[Skidm8]

Hi All,

I am not so impressed with the Reversing lights as delivered with the car, personally , so have been considering changing them for LEDs. I have researched the possibility and it seems a very easy project but I thought I would run it past you guys for any pointers.

On eBay there is a selection of LEDs ranging from around £6 up to £20 and I thought some at about £15 maybe ok. After buying LEDs that are stated as error free will it still be necessary to code these particular bulbs to prevent flickering while driving?? I am happy to code to stop this but first of all I will have to find the correct changes to make unless someone has already got the data to change.

If there are no responses to this thread then I will give it a go and update this post with my thoughts and whether it was worth it IMO.

Regards John

[mragarg]

Bump for updates!

[The Beast]

Yeah they are not great, I find myself feathering the brake at times to get extra light

[Markee]

I put on either the rear fog light or hazards for more light.

The reversing lights (or light i think it is!) give out less light than one of those key chain LED torches!

[Skidm8]

Hi All,

just to say I have ordered the LED bulbs from ebay. I should be fitting them within the next few days and will come back with a complete update of the result.

John

[Jedimindtrix]

Originally Posted by Skidm8

Hi All,

just to say I have ordered the LED bulbs from ebay. I should be fitting them within the next few days and will come back with a complete update of the result.

John

John,

Have you got a link to the bulbs that you ordered as its a mine field on eBay trying to find the right ones.

[Skidm8]

Hi Jedimindtrix,

let me see if they work OK before I recommend them to you, but I agree there was too many LED bulbs on offer on eBay. I had convinced myself, from reading up, that the bulbs I required had a "wedge" type socket but before I ordered I took out a bulb which was just as well as it was "bay9s" socket.

I will post on here all the details of the change.

Regards,
John

[Skidm8]

Hi All,

finally.............

I have finished this project but what should have been a 30 minutes job turned out to be a lot longer.

I suggest the first job is to remove the Boot Lid liner to establish exactly what type of reversing light bulb is fitted. I had read everything I could find and had decided that the bulb was the "wedge" type but to make sure I removed the existing bulb to find that it was a

Phillips 12356 - BAY9S - H21W bulb

I replaced this bulb with these

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/PAIR-BAY9S...IAAOSwEetWA7eC

I realise that some forum members will not read this post any further with the thought of putting this LED bulb anywhere near my F10. However, it was a BAY9S fitting, H21W, CANBUS ERROR FREE, 400 Lumens, Height 32mm, Diameter 12mm and at a reasonable price. I think any LED bulb will do providing they meet these criteria and "look" ok.

Now the main problem for me was the liner which was by no means easy to remove on my car. The liner is secured in place by a number of plastic plugs that had a plastic screw to expand them and lock them in place. In the factory these screws had been tighten with a power screw driver which had wrecked the screw head of three plugs!! I eventually removed all the plugs after some effort and the liner was loose but not removed but that is all that is required as you can then access the bulb tray easily.

Replace the festoon bulbs with LED bulbs and test they light. Replace the liner without over tightening those pesky plugs!! I need to buy three more plugs sometime.

I then recoded the following two lines of code

FRM><3090><AUSG_24_RFS_L_IS_LED
FRM><3090><AUSG_25_RFS_R_IS_LED

from nicht activ to activ

This was necessary as after changing the bulbs the car had a "Reversing light error" but the change in code cured this.

Although the job took longer than it should have I believe the overall light output when in reverse is better than it was and it is an inexpensive job IMO. My thoughts are if the reversing lights are ok for you then don't bother but if you are regularly backing in to a garage, say between a fence and the side of the house, then it is a useful mod.

Regards,
John

[Skidm8]

Hi All,

just a quick update. I decided to re-code all the lines for the change to LED for the reversing lights. I had no problems but thought these lines of code were for test parameters and so changed them as well.

FRM><3090><AUSG_24_RFS_L_WARM_UEBERW_ACTIV
FRM><3090><AUSG_24_RFS_L_KALT_UEBERW_ACTIV

FRM><3090><AUSG_25_RFS_R_WARM_UEBERW_ACTIV
FRM><3090><AUSG_25_RFS_R_KALT_UEBERW_ACTIV

all changed to "nicht activ"

Best regards,
John

[Diesel Flash]

Great write up john, id be all over this upgrade if i knew how to code