Car turn signals LEDs?

Just curious. Since I have an eight and a twelve year old cars, do the newer cars use LEDs for turn signals / brake lights? I know that the newer traffic lights are using LEDs.
Thanks in advance.

Haven't noticed them as coming stock on any new cars yet, but they do sell retro-fit LED bulbs now for tail lights, marker lights, etc. Not cheap, but the ones I saw were LS LED's from LEDCorp.

Actually yes, (You've hit an area of expertise for me...CARS)

Quite a lot of newer cars (Like 98ish and newer) use LED for that 3rd stop light, a few cars (The Cadillac Deville comes to mind) use them for ALL the stop lights...there are others but thats the first to come to mind.

Only problem is some of them are starting to FAIL already, not the LEDS but the boards, you'll know then when you see the light on the spoiler of somones Honda flickering...

Also I was just reading that somone just came out (And I am sure they're not the first but...) with a LED replacement for the most popular replacement bulb for cars, the exact bulb number escapes my mind, but it is the bulb that like 90% of American cars (Imports too I suppose, it's jsut a really popular bulb) use for stop/turn...

But it's overpriced, something like $50 for 5 bulbs, I am sorry but I am not about to go pay $50 when I will probably spend a total of about $10 over the life of the car replacing that bulb...

Saaby. What about the Q35? I think that is the Infinity brand. I saw a new one with 20+ taillight "holes". They looked like LED's unless it had a bunch of #193 bulbs.

The high stop lamp on my 1994 Suburban is LED (ooops, I never looked closely at my 2001, but I assume it's similar).

I think the side ones are incandescent on both.

I understand if you use some replacement lamps and they are not DOT listed and you get into an accident and the lawyers find out...you might be in for some 'splanin.

Cheers,

Richard

Yup...The new 2003 Infinity G45 has LED bulbs in the tailights.



Similarly, high-visibility headlights and LED taillights lend to cutting-edge style and safety.

I've seen the car on the road a couple of times but i've never seen the lights activated. I'm not sure they are brake lights, turn signals, or parking lights. It doesn't look that good anyway. They should have desigened the the LEDs to be closer together.

The third brake light on my SHO is a strip of leds.

'97

Yeah I wasn't quite sure how far back they've used them for cars on the Hi-Mount stop light...

It sure wouldn't surprise me if the Q was all LEDs (It probably is) they went all out on that...heated steering wheel, HID bulbs with a very nice looking 6-shooter type lens etc. etc...

The overpriced bulb I was talking about earler is DOT approved, probably why it's so blasted expensive.

Hey, I have a SHO also. Gotta go check mine.

I have replacement led turn signal lamps in my neon. The only problem is they dont flash because there is no current draw from the lamps to trigger the flasher circuit. lol

I forgot to say mine is a 93.

I actually heard that LED brake lights are safer because the come on instantly, whereas the older bulbs have to "warm up." If the difference is about 1/10 of a second, that comes out to being quite a few feet at 65MPH.

In this country LEDs have been used on many high level brake lights for many years. They are now also appearing in other places too.

Many London Buses have LED matrices for the brake/tail light element of the rear cluster, though it`s been a while since I was last down that way so some may use LEDs for all the rear lights now. A bus I saw near Wolverhampton had all-LED rear lighting (including the orange turn signals- these are always orange here even at the back) except the rear fog lamp and reversing light.

Trucks reguarly use amber LED markers down the sides of the trailers, and red LED high level markers at the back (with clear lenses when off!). I`ve also seen the characteristic blueish colour of white LEDs on the front high and low level markers. And the coolest thing- the odd truck that has loads of yellow-green LEDs fitted into the front grille, outlining the badge, etc. I`ve seen Volvo, Mercedes and others with this customization. Even seen red lamps on the back of a trailer once, spelling out the driver`s name, or was it the company name, I forget now.

And just this morning I saw a truck, probably a new RangeRover, with all-LED brake lights (not just the high level one) and possibly LED turn signals too, except the amber ring of light round the red center cluster of LEDs didn`t wink on and off instantaneously like an LED would do, but rather had the soft "filament-lamp warm up and cool down" effect. Could`ve been some electronics to control it though, not sure.


I think the revolution has finally got underway. It sure has taken its time in coming but pretty soon I reckon we`ll see LED lighting on the back of more and more vee-hickles, and metal halide round front. Eventually, like ABS, powered windows and airbags, it`ll be next to impossible to buy a new car without them!

It`s interesting to note that the regular 12 volt single-pin-bayonet base bulb used in brake/turn lights has changed little in over 60 years. I have some very old ones here that look pretty much identical, but are usually 18 watts not 21. It`s about time they were upgraded.....

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Harrkev:
I actually heard that LED brake lights are safer because the come on instantly, whereas the older bulbs have to "warm up." If the difference is about 1/10 of a second, that comes out to being quite a few feet at 65MPH.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>


Yeah I forgot to mention that but I was going to...anyway I don't know if you've noticed any where you are but in Salt Lake (I don't live IN Salt Lake but I live NEAR Salt Lake) they have replaced all the Red lights with LEDs and we also have some LED Countdown Walk/Don't walk signs. Today I noticed that all the stop lights on the mail truck were Red LEDs (Maybe I can nab a photo tomorrow) not the amber ones, just the RED

Just for some information from a modder that most newbies here have never heard of ...

You must use an electronic flasher element for any LED lamps used on the T/S circuit unless you have a sufficient load of about 3 amps. I know because I retrofitted a complete fleet of concrete mixers to LED recently.

Also I think two of the new 5 watt Luxeons in series would make a nice backup light in a 1156 base, or whatever is needed. That would be about right for the voltage requirement of the average 14 volt charging system.

Saaby,

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Saaby:
The overpriced bulb I was talking about earler is DOT approved, probably why it's so blasted expensive.[/QB]<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Could you give us a link? I'm interested in the ledcorp ones. But the lack of DOT listing makes me nervous. I'd like to see the ones you mentioned.

Hi. Just want to put in my 2 cents. I've seen many cars with the LED center high mount stop light (chmsl) for a long time now. I've seen the new Cadillac with all LED taillights. (The left and right lights look like they have SMD Led's mounted so close together that its hard to tell they're LEDs unless you notice how fast they turn on and off. Anyone know for sure?) I've also seen the Infinity. Oh, I once saw a 1968 or 1969 El Camino that someone put the LED drop in replacement bulbs in the brake lights. Let me tell you that I was unimpressed by the performance. They were pretty dim, and it was just a small circle the size of a quarter that lit up the taillight housing (no "throw" to the light beam-which i know LEDs are famous for) I was thinking of getting a set of these until I saw the prices and how they performed on that El Camino. I think the higher priced ones on the net may perform better (www.ledtronics.com) since they have some leds pointing to the sides. I'd love to actually mimic the Caddy's design and mount them behind the lenses of my car.

I'm finding that more and more of these vehicles are using LEDs for side markers too. All the public transit busses here use LED brakelights + signal lights. Some of the newer import luxury vehicles are using LEDs. I've noticed some models of Mercedes are using LED signal and brake lights too. It's great to see and fun to have, but repairs ($) must suck...

If you're driving a new Merc. you can afford to get your LED lights repaired. True sometimes they have problems with the circut boards running the LEDs but those problems are getting rarer and the LED lites are becoming more and more maintence free.