LED interior bulbs (S3 8P)

[Daveyonthemove]

A few days ago I removed the bulbs from the footwell lights and replaced them with LED bulbs but they failed to work. Assuming the bulbs were rubbish and not really concerned about lights by my feet anyway, I left them as they are.
Tonight I found a spare LED from a pair that I fitted in the boot of my last car. Knowing they work fine and preferring to have more light in the boot, I swapped the standard bulb to the LED bulb.
When I plugged it in it wouldn't work, so I put the old bulb back in as the boot light is needed. For some reason that won't work either, so I now have no boot light or footwell lights.
Can anyone give me a clue as to what is wrong? I tried the search function but had no joy.

Thanks in advance.

 

[samuelh_888]

Can you post a pic of the led bulb? Depending on the connector some LEDs are positive/ negative so you may need to flip the connector (a pic would help confirm). I assume your fuses are all good?

 

[Daveyonthemove]

I'll have to go and grab the LED out of the car, bare with me.
I was aware of the +/- issue and did flip all the bulbs I tried to rule that out. I'll check fuses while I'm grabbing the bulb.

 

[Daveyonthemove]

Can you post a pic of the led bulb? Depending on the connector some LEDs are positive/ negative so you may need to flip the connector (a pic would help confirm). I assume your fuses are all good?

The LED bulb I tried in the boot is pictured below.
Oddly, when I went to the car and opened the door the footwell light on the drivers side was working, but the passenger side wasn't so I flipped it over and it started working straight away!
So I re-tried the LED in the boot but again nothing is working.
I'm wondering if the power needs to cycle off entirely before a new light will work?
I'll go back down in a minute and check the boot light. If it's not working I'll flip it over and check again later. Hopefully it will rectify itself.

 

[KrisKrk]

These leds are polar sensitive.

Think it may be the case that, car needed to do it’s check cycle to “see” them again.

As for boot light, pull it out again, disconnect, make sure the old bulb is not blown and both wires touching the plates. Once confirmed, reattach connector and see it works. If does, do same with led bulb.

Do all changes without key in the ignition.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Daveyonthemove]

These leds are polar sensitive.

Think it may be the case that, car needed to do it’s check cycle to “see” them again.

As for boot light, pull it out again, disconnect, make sure the old bulb is not blown and both wires touching the plates. Once confirmed, reattach connector and see it works. If does, do same with led bulb.

Do all changes without key in the ignition.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Thanks for the advice.
I was just doing exactly this as you typed it. I have flipped the LED in the boot but still no joy.
It's too dark and cold to muck around with it anymore tonight, so I'll take a look again tomorrow.
Shame it doesn't 'work' straight away, I could at least know if the bulb is the correct polarity or not at the time of fitting.

 

[KrisKrk]

Leds are pita sometimes and sensitive to the car also. If the car is not coded properly to accept them, it will throw an error. If it’s not working right away, flip it over. Madness.

If this don’t work, try with leds that you know work and check in the boot. If still no joy in the boot, you have short somewhere.

When you checking other working led in the boot, check the one that doesn’t want to work there in the light you know it should.
Play around with them to eliminate bad bulb.
If they freshly purchased, report to seller for a exchange

Let us know if any of this worked


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Daveyonthemove]

Update:
I flipped the LED last night and checked it today, but it wasn't working so I flipped it for the last time and it still wouldn't work.
I then removed one of the LED bulbs from the Footwell and swapped them both over. Amazingly they both worked straight away, proving they both work and that I was extremely lucky to get the polarity the right way around.
Knowing which side needed to face up, I swapped them back but only the one bulb worked again, so back to square one.
I've now got 2 different bulbs in the footwells and the light seems to be a close match, and the LED from the footwell now works in the boot so I have light in there (although it's only marginally better than standard bulbs).

No idea why the one type of bulb won't work in the boot but will work in the footwell. Very odd.

 

[KrisKrk]

That would be a mystery to solve.

Glad it worked out in the end.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[ch1z64]

Now there is a lot to be said by just buying your bulbs from Trups now i know people might say there expensive but what i have found is when i av bought from him everything works perfect and look good . So maybe worth just buy from him @t8ups

 

[Daveyonthemove]

I'd had this bulb (the problem bulb) long before I'd even considered the S3, it was leftover from a pair when I fitted one to the boot in my ST.
I didn't know about him or his bulbs, but I will consider it in the future when I eventually change all interior bulbs.
Clutch comes first!

 

[SootySport]

I suggest to try the old filament bulbs for a few days to check they light up every time. There's lot of led bulbs that are cheap and fail, they don't need coding to work.
I bought mine from t8ups over 2 years ago and all work perfectly , although more expensive they are reliable and 1 year warranty.

 

[t8ups]

I suggest to try the old filament bulbs for a few days to check they light up every time. There's lot of led bulbs that are cheap and fail, they don't need coding to work.
I bought mine from t8ups over 2 years ago and all work perfectly , although more expensive they are reliable and 1 year warranty.

There is a shake up happening on the LED interior kits atm, a lot of bulbs will be changing to that with less LEDs but brighter chips, same brightness, just a bit more efficient, and they will also start coming with a 2 year warranty as I have had more of a say in the drivers and chips used on them so I can stand by it. the puddle lamps, boot lamps and red door lamps will stay the same as they hardly fail, out of 1000 bulbs I must get a fail rate of say 5 so its very low but again, that's a bulb I designed and not just an off the shelf.

@Daveyonthemove - the 8P boot lamp has always been problematic, just putting a generic bulb in wont allow it to work, I have a panel (here) that works in all 8P's, just make sure with a oem halogen bulb the circuit is live and my led will work without a problem.