P38A LED reversing lights

Hi all,

One of my reversing bulbs blew after some wading at the weekend. I think it might be related to the supplemental towing electrics going underwater.

Anyway, I was going to order a few new bulbs (382, 12V 21W, I believe?) when I thought maybe LED might be more robust. They're certainly a hell of a lot more expensive. I am assuming CANBUS ones won't trigger the dash warning?

Seen these: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/2x-Car-11...732689?hash=item236c0e5011:g:fLkAAOSwzJ5XZ4Dq

Anyone tried them Do they fit? Are they any better?

Any advice welcome.

No idea but there now on my watch list so report back

biketeacherdave said:

No idea but there now on my watch list so report back

Click to expand...

I've never had a problem with the light output of the stock bulbs. Need to get the original bulb out and measure up to check they fit. Not sure how much more robust they'll be if I do go wading again. £7 x 2 starts to get a bit pricey for a gamble!

Grrrrrr said:

I've never had a problem with the light output of the stock bulbs. Need to get the original bulb out and measure up to check they fit. Not sure how much more robust they'll be if I do go wading again. £7 x 2 starts to get a bit pricey for a gamble!

Click to expand...

Just buy a box of the proper bulbs.

Not sure about the "can bus" part from eBay sellers, but the LED reverse bulbs I tried definitely triggered the failure warning. Cleaned the lenses and changed back to standard bulbs.

But for £6.95 why not be the official test candidate?

LED bulbs going onto wife's Peugeot so as not to waste them.

Just got some standard ones. Neither me nor the missus have ever had any trouble seeing with them. A couple of quid so not bad.

I tried some can bus error free ones in the brake lights and indicators awhile ago (same wattage lamps) and even the tail lights (lower wattage) and they all triggered a warning.

One of my 'projects' is to modify a BECM power board to bypass all the error warnings on the rear lamps, and front indicators to allow them to have LED lamps fitted with no errors.... it's a LONG way down my list of things to try/play around with though.

I did change my side repeaters to orange LED lamps, my number plate and front side lights to LED 'can bus error free' lamps, and they all work OK without triggering warnings - but the bigger lamps really need a bigger external power resistor to draw enough current through the MOSFET to have it not trigger the warning. Which to me defeats the purpose of low power LED lamps, if you're just going to whack a great power resistor in...

Just tried some supposedly canbus error free led bulbs in the front well no surprise bulb out warnings as said only option is to load them seems pointless also the light from the bulbs is very bad my torch gave a better light on the unlite lane last night when I tried them so sticking with the osram night breakers

Or get LEDs so bright they draw the same current!

I have L322 but my front sidelights are error free and don't trigger the warning and they look much better than the old yellow light, however I put LED rear number plate bulbs which again didn't trigger the warning straight away but after a while I started getting dozens of warnings for various light bulb errors and eventually traced it back to the LED number plate bulbs overheating and starting to melt the surrounding plastic which potentially could have caught fire.

I've put Error Free white LEDs in my front sidelights and number plate lights, and orange ones in the side-repeater indicators.

The smaller W5W type lamps you can get away with the canbus ones, as the inbuilt resistors on them are enough to make the current draw over the threshold of the MOSFET so that it doesn't trigger a failure. I've got some LED H4 lamps coming which are about 25W each, (low/high) so should draw enough to not give a failure warning. The first set I tried didn't produce any errors, but the beam pattern was bad and it's one of my criteria if I upgrade to LED headlamps is that they must produce the correct beam pattern. The second set I've got have a proper cut off built in for the low beam, and are adjustable on the focus so you can get them lines up properly.

Looking at the datasheet for the MOSFETs used, it looks pretty simple to bypass the error detection on some of the lamp outputs to disable the warnings, so you could use LED lamps without power resistors.. Maybe I'll dig out one of my old power boards and have a play in a spare 10 minutes next weekend... once I've finished playing with rebuilding door latches...