Freelander 2 (LR2) F2 2008 interior lighting problem + advice request

Hi All,

I wonder if I could ask for some help. I search the forums for my answer but I was getting all confused so thought I would try here. It's my first post so go easy and bear in mind this is my first Land Rover ( which I love by the way!!).

I thought it was a good shout to replace the interior roof lights and put in LED ones. Found a supplier. Gave my car details and confirmed they were the correct ones! Yay right?

I installed and when I move the switch to "on" with the ignition on it works. When it is set to "door' it does not work when I open any of the doors. It also does not work when the ignition is off and key is out.

The rear seat roof light now does not work at all!!

The glove box and the boot light (both original bulbs) still work as normal.

Could someone point me in the right direction (in muppet terms) as to what the problem might be and how to fix it? Getting the kids in and out of the car in the dark is proving to be challenging!!

Thanks very much in advance.

I found that the D3 Body Control Unit (BCU) didn't like LEDs. I believe that the FL2 uses a similar BCU. This could be your problem.
Also have you tried turning the LEDs round in the rear light? Some LEDs are polarised, so only work one way round. However I'd be putting normal bulbs back in as the BCU isn't designed to power LED loads.

Or try can bus error free ones, tad more expensive

freelance said:

Or try can bus error free ones, tad more expensive

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I can't see the point in burning up the electric supplied to the LEDs in heat across a 4.7 Ohm resistor. Might as well just keep the standard bulbs and save all the trouble.

All about choice nodge, they do work for the non-conformist

Thanks for the replies chaps. I'm doing it for more practical reason rather than pimping my ride in that they appear to give a brighter and cleaner light which just helps when loading youngsters in and out of the car with the plethora of stuff we have to carry, find and inevitably gets dropped! Haha!

I'll have a hunt for the bus free ones (what ever that means) but if not revert back to the stock ones

Thanks again

Mat2806 said:

Thanks for the replies chaps. I'm doing it for more practical reason rather than pimping my ride in that they appear to give a brighter and cleaner light which just helps when loading youngsters in and out of the car with the plethora of stuff we have to carry, find and inevitably gets dropped! Haha!

I'll have a hunt for the bus free ones (what ever that means) but if not revert back to the stock ones

Thanks again

Click to expand...

I my experience. It's better to have dim interior lighting, compared with no interior lighting

LEDs are OK, providing they are driven directly from a battery and non solid state ground.
However when the BCU controls them, things start to play up. The BCU Mosfets don't like LEDs for some reason. The Mosfets can fail because of LEDs. Been there, done that. I had to replace the interior light control Mosfet on my D3. I had LEDs in all the interior lights. I had a couple of so call Can Buss LEDs too. The problem with those is the heat generated by the resistor. They got so hot, they melted the light housing.
The only safe way to have bright LED lights is to use a COB LED panel and a seperate power resistor. The COB makes much more light than a standard LED and the power resistor will absorb the power without melting anything.