(S) Sidelight bulbs

Has anyone managed to replace their sidelight bulbs with some LED ones that are more xenon coloured? I have tried two different types and because they use less power they flash, and the warning inside the car comes on to check the bulbs. Can anyone help?!

Am guessing that the warning system works on measuring the current consumption of the sidelight bulbs

When a tail ight bulb (21W) is on it draws something like 1.75A
So when a bulb blows it goes open circuit, 0A current flows and it can sense the bulb has blown.

LED's typically draw 10s or 100s of milliamps, say from 50mA (0.05A) so when they are on it appears to the sensor that the bulb has blown.

The only thing I can suggest is to wire a resistor in parallel with LED. From the point of view of reducing power consumption this defeats the whole idea!
Has the added drawback of
- hacking your loom (italian cars<>electrical problems!! )
- you need largish resistors and have a fair amount of heat to get rid of

If you can live with the warning then I guess that is the best bet!

hth

5W

Here are my new sidelights...

When on alone they show blueish, but when Dipped headlights are on, they are completely unoticable!

Yours look very similar to my Philips Blue Vision bulbs. When the headlights are on it just gives a nice blue edge to the light but not too much that it looks stupid.

Rich

Looks rather ghoulish.. (but nice )

ghoulish is good!

if you have replacement standard type sidelights then you will be fine, but if you replace them with l.e.d.s then you will need a load resistor to keep the current stable at a higher voltage as oppose to it thinking one has blown due to the low current they draw. it's also the case with the rear number plate lights and if you want to replace the rear indicators with l.e.d. unit this will also flash up the warning on the screen even though they flash normal on the outside, the inside is going crazy!!!!!

...God i Hate electronics....quite possibley my weak point on cars.

Im just wondering, has anyone changed the sidelight bulbs on there GPS? I put in some 'Prism LED White bulbs' to match my Xenon look headlights and the sidelights immediately started to flash and it came up on the dash a 'light fault'. Does that mean i cant chage the sidelight blubs to anything else apart from the standard yellow ones?

it means that the prism leds use less power the computer senses that less power is being used so thinks a bulb is out. some led bulbs have a built in resistor so that they use the same power as a standard bulb thus not causing a fault.
all normal bulbs should work fine.

that is my basic understanding of things

Ok the problem is:

The GP is fitted with a bulb error/fault detection system. This detects when a bulb has gone and warns the user via the dash display. In simple terms it monitors how much wattage is going through the system. LED lights use less than mormal bulbs and therefore causes the system to think there is a fault. All the lighting systems in the GP with the exception of the main/dipped beam and internal lights have this system.

You can use resistors to fool the system. Like these : http://www.autobulbsdirect.co.uk/home.php?cat=656

PS: feel lucky the GPS has this system 2-3 years ago it waas only on mercs and alike. Mind you i think the most important bulbs are the dipped/main and for some reason ot does not tell you about tehse

i have the same ones in mine they came free with the headlight bulbs i bought! lol

How do you change them on a mk2 fiat punto?, i swear you can only get to them by pulling off the covers but i think they will snap off!

if you have a look in the punto section i'm sure there will be someone that has had the same problem!