Hello guys, I have a 2006 Red Prius with 286,000 miles (original battery and engine, VERY reliable, love it, will buy another). I have all filament bulbs, but I would like to replace my tail, blinkers, reverse lights, and interior bulbs with LEDs. I have not found a thread on if these really work. Here are some I have been looking at getting: Tail Lights: 2pcs LED T10 Red Xenon Light Bulbs Wedge 5SMD 5050 192 168 194 W5W 2825 158 | eBay Blinkers: Reverse: ( I don't know why, but these show up as advertisements. I AM NOT trying to sell these or advertise, I hope the admins don't ban me.) Here are my questions: 1) Do these LEDs need relays? 2) Will these fry or melt my wiring? 3) Has anyone else done this? 4) Should I buy these from eBay or elsewhere? Thank you so much in advance. Have a great day!
I did the red T10 lights for the rear tail lights and have no problems. The front white T10's burned out rather quickly and I replaced them with standard lights. I also did the license plate lights with white T10 blubs but that meant taking the whole rear hatch trim off. Not an EASY job and I would not do it again. The turn signal replacement with LEDs will make them blink too fast. The solution is a special blinker module or the addition of resister to the circuit. Either option did not make sense to me. Cheap ebay lights can be very low quality and not last very long. You need to get the RIGHT color. White LEDs put out less red light than a standard incandescent blub. If you put a white LED in a red tail light it will be dimmer than the standard light.
The ones I bought for the tail lights are red, so I should have no problem. I would love to do the conversion, but I do know some LEDs from eBay are garbage, but these are 3.49, so if they suck I can just say oh well. I did replace my license plate bulbs once, and yes that plastic is a pain in the butt to get off.
i replaced my tail T10's with red ones from ebay. works fine. i have also replaced the front park light T10-'s with white LEDs off ebay and so far these are also fine. i have also replaced the reverse lights with T20 50 watt Cree leds and the indicator with amber 50W Cree T20 leds. i had to replace the indicator relay with a led compatible type to eliminate the hyper flash syndrome. the reverse and indicator leds were by no means cheap at about $27 au each, but the function is perfect. these are the type i used for the indicator and reverse (white for reverse, and amber for indicator obviously) 50W White Canbus Error Free Cree T20 7443 W21 5W LED CAR Bulb Reverse DRL | eBay Jason.
WHY do you want to do this ? On a car with that kind of age and mileage, the odds are REALLY high that you won't have it very much longer......just being practical and realistic. If you must.......if you get the proper physical size, there should be no problem with any of it, except maybe the turn signals. They might require a slight modification to keep the flashing rate reasonable.
SIGH. Yet another Internet myth in the making. Many replacement LEDs, especially inexpensive ones, put out less TOTAL LIGHT than the bulbs that they replace. Getting ones with the proper overall brightness is the important part. Trying to determine the spectrum coverage of an inexpensive bulb is almost impossible.
At least one person understands the theory of transmission of light through filtering materials! Well done!! If you are going to buy bulbs, eBay is not your friend. Most bulbs either don't last, too dim, or are the wrong size. Buy bulbs from a seller that actually has a business. Cheap bulbs are just that, CHEAP pieces of crap that will have a limited lifespan. .
Here, read through the thread I ran about LEDS and DRL's The bulbs I used were not cheap. But then, they all still work PERFECTLY! As you read I list bulbs, where to get the upgrade LED Flash relay. How about 60 LED DRL and Turn Signal in one bulb! | PriusChat
Unlike other light bulbs, LEDs can be built so that they actually PRODUCE red light. If that is what you are talking about, the it is absolutely right. If, OTOH, it really is a white LED that has been painted red, then you are filtering twice and the output would be less. My point is: Trying to find the spectrum analysis for an inexpensive LED to see how much red it actually makes would be a total waste of time. Just look for one with a higher total output. Or one that actually makes RED light, but that likely would be rather expensive at the output levels needed.
RED leds that are perfectly fine for tail light duty are cheap as chips on ebay. as an example, these are what i have for tail lights and they are perfect. 2 PCS T10 9 LED Bulbs 5050 SMD Canbus Error Free RED Light Interior FOR CAR | eBay no brighter or dimmer than the stock globes were. the point is that you get RED ones for tail, amber for indicator, and white for reverse. as has been said above, filtering a white led through a red lens will not work as well as a red led behind a red lens. the same is true for the other colors. matching the LED color to the lens will provide better results, for a given brightness of led. and, yes, leds that are bright enough for day time indicator duty are not cheap. Jason.
There is no such thing as a 'white LED'. White isn't a frequency of light, it is a combination of frequencies of light. An LED is by nature a limited band of frequencies, which is not wide enough to produce white light. Usually a 'white LED' is either a trio of LEDs (red, green, blue) or a blue LED with a bunch of phosphors to spread the spectrum. No one makes a red LED from a white one; red LEDs have been around for decades and are dirt cheap, white ones are recent and more expensive. Spectrums are available for most white LEDs, just look them up. (Of course, since red LEDs are always single frequency, the documentation usually just gives the frequency) Exactly backwards. Red LEDs are cheaper.
Time to eat crow. You are absolutely right and I was somewhat amazed at the wealth of information ......and reasonable prices.....of LED assemblies available these days. There is enough information available on all but the "cheap junk" dealers sites to allow you to make an informed buying decision. The specific spectrum information would still be hard to come by because you often don't really know who makes the specific LEDs......but with the other information that IS available, you don't need that anyway. The one site I looked at most said: Match your LEDs to the lens color of the light assembly. If you do that, you don't care about getting a bulb with "too little red light in it's spectrum". Sorry for the arguments but a few years back a problem of low output on things like tail and brake lights often WAS just going too cheap and not having enough output overall; not so much anymore it appears.
you want full LED lights.. good stuff not some crap from ebay The Retrofit Source Inc I use them, they did move to ATL though
hi i changed my turn signal to led and now when i turn on my turn signal its hyper flash but when i put hazard light on they are not hyper flashing do i need to buy a load resistor for it? will this resistor works?
