LED bulbs

[azaman]

I have a facelift W203 coupe and was thinking about trying some LED bulbs in the rear light clusters.

My question is has anyone used LED bulbs before? Want to know if it is worth it and if they cause any bulb malfunctions to show up in the cluster?

[andy27168]

They will cause your bulb failure light to illuminate but this can be remedied by putting a resistor in each circuit fitted with an L.E.D. bulb in it.

[Spinal]

http://www.mbclub.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=46179

[azaman]

So does anyone know where to get hold of bulbs that won't throw up bulb errors (assuming they exist)? I've looked on ebay but couldn'd find any 'special' bulbs.

[Spinal]

So does anyone know where to get hold of bulbs that won't throw up bulb errors (assuming they exist)? I've looked on ebay but couldn'd find any 'special' bulbs.

Well... no. Simply because of the resistor. It needs to be too big to fit "inside" the bulb, while the amount of heat it needs to dissipate will melt any plastic in the bulb.

You can buy the resistor fairly cheap - but most of the ones I found needed to be welded to the car's metalwork (which would serve as a heatsink and aid in heat dissipation).

AFAIK the easiest solution is to live with the bulb warning light, the more complicated one is figuring out how to change the "levels" at which it feels the bulbs are blown...

Michele