Handbook ?

LEDs will not be legal in the number plate light (unless the bulbs are an integral part of the lamp unit and the whole thing is 'E' marked), and also are often too bright (the rules state no white must be seen from the rear - the standard 5w bulbs are dim enough to be ok but most LEDs are too bright.) They will also trigger the bulb failure system (adding a resistor to cure that makes a nonsense of the energy efficiency to be gained from the reduced current of LEDs, which is the primary reason they are used now)

Interior: the genuine Fiat LED accessory certainly dims - I have recently added to my Panda (see https://www.fiatforum.com/panda-iii/477378-light-back.html?p=4508167) - but can’t say if others do. Removing the interior bulb is a faff. The numberplate ones less so, and remove from the outside. Details of how to do both of these are shown in the car’s handbook.

have put some led's canbus ones in interior lamp and they work no error and dim gradually after the door is shut,just the number plate ones and boot light to sort out

Bulb change is all from outside the car and should be possible with a fine flat blade screw driver to depress the securing tab at one end of the lens. Look carefully and you should see how it works. Be gentle to avoid braking the lens which can be a bit fragile.

I hope you decide to leave number plate bulbs alone as any additional dazzle from over bright number plate lights is a nuisance, as well as unnecessary.

Pic of the clear lens..
cutaway is clearly visible

Anybody doing this..

Please add further info ..

My last panda needed none of this
in 15 years of ownership

Hi.
I've been using LED bulbs for the number plate over the last 8 years. From the Rover 75 through to the Pandas. Both cars are run by a BCU with Canbus detection. The Two bulbs are 5 Watts each and wired in parallel. I use non canbus LEDS and one 22ohm 7 watt resistor wired in parallel across the feed (red & blue wires) to load the system. The current taken is slightly lower than with the filament bulbs. I've yet to see a festoon bulb with an E marking so I see no issue in fitting LED in this position. To do the job properly it's best to remove the full number plate lamp holder.

murphyv310 said:

Hi.
To do the job properly it's best to remove the full number plate lamp holder.

Click to expand...

Do you mean to unbolt the black plastic carrier from the tailgate..?

Or does the small 'box' that carries the bulb and lens drop down..?

Ive had about 6 styles of holder on my various FIATs.. some are separate


I thought I would ask .. as Ive seen very lityle in the way of pics detailing this

Cheers

Charlie

It is easier to remove the full assembly, both my Pandas have had the electronic latch so it's easy to remove, one connector and a few screws. I would assume it's not needed when using canbus LED but I use non canbus as the bulb runs cooler, canbus ones have load resistors which get hot and shorten the bulbs life.

Hi.
On the 2017 Cross the load resistor is more fussy than on the 2014 Lounge, the newer car detects when one of the OE filament bulbs bows it puts on the triangle and tells you a number plate bulb is defective, on the older car both bulbs had to fail before you got a warning. On the newer car you need just below 18 ohms for reliability but you must be sure you are using Non cambus LEDS as you may overload the rating from the BCU otherwise.

On the Cross I have used an old fashioned Radiospares Dropper section of 17.5 ohms rated at 20watts, which runs only slightly warm. They are round and have a central hole for mounting which I mounted on a spare hole inside of the tailgate and ran two wires to the plug for the lights and door release. The Bulb feeds are at each end of the plug, the centre is for the release micro switch.

Sorry no photos I'm afraid.