LED Lighting

[crashz]

My F250 was used when I bought it and the previous owner installed LEDs in everything except the headlights and interior lights. So directionals, parking lights, plate lights, etc. My right tail light when out on Saturday. Pulling the bulb out it was not immediately obvious of any type of failure (no burns or broken pieces, connection was clean, tight and new looking, etc.). I popped a regular 3157 bulb in place and it works fine. Looks a bit funny in the back, as one light is noticeably brighter that the conventional bulb, but whatever.

Now, I probably would not have done this switch out to LED, it wasn't an issue nor a selling feature to me. But I don't want some filament bulbs and mostly LED. So I've got a few questions for the gallery:
- I thought LEDs lasted far longer than filament bulbs. Maybe these are cheapo Amazon specials? Walking around the truck I found one side light and half of the right reverse light to be flickering. So I have a few more to replace.
- If I replace with new, what is a good LED brand?
- Is there any benefit besides longevity and brightness? Do they draw less current? Does that even matter?
- To me, the parking lights and such don't matter. As long as they illuminate, they do their job. I wish there was a good LED or HID headlight! The stock headlights are OK, but nothing in comparison to my wife's Atlas.

 

[wings&wheels]

I replaced most of the running and stop lights on the fun fleet below with led's, being very careful to only select those that provided as good or better illumination than stock and worked with the particular lens and reflector, didn't flicker and lasted. There was a bit of trial and error, but that was part of the enjoyment. A few things learned:

-Quality matters, I have had good experiences with Phillips, Sylvania, United Pacific, Pilot Automotive and most bulbs from Superbright LED's. Avoid knockoffs and they are out there.
-Led's draw much less power than incandescent, very noticeable on my 70's and 80's fleet w/ fully functional voltmeters and low output alternators.
-Quality ones last longer than incandescents. Of the 30+ or so in my cars I have replaced 2 maybe, both Superbrights...and I may have damaged one myself.
-Some led brake lights are very bright and Pilot make one that strobes (good for pre CHMSL vehicles).
-I have read that some cruise control systems will not operate w/ retrofit led brake lamps as they do not draw enough to signal the cruise's brain...supposedly and issue on 90's Porsches (and others). I have not experienced it, but I left the incandescents in the CHMSL's for that reason.
-No experience w/ led headlamp retrofits, and generally not a fan.

 

[bdcardinal]

I use teh Sylvania LED bulbs for things like cargo lights, reverse lights, license plate lights. They seem to hold up fairly well.

 

[slomo]

Get the factory OEM bulbs. They will work when needed and keep you safe. Pull all the Chinese LED's and install OEM bulbs.

Those LED's won't last, as you found, any longer than any other bulb. Remember everyone had those Chinese purple beam headlights back in the day? Lasted like 6 months till the ballast or bulb burned out? Now, thank the lord, we don't see those anymore on the roads.

Also factory bulbs are DOT approved. None of those LEDS are.

 

[bdcardinal]

Get the factory OEM bulbs. They will work when needed and keep you safe. Pull all the Chinese LED's and install OEM bulbs.

Those LED's won't last, as you found, any longer than any other bulb. Remember everyone had those Chinese purple beam headlights back in the day? Lasted like 6 months till the ballast or bulb burned out? Now, thank the lord, we don't see those anymore on the roads.

Also factory bulbs are DOT approved. None of those LEDS are.

In OP's case, the factory bulbs are all from Sylvania.

 

[dubber09]

I'm opposite, replaced headlight bulbs and interior ones with LEDs only, other bulbs are still original halogen and still bright, except license bulbs on Forte that I replaced with regular halogens as they were getting dim.

 

[wings&wheels]

Also factory bulbs are DOT approved. None of those LEDS are.

Interestingly, some led retrofits are approved in Europe and have been for a while, Phillips is a leader on this. IIRC their early tail/stop lamp led's were approved on individual vehicles way back in the day, w/ the 996 being one of them. Not surprising as Europe typically leads in automotive lighting.

Phillips headlamp retrofits are gaining approvals also (from their global website); "Philips Ultinon Pro6000 H7-LED, H4-LED, W5W-LED allow you to legally upgrade your vehicle lights to LED technology for a selected number of vehicle platforms."

Agree on the low tier junk.....

 

[Leo99]

Get the factory OEM bulbs. They will work when needed and keep you safe. Pull all the Chinese LED's and install OEM bulbs.

Those LED's won't last, as you found, any longer than any other bulb. Remember everyone had those Chinese purple beam headlights back in the day? Lasted like 6 months till the ballast or bulb burned out? Now, thank the lord, we don't see those anymore on the roads.

Also factory bulbs are DOT approved. None of those LEDS are.

I replaced all the interior bulbs with LED on my Camry and RAV4. Much brighter than OEM. Replaced the OEM reverse bulbs with Chinese Amazon LED bulbs on my Camry 10 years ago and had one burn out, so I tend to agree that the LED don't last any longer than the filament bulbs. Put LED bulbs in my RAV4 fog lights to replace the OEM. They look a lot better than the yellowish OEM bulbs. I don't mess around with headlights and stick with Sylvania or Philips OEM style for important bulbs like that.

 

[meep]

I’ve tried a few side marker type LEDs on Amazon and had 100% failure rate in 6 months. They will gladly send replacements so you leave good reviews. Junk.

The Sylvania LEDs from Autozone however have been flawless. I’ve had a few in service for several years
- the low level glow matches oem
- the high level glow also matches oem (these two, and the difference between matters)
- distribution is good.

Caution - on the brake lamp type with dual brightness, the low output mode runs cool. If left on high output, they get easily as hot as incandescent, skin-blister hot. In brake lights thats probably fine. But if it’s the forward blinker than also runs the high-mode as DRLs, I’d expect premature failure.

I’ve avoided LEDs in headlamps.

 

[Don_M]

I replaced the Halogen bulbs (H7) in my Camaro with Sylvania H7 LEDs. With PROPER alignment ... they are literally a night/day difference in how well I can see (especially in full-dark rural areas) and since I have projector headlight lenses, that have a razor-sharp vertical cut off, *I* was able to make sure that none of the light extends upward and into the eyes of oncoming drivers ... unless I'm going up an incline and the oncoming traffic is lower than me, even then, it's less obnoxious than a quick blip of the highbeams (I know, I switched cars with a friend and had him dive toward me in my car. I did get a couple of 'blips,' but they only lasted a fraction of a second).

 

[DuckRyder]

Depending one what year F250 Morimoto or Holley (made by morimoto).

 

[97prizm]

My F250 was used when I bought it and the previous owner installed LEDs in everything except the headlights and interior lights. So directionals, parking lights, plate lights, etc. My right tail light when out on Saturday. Pulling the bulb out it was not immediately obvious of any type of failure (no burns or broken pieces, connection was clean, tight and new looking, etc.). I popped a regular 3157 bulb in place and it works fine. Looks a bit funny in the back, as one light is noticeably brighter that the conventional bulb, but whatever.

Now, I probably would not have done this switch out to LED, it wasn't an issue nor a selling feature to me. But I don't want some filament bulbs and mostly LED. So I've got a few questions for the gallery:
- I thought LEDs lasted far longer than filament bulbs. Maybe these are cheapo Amazon specials? Walking around the truck I found one side light and half of the right reverse light to be flickering. So I have a few more to replace.
- If I replace with new, what is a good LED brand?
- Is there any benefit besides longevity and brightness? Do they draw less current? Does that even matter?
- To me, the parking lights and such don't matter. As long as they illuminate, they do their job. I wish there was a good LED or HID headlight! The stock headlights are OK, but nothing in comparison to my wife's Atlas.

What year F-150? Have you looked to see if Ford offers/offered oem led lanps? If it's too old you could always check out a couple of automatic lighting forums. You could retrofit an oem hid setup.

 

[Marcozi]

+6When I decided to replace the headlight bulbs in the wife's Honda I did a lot of research on which company makes the actually LEDs, and which companies make quality bulbs. I actually went with a brand sold on Amazon. Six years later the bulbs work fine.

 

[crashz]

The truck is a 2014, so its in the years where all of the Superduty headlight assemblies are the same across trims. I'm on the fence about switching back to incandescent or not. The LEDs are visually brighter and its most pronounced in strong daylight. So I think I'm going to play with each style, both rears in incandescent, and both in LED and compare. A side benefit is that the hyper-flash is gone on the right side. That's very annoying. But it seems like the quality LEDs have that figured out.

I think for now, I'll leave the headlights alone. My plan is to install a set of factory fog lights first and see how that works.

BTW - I did buy the Sylvania 3157 LED replacements that are shaped like a Y and they don't work at all in the tail light application. Not sure why.

 

[b_b]

the trick to running led headlights in a reflector housing is to aim them correctly. i dropped my beam pattern down and they have a cutoff similar to a halogen.

 

[BrianF]

Cannot add much but I recently upgraded the quad headlight bulbs in my 2017 Ram 3500. Used Sylvania high and lows. Expensive and are essentially a drop in fit (high beams required extended dust caps).

They really could go in one way so couldn't index. They reach out a bit further than the stock halogens but do much better illuminating everything in between. The white light really does help.

I have not put many hours on them yet so I cannot comment on longevity. No bulb out codes or flicker.

 

[DuckRyder]

Depending one what year F250 Morimoto or Holley (made by morimoto).

 

[wings&wheels]

BTW - I did buy the Sylvania 3157 LED replacements that are shaped like a Y and they don't work at all in the tail light application. Not sure why.

Check the polarity of the socket. Some vehicles w/ stock incandescents, e.g. early Boxsters, reverse the typical polarity with positive on the buld base and negative at the center terminal. 3157s are wedge, but same principal.

 

[slomo]

the trick to running led headlights in a reflector housing is to aim them correctly. i dropped my beam pattern down and they have a cutoff similar to a halogen.

You will be back to OEM bulbs in no time. Those cheap Chinese LED's will fail you. You are not saving any money at all.

And the trick is to run OEM bulbs so the rest of us law abiding citizens don't get blinded when you drive by.

 

[slomo]

+6When I decided to replace the headlight bulbs in the wife's Honda I did a lot of research on which company makes the actually LEDs, and which companies make quality bulbs. I actually went with a brand sold on Amazon. Six years later the bulbs work fine.

Can you attest to those being DOT approved? Or some illegal iris burners WE have to put up with?