the others in terms of the catalog description, until by chance I found one that would fit.
A third problem is that your turn signal blinker is (intentionally) very sensitive to the amount of current drawn by the (incandescent) bulbs. This is so that if you have a burned-out bulb the blinker will blink extra fast and this will tip you off that you need to find a burned-out bulb and replace it. To use LEDs, you will have to replace the blinker module with one that blinks at a constant rate regardless of the current drawn. In my car this module was in a place under the dash that could not be seen, and could only be felt, because it was around a corner.
If you tackle this project, when the time comes to actually unplug an old incandescent bulb and plug in the new LED bulb, here are a couple of tips.
First, be sure to smear a bunch of silicone goop into each socket before you plug in the new bulb. The goop is hydrophobic and so it keeps stray moisture out of the socket and reduces the risk of corrosion and a bad electrical connection. It keeps the metal surfaces unoxidized.
Second, recall that a tungsten filament does not at all care whether the electrons run through the filament this way or that way. So the sockets are designed in a way that does not force you to orient the bulb in any particular direction. LEDs in contrast are very picky about which direction the current flows. This means that when you plug in the new LED bulb, there is a 50% chance the bulb will not light up. If you picked wrong, you will need to unplug the LED bulb and plug it in the other way.
There are other benefits to swapping out the incandescent bulbs for LED bulbs. For one thing, probably for the life of the car you will never need to worry again about having to replace a bulb. And you will reduce the chances of getting pulled over by the police due to a burned-out tail light or whatever.
Carl, very detailed information
hope you remember me, I smiled at your reference to “physiology-of-perception aspect ”
dee
Wow, talk about an example of ant-like persistence…
Be careful with LED brake lights, many of the LED replacements have an insignificant difference between just the marker (lights on, but not brakes on) and brakes on. It can be almost impossible to tell you have applied the brakes by the change in brightness. That is, needless to say, very dangerous when driving at night.
Any way to fix this maybe limit voltage or something to make one dimmer?
true. thats what im doing right now.
led for 12 volts on brake lights and 9 volts for tail lights..and some bits of circuit..and nc / no relays.
Mine got the same issue, at night when pressing brake the light does not get brighter which is suppose to.. also, i change reverse light to LED and the reverse camera does not work properly.. and i guess thats it, my car is with incandesent forever since no one know the solution..
The LEDs do not draw enough current to signal to the camera that you are in reverse. Adding a resistor across the wires to the light that triggers your camera will fix this.
Put a resistor in line to fool the computer into thinking there is nothing wrong with the circuit. Currently the led lights draw so little current that the computer thinks the lights are not even on.
Some vehicles will need a dropping resistor 6 – 8 ohms wired inline with the bulb. Each bulb will need its own resistor.
In parallel with, not inline with.
smear a bunch of silicone goop into each socket
“smear a bunch of silicone goop into each socket” What is this stuff never heard of it?
Where do you get the flashy thingy?
Dialectric grease sold at any parts store not silicone, silicone will harden, dialectric grease won’t and it’s what auto manufacturers use.
The “Silicone Goop” is called Dielectric. You get a little package of it when you change spark plugs and spark plug wires at the auto parts store. A small tube of it will last a long time. It should be put in every electrical connection on your car. This will prevent the green corrosion you sometimes encounter when you disconnect something on your car that hasn’t been opened in years. The atmosphere contains a certain amount of moisture all the time (Humidity). This moisture can condense when there is a change in temperature (Dew Point). It is like moisture running down the outside of a cold glass of sweet tea. Any electrical connection that air can get into then moisture can get in it, as well. Goop is a preventative measure to insure years of good electrical connections with out corrosion.
No, no, no, no, NO!!!!!
Silicone should never be used on low voltage connections. Its a great way to cause horrible problems. When I have to fix siliconed connections, I replace them, cleaning it off is too hard. If you really must grease your connections, use contact grease. Dielectric grease is for plug leads only. They have enough voltage to blast through a thin layer of silicone.
Any insulative / dielectric grease can be used. Silicone is the best because it has a stupidly high heat rating (few hundreds of degrees) it also basically never evaporates.
The Bulb leg (lead), and socket are quite capable of scraping away the grease in only the spot they touch, which negates this insulative properties of the grease. All greases are insulative. Silicone is thick, doesn’t dry out / crack (oxidize…easily), and conducts heat away from the bulb, and socket.
It will prevent normal bulbs from roaching the socket. It will prevent corrosion. You can actually coat the whole bulb in a thick coating (the glass included), and it will keep the bulb from shattering if water gets past the housing.
Wherever there is a little bit of grease, still on the asperities of the imperfectly polished metal, the electrons (virtual photons) will just tunnel through it.
I can see the argument of grease-less connections for sensitive instruments where the insulator / dielectric / capacitor could throw off the reading. For automotive there isn’t a reason to not use it.
I generally go with the Teflon / Silicone brake grease, since a whole tube is 5 bucks.
I disagree. The cost of the LEDs, the difficulty in finding exact replacements, (Some are oversized), the new flasher module needed for them to work, the annoyance of removing lenses, batteries, air ducts, wires, etc and the fact that ordinary incandescent bulbs last years anyway makes this a worthless endeavor. Cost vs benefit does not show this to be a worthwhile action. In addition there are no real world studies to indicate LED lights on cars reduce accidents.
the only benefit I see is if you leave the console light on all day and your battery dies. Less likely with LED as it draws less current.
If something is working, leave it alone. unless you have idle time, and a burning need to throw money out.
One could argue that side mirrors which blink when turn signals are put on are a safety consideration. Would you then spend hundreds on replacing side mirrors?
A car is a sink hole. spend as little as possible, only when needed and put the rest of your money into savings.
Humm, while I agree with you in principal (I’ve driven my 4 cyl sports car for over 15 years), I disagree with you on this. LED lights cost a lot less than they have before. Since I have two marker lights out anyway, I’m going to replace these, all marker lights, third brake lights and license plate lights all with LEDS. This will take 30 minutes or less and the cost is negligible. Power is not free. In a 4 cyl you can feel it and you can see it on your RPM gauge when you hit all the lights for night time driving. The RPMs will slightly raise. This power from the alternator has to come from somewhere, it isn’t free! It will cost either in gas mileage or performance. Just by swapping out these BS lights (we’re not even talking about major lights) I’ll be saving 70 watts. That will show up in GM or performance. We certainly don’t need a studies for that, it’s a fact.
The alternator is only ~30-40% efficient as well, so for three bulbs (GM 4157, or similar) it uses 1/2 horsepower (35 watts x 3 = 105 Watts) divided by .3 = 315 watts.
You can also dip the bulb in silicone sealant to waterproof it if it isn’t already, so no more blown bulbs.
Also, live a little. Do something fun. The joy of making something better is certainly worth the dollar.
hahahaahahahahah, if you can feel the power draw from light bulbs (minus headlight which are high wattage) you need to trade in your go-cart for an automobile or you are only running on one of four cylinders.hahaahahah if 70watts is a problem, suggest putting an maxillary charging/electric system in your vehicle for lighting like an aircraft has to lessen the drain on the engine.Or go all out electric with an e-vehicle where lighting wattage is a real consideration
If you replace the module
Do you have to replace all the bulbs
No the replacement module is designed to work with either incandescent or LED’s. Also, the module is only linked to your turn signal, therefore it has no effect on the other safety lights of the vehicle.
I was impressed by the daytime safety difference the LED replacements made.
Great if you only drive during the day.
But I would not buy them because of the opposite effect at night time!
Very little difference between the bright tail light on & the brake light applied!!
I recently replace the brake lights with LEDs on a 1994 silverado and when i press the brake only the rear left brake blinks the weird part is when I press the brake the front left signal blinks as well!! Any answers ??
You need to flip the light your having problems with around leds are polarity sensitive sometimes when installing a different light I can change the polarity of the other one and cause it not to work
You are absolutely right Zach, I have a 2006 dodge ram my brake light has either brake lights or tail lights not both 🙁
Hello there, I wonder… can enyone tell me:
Is that true, that a replacement of the incadescent headlight bulb fore a LED one might be illegal and my car will fail next MOT test- I’ve got a Corsa year 1999. I was told by a friend of mine- already after I’ve asked my car mechanic to do it. Now I feel stressed that I’ve done something wrong…
Please any suggestions…
Thank You
Yes, its an not failure. Headlights need a very small source of light to work correctly. LEDs are nowhere near that yet.
Ops… it’s me again- sorry I have not noticed that this is not a UK site.
I guess it might be a different law in USA about this bulb replacement -I do not know.
I was so interested about the commments that i’ve missed it,
Buyer beware of led tail bulbs from Wal mart total junk bought some for my car and after a week it fell apart and didn’t have any. Rear running lights on one side a friend told me about it part of the led bulb fell off. So I put the original incandesnt bulbs back in
Led burn? In 4 days my led lights from america (made in china) burnt a hole through it’s self…..do all leds have this issue…i drive a 2013 cruze.
If you bought the same leds from Amazon as I did, then you too have been a victim of poor engineering.
There is a small 31.4 ohm resistor inside the led lamp base. that resistor is supposed to drop the voltage
from 12 volts down to around 8 volts. The 8 volts cause the tail light to appear dim when the brakes are
applied (the brake light is fed the full 12 volts). The resistor does not have the power rating needed. It looks
like a 1/8 watt unit. Trouble is that the 4.8 volts times the 0.152 A. flowing thru it generates over 3/4 of a watt
of power. So the resistor heats up really fast and melts the socket. The brake and tail light are the same
led lamp. That is what I have found. The led draws 0.298 A. when the brakes are applied.
Good Luck.
Led lights are not created equal some are made poorly and cheap you get what you pay for
Well one and all, I have read all of your comments, I have just replaced all of the internal lights in my car, what a performance, like many of you finding the correct LED is hard enough then when you get it, it won’t fit, and I was sent some blue/white led’s and while the LED may not get hot the bulb holder was so hot I had to put it down a bit smartish
Just found out something which is part of the MOT test, by law you are not allowed to replace or up grade any bulb other than what was fitted when the car was new, just thought you would like to know, ad for me, I’m going back to incadesents
I think if that delay were enough to cause a crash you should perhaps ecourage the driver behind you to leave a longer gap, either by slamming on the brakes of slowing down when ever they get too close. I know that the circuit in the indicator light relay is set up to function at a certain amount of resistance/ current from each light if you change those to LED the rate at which your blinkers flash at will become faster.
The New SMD LED lights generate a massive amount of heat that may not have the chance to disipate when used as rear lights for night driving and could be a fire hazard, as for using as brake lights in general might be OK.
BTY not all high end new cars have LED brake lights, at least my wife’s doesn’t 2016 SUV, but it is optional.
I just got replacement LED indicator bulbs for my car. Fitted them, they work with that nice LED sharpness but they are not very bright. It appears the bulb is shorter than the original non-LED bulb and doesn’t go as far into the recess as the old one. Any ideas how I can rectify this or do I need to buy longer bulbs!
Like the article said you may have to try various sizes or brands to get one to work i also am having this problem
I noticed ALL the LED replacement bulbs at my auto parts store are marked
For Off Road use ONLY. That would make then illegal for street use.
The fraction of a second difference between when an led or incandescent bulb actually lights up really won’t help you much if any at all from a safety perspective as the comparatively long reaction time of a human is what gets you rear ended
Well, it sounds like under a typical example the car behind is able to stop 10 feet shorter.
I would think this means an accident is avoided occasionally- when the car would otherwise would have barely rear-ended you.
And in accidents that will still occur even with the quicker stopping time, the impact should be slightly less because the car behind will be going slightly slower upon impact with the LED than it would have with the incandescent.
So yes I would expect that the benefit may be pretty modest, but it certainly can’t hurt.
This makes a great point about using LED bulbs for tail light. I like that idea of having one less thing to worry about. Getting pulled over by a cop is no fun. I’ve heard that things like vehicle deceleration warning lamps can be useful for making your tail lights more noticeable as well.
After having to replace burned out bulbs on my 2011 Kia Forte I was wondering whether LEDs are available and would avoid having to replace bulbs. Apparently so. The faster response time sounds like another good reason to have LEDs.
Wow… lots of good information. However, I have one for you. 2001 Toyota Corolla. MOST lights changed to LED with no issues at all. New ‘blinker’ module installed. Works great. 1157 base brake lights… now comes the issue. I put the LED bulbs in, super bright, great differential between running light and brake light. Excellent swap. BUT, now the third brake light is acting like the outboard brake lights. Normal dimness (is that a word?) when in night mode. Bright brakelightiness (that needs to be a real word!!) when I stomp on the brake pedal. I was told it is illegal for the third light to be on all the time, even if it acts like the normal brake lights. It MUST be off when the brakes are not being applied. How do I fix this?
If I replace incandescent tail lights with LED do I need to install a resistor?
I certainly had to do that. A resistor in parallel with each tail light.
What resistors did you find that would work
I know this is old but could someone explain why my led brake lights aren’t that bright? They are 1157 and the tail lights and brake lights are the same bulb but when I press the brake there isn’t much difference in the tail light and brake light. Is there a reason for this or something I can do to fix that issue? The bulbs I have in there are supposed to be for that application
New question, same theme…. Do the resistors cause the LEDs to be dimmer?
No, the resistor is talking to the battery side and not the bulb side of things.
Added LED’s to my 5×8 trailer, both brakes likes comes on, each turn signal comes on, but when applying brakes and a turn signal at the same time, left or right, the brake light for that particular turn signal goes out but the opposite side brake light still stays on. Is this a normal function of a LED?
I also notice this behavior when I was behind a newer Silverado and his left turn signal was blinking, but had no brake lights on that side but the right break light was on. What replaces the stop filament on the incandescent bulb on to the LED
What a bunch of great information. Thanks for taking your time to sharing this post.
I put led bulbs in my brake and turn front and back. My hazards work but turn signal doesnt flash. I put in a new flasher in for led and still doesnt work. What do i do
I replaced all of the outside lights on my motorhome. I also replaced the flasher with a HD flasher that is “designed for LED and standard bulbs. My turn signals flash slowly with the engine running and will stop flashing with the engine off. I suspect I have another problem in the system but what?
I got a new car a 2000 Toyota Camry 4 cylinder. I want to change to Led. But my neighbor told me not to because it would burn up the alternator. So is this true.
2000 grand am. Changed the tail/ brake lights, two per side. All 4 tail lights work. When I press the brake only the left bulb on each side gets brighter. Does anyone have suggestion to try? Any help would be greatly appreciated.
I have a 2013 Ford Focus and I have installed LED lights for the brake lights and they are working great overall, except when car is turned off the leds are staying slightly illuminated (not fully on but not all the way off) does anyone know why the lights are doing this? Or how to fix this issue?
I have a 1973 VW karmann Ghia that I am in the process of changing bulbs to LED. I haven’t found a suitable Flasher / Hazard warning relay yet so that is on hold. Front LED sidelights work, no problem.I got correct bulbs for reversing lights and stop and tail lights but not working apart from stop light. Contacts on base of bulbs are touching contacts on lamp holder. . Have checked bulbs direct to battery and are OK. When I put original bulbs back every thing working. I have even run separate earths to bulbs but still not working. Any ideas or information would be appriciated
A few things to think about.
1. Modern cars often require extra load balancing resistors. CANBUS for example. Those resistors often cause high temperatures exceeding temperatures of a conventional bulb.
2. LEDs are often very spotty and don’t evenly fill the reflector bucket.
3. Driving around with insanely bright lights may improve your visibility while blinding others.
I have tons of LED lights and some cars just can’t do them without proper knowledge. If I need to do too much, I just skip it. In my Fiat 500 Abarth for example, a major pain.
You’ve hit on several benefits of LED lights. In addition to these, they tend to be either more efficient (possibly saving your battery/alternator, and brighter.
However, you have NOT hit on the downsides of these bulbs. Almost all of them say they are for offroad use only. Go ahead. Walk through those auto stores and look at the LED lights for a bit. The side of the packages almost all say “WARNING: FOR OFFROAD USE ONLY” or “WARNING: FOR INTERIOR USE ONLY”
You car’s lighting arrays are designed with lenses and mirrors, to take light of a specific brightness, from a specific location in the bulb’s filament, of a specific set of frequencies, reflect it onto specific parts of the lens, and the lens then focuses or diffuses it, and filters it to produce light of the proper wavelengths to reach the road in the proper way so that the pattern of light complies with federal and state safety laws.
Old light fixtures are optimized for light distributed from a tungsten filament coming out of a clear, or a colored glass bulb. an LED bulbs tend to have a blocky LED diode behind a frosted plastic dome, and it isn’t quite the same.
Most attention over problems with LED bulbs not doing that correctly have focused on headlights, because if the bulb there is off even a little bit, the light can either be way too dim, or way too bright, and also can be aimed too high or too low. Headlights must be adjusted just right so that they show you the road, and let other drivers know where you are, but also do not ruin the night vision of the other drivers. Police can, and do pull over cars with headlights that are badly out of position or too bright.
Tail lights, turn signals, and side marker lights are another obvious issue, often due to color and brightness: Tungsten filaments produce a wide spectrum of light. LED bulbs produce two or three wavelengths of light that the human eye perceives as red, white, or amber. Some of the plastics in Red or amber lens housings will filter out the exact wavelength that some LED light bulbs produce, leaving you with a lens that blocks the light of your bulb.
Lots of problems… very few solutions… unless you look on YouTube, then for every person with a solution, there is one with a problem. Part of the problem is that in many cases it works great. In others, not so great. In older cars without LED of any sort you need to be careful. Make certain the replacement fits. (Thankyou verymuch Toyota in Australia for using previous model components in next year models that have made the jump to newer stuff. The owners manuals can lie to you.) Check the fitment carefully. Start simple. Interior lights work great. I love the clear flood of white light instead of the little cone of amber light provided by incandescent bulbs. Dash lights are a good replacement choice, too, as long as you make certain the bulb projects in the direction you need it. Side projection bulbs do not work well in a forward projection application. Third brake lights are a good example of that. In the case of turn signals, be careful to get the correct replacement ‘blinker’ relay. The direction the light projects IS CRITICAL. There are radical differences and unless the part numbers cross over perfectly, you will have issues – some minor, some major. (Again, thanks Toyota. And yes, that was meant sarcastically.) Head lights… as long as it is DOT approved or similar AND (this is important) if it projects correctly in your reflector/lens assembly, then go ahead and try it. Manufacturers that say ‘off road use only’ or ‘show car use only’ often have NOT gone through certification processes with the highway folks. Heat can be an issue with the headlights. Research the fitment. Find someone that has already done it (Again YouTube is a good source) and see how it worked for them. Lots of blogs. Read them. Every day there are new bulbs and bulb assemblies coming out… new designs abound. Research, research, research. Test, test, test. And if there is any doubt, stick with the old tried and true. And above all when changing out headlights and headlight assemblies – DON’T BLIND ONCOMING TRAFFIC! And DON’T LOSE VISIBILITY YOURSELF! Night driving particularly is already fraught with all kinds of problems when people don’t believe in slowing down… night driving does technically qualify as ‘inclement’ all by itself… don’t make yourself less visible or lose visibility yourself. And lastly, don’t drive faster than you can see…. and don’t drive faster than you can stop. Good luck on your research and safe travels.
Exterior LED ‘upgrades’ are legal nowhere. If you don’t have the standard bulbs, you are illegal. The reason being that lamps are designed to use standard bulbs and project a certain amount of light in a certain pattern. Anything markedly different is both illegal and quite often dangerous to boot. I’ve slewed to a stop twice after having to guess where the road is after being badly blinded by idiots with ridiculous LED lights. Those with more subtle but still dazzling lights upgrades, which is most of them, get to enjoy my above average factory high beams. Does that seem that safer? I do think that LEDs are a good idea when correctly applied for cars, but most of the aftermarket ones are utterly unsuitable.
That said, I am attempting to convert my MIni to LED lamps except for the headlamps. Lamps that don’t look illegal don’t attract attention… Legal or good LED headlamp conversions are NOT currently possible. The current available LEDs are just too large to work with incandescent optics. I have big pile of smaller bulbs that are too dim, too bright, wrong pattern or wrong colour. So far, I’ve got a good match on my brakelights, fender indicator lights and marker lights. I’m now planning to make my own indicator bulbs as I just can’t buy ones that will work. No, I don’t mean the rapid flash issue. LED brakelights are a particlularly good idea, as the fast on is much more noticeable than incandescent. But they should be the same brightness and pattern. I got lucky on the first set I tried with those. I can barely tell the difference in brightness or pattern with a standard bulb. I have three sets of reject indicator bulbs and 4 sets of marker bulbs…
Those of you who think that your LED headlights are ok should swap one incandescent back in, then swap cars with a friend and drive past each other.
TLDR. Don’t try to ‘upgrade’ your headlights, you are asking to get a ticket, have worse lights or both. Blinding oncoming traffic has always struck me as unwise. If they have an accident, you stand a good chance of running into it and then being held at fault. If you do try other lights, be prepared to throw them out if they aren’t a good brightness and pattern match for a regular bulb in your lamp.
Too many ‘experts’. Could someone please post the actual laws? Actual CURRENT laws? I took the time to ask a trooper the other day and he said as long as they don’t blind anyone and offer the “required amount of light” there’s no problem. I asked a LEO the same day and his comment was, “Safety first. Make sure they are DOT or SAE approved.” There was a time it was clear… but now with ‘more than half’ the cars out there using LED from the factory, the regulations have to be clear. I find old regs that say no to anything but “gas filled halogen” or “incandescent”. I also find rules that say things like “don’t dazzle oncoming traffic” and “provide for a safe field of view at night”. Then, take a walk down the lighting aisle at the parts house and read the bulb packages. Some have DOT/SAE approval, some don’t. Some say off-road only, others say nothing pertinent. So? I’ve been running LEDs for years on a 2001 Toyota, inside and out, and have never had an issue in Australia with is about as strict about road rules as I have seen.
There is another problem which I can find little comment on. I tried to replace my brake/tail lights with LED’s for the admirable reason they are brighter and react quicker. However… After trying two different types of LED neither fitted because the two small lugs or pins that locate the normal bulb to twist in the socket are in the wrong place on both of the LED bulbs I purchased. On the normal bulb, one pin is offset slightly to allow it to mount, but on the LED both pins are opposite each other at 12;00 O’clock and 6:00 O’clock. There is no way the LED’s will fit into the holder. Sadly a waste of money.
There are step by step to change RV interior light bulbs. Step 1: turn off the light. Step 2: remove the light exterior. Step 3: take out the old light bulb. Step 4: insert the new light bulb. Step 5: test the new light. Hope this is useful for someone.
I really like your article because it gave me much useful information about LED bulb flickers. Thanks so much for sharing!
If your vehicle is older, adding a third brake light is perhaps the best course of action here. Drivers are becoming accustomed to them. Since they are LED, they will respond quickly and won’t mess with the other lights. The hookup is simple if you have a separate bulb/socket for the brake light. However, if the bulb is also used for the signal or tail lamp, you will need to tie into the brake light lead from the switch at the brake pedal.
210 lumens that runs hot enough to blister the third break light vs 520 lumens that runs cool. No brainer.
The law says that lamps must meet DOT/SAE standards. There are no standards that allow upgrade bulbs. None of them can be legal if of a different construction, ie LED instead of filament. The standards for filament lamps are quite strict, including things like actual size and position of the filament.