Hey guys.

I wanted to upgrade my front sidelights and my number plate light bulbs from the standard 5W 501 type wedge bulbs, to LED replacements.

Bearing in mind that the Bravo has a bulb failure warning system, I invested in a set of four error free LED replacements on eBay, and they arrived yesterday. I fitted them to the car, turned on the ignition and sidelights, and got a warning to check the numberplate lamps. So, I popped the original bulbs back in the numberplate lights, and that put the warning out all together - the LEDs in the front sidelights weren't triggering the warning. Next step was to swap the front sidelight LEDs into the numberplate lamps, and again I got the numberplate lamp failure warning.

So, I am a bit puzzled here - why are these LEDs triggering the bulb failure warning in the numberplate lamps, but not in the front sidelights? And what are my options? Should I try some LEDs from a different supplier?

Can the bulb failure system be turned off, at least for the numberplate lights?

If you put standard bulbs back into the number plate lights and leave leds in the sidelights do you get any warnings.

A thought I am having is that the body computer is scanning the numberplate circuit before the sidelights. Just a thought.

Certainly in FiatECUScan / MultiECU scan I have not seen an option to disable the bulb failure warning system.

Don't know about Fiat Examiner / WiTech

s130 said:

If you put standard bulbs back into the number plate lights and leave leds in the sidelights do you get any warnings.

A thought I am having is that the body computer is scanning the numberplate circuit before the sidelights. Just a thought.

Certainly in FiatECUScan / MultiECU scan I have not seen an option to disable the bulb failure warning system.

Don't know about Fiat Examiner / WiTech

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Yeah I am running the car at the moment with the LEDs in the front sidelights and the normal bulbs in the number plate lamps, and I am getting no bulb failure warning.

I actually tried it with one LED number plate lamp and one bulb and the failure warning still came up. So it has me puzzled.

I contacted the seller on eBay who has said that some cars just won't accept LED bulbs, and for some reason in his experience it's always number plate lamps that trigger it the most, rather than sidelights.

My only other thought, and I am really not keen on doing it if I can avoid it, is to solder a resistor across each pair of number plate lamp wires.

Not every errorfree LEDs work on the bravo, I already tried some expensive ones for the sidelights and they gave me the error anyway. It's all down to luck.

Yeah, as I said it's a strange one on my car, because despite having four identical LED bulbs, they only trigger the bulb warning in the number plate lamps, but not in the front sidelights.

Tad-bravo said:

Not every errorfree LEDs work on the bravo, I already tried some expensive ones for the sidelights and they gave me the error anyway. It's all down to luck.

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:yeahthat:

You need these, pair for front and pair for rear, I've got them in my Bravo and no warnings (was using similar LEDs to yours but still getting the warnings).

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/271042286319?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1439.l2649

Most Easterly Pandas said:

:yeahthat:

You need these, pair for front and pair for rear, I've got them in my Bravo and no warnings (was using similar LEDs to yours but still getting the warnings).

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/271042286319?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1439.l2649

Click to expand...

I'll give them a shot.

I was going to solder a resistor across the wires - we have resistors at my work for fitting LED indicators, to stop the rapid-flash scenario that comes about when the flasher unit thinks a bulb has gone.

Chris Stefani said:

I'll give them a shot.

I was going to solder a resistor across the wires - we have resistors at my work for fitting LED indicators, to stop the rapid-flash scenario that comes about when the flasher unit thinks a bulb has gone.

Click to expand...

Do cars still do that? I thought that problem would be well away by now.

cardinalbiggles said:

Do cars still do that? I thought that problem would be well away by now.

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Of course they still do that. Why wouldn't they? Manufactures aren't going to go back in progress and remove a bulb failure indication system are they.