Grande Punto How To Install Load Resistor For LED Side Light Bulbs

First off a few FAQ's

Why Use Load Resistor In The First Place, The Advert For My LED Bulb Says I Don't Have To Modify Anything

This is true for the majority of old cars, however most new, and the Grande Punto can detect when there a bulb has blown, it does this by measuring the "load" in the circuit, when you replace the filament bulb with an LED, the LED does not draw enough power for the body computer to recognise as a full "load", therefore it turns off that circuit until a "load" is present, so your LED doesn't light up. The Load Resistor fixes this problem by drawing power and tricking the body computer into reading a load in the circuit and therefore keeping the circuit turned on.

What is a load resistor?

A load resistor is simply a resistor inside a heatsink to stop it from overheating while in continuous use.

First job is to get to the wires you need.

If you look at the back of the light cluster you will see the plug with around 10 wires coming out of it, they immedietly go into a black cable sheath, this has a split down it but is held together by some black tape, pull or cut off this black tape and then peel back the cable sheath to expose all the wires, you chould now have around 9 inches of cable to play with exposed.

the side light wires are "red and yellow" and "black and violet", cut these both around half way along the exposed section, however do not cut them next to each other make sure the cuts are at least 1 inch away from each other.

You now have 4 ends, two "yellow and red" and two "black and violet", strip the ends of these roughly half an inch down.

Then attatch crimp terminals to these ends, i would use these and these

use one piggy back and one lucar terminal for both "yellow and red" and "black and violet", you can now reconnect the wires using the crimps you have just attached, so now your side lights should work with the original bulbs, i would check this now so you know you haven't gone wrong,

if they still work repeat the above for both front light clusters

now you have an extra spade terminal inline with the side light wiring

Now take your load resistor and strip the ends of the wires.
It doesn't matter which way round the resistor is wired, it will work just the same both ways, so just attach two more crimp terminals to the ends of these wires, this time you will need the female lucar terminal you now just need to plug these two wires into the two spade sockets spare on the side light wires you just wired up

Now you need to use some insulation tape and wrap up tight the connections you have just made, once you have done this you should if you have been neat all along be able to push the wires back into the cable sheath, i managed to get them all back in including the new connectors, then tape the cable sheath back up as it was before we started.

Now you should just have the load resitor hanging free with its wires going into the cable sheath at the bottom, use two self tapping screws for each of these and screw them onto the plastic trim at the side of the lights,

And your done, enjoy your new LED side lights.