Thread: Interior lights replaced with LED's - WOW what a difference

Ok, with the flickering. I've noticed any LEDs seem to do this when the keys in the ignition are in the off position. If the Keys are clicked to the 1st Position or the Engine is running they work fine. It seems to be due to the lower resistance in the LEDs and the car wasn't wired for that resistance difference. Another way around it is turning the interior light rotating dial to ON so that all the interior lights turn on. My Dioded Dynamics and JamStrait LEDs react the same way.

Also, this has been my main concern with putting LEDs in the Trunk. I don't want to have to turn my engine on or the key to the 1st switch just so I can open my Trunk and actually see inside. Interior lights, not a big deal, but having to get into the car so that I can get back out to see in my Trunk would be a huge hastle.

i changed my lights in my car to red bulbs i bout them at auto zone and there an exact fit so instead of just my floors lit up everything is when i open the doors or turn them on

i did white led in my dome light and its great love it wanna do floor board and rear next

That's why I've been concerned about trunk LEDs, I tried it with one of the LED bulbs I had and it didn't work very well.

yeah the regular smd leds don't really work in my '05 trunk. dim flickering from most & other types of leds not bright enough. i might try a blue (cool white) filament bulb, or maybe i can get a 9+ led smd flux to work back there...hopefully i'll get around to checking it with a multimeter sometime so i can try to figure out how powerful of a multi-led bulb i will need for it to work.

but this along with clean white/slightly blueish 80w headlights were the first things i did to my car. i replaced the most visible interiors with white 5-led flux's in the domes & single white inverted leds everywhere else. they look f'in amazing.. it felt (& still feels) like a completely different car! great color & not too bright. plus i hate the ugly yellow look of the stocks

Originally Posted by neyel8r

yeah the regular smd leds don't really work in my '05 trunk. dim flickering from most & other types of leds not bright enough. i might try a blue (cool white) filament bulb

I found a Sylvania Silverstar Bulb that might work. It's a 921ST Bulb, the original is a 912 Bulb. I've yet to stop by the store to see if they look to be the same size, but I'm pretty sure they are. Puts out 264 Lumens, the original puts out 151 Lumens. Runs at 12.8V same as the original bulb. Also runs at 17.92Watts where the original runs at 13.0Watts. So Voltage and Lumens seem good, bulb size is a bit different the main concern is Wattage. I'm wondering if the increase of 4.92Watts will make the lens housing too hot and cause problems both with the plastic lens and wires/connectors. AutoZone sells them for $7.99 for a pair.

Any help from anyone would be appreciated.

i've swapped out interior bulbs for LED's from
superbrightLEDs.com and i've had no problem with heat. if you shoot them an email they know their stuff. I was ordering from them when i was doing service work back in the day.

Originally Posted by mattftmfw

i've swapped out interior bulbs for LED's from
superbrightLEDs.com and i've had no problem with heat. if you shoot them an email they know their stuff. I was ordering from them when i was doing service work back in the day.

The problem with LEDs for the trunk is that many of us have noticed that if the vehicle is locked and you just use the key fob to open the trunk that there isn't enough light coming from the LEDs because they don't have enough resistance to make them work correctly.

I bought the Sylvania Silverstar 921ST Bulbs today. I'm going to replace the trunk bulb with it and take some before and after pictures and post them up on here.

I also saw that they have Sylvania Silverstar 194 Bulbs. I'm considering buying them and replacing the License Plate standard 194s to make it look cleaner. So far I haven't seen any LEDs that will fit in the 2004+ License Plate Bulb Socket without running out of room in the area the bulbs fit. I'll figure out about the Silverstar 194 Bulbs after I see how well this trunk bulb works because they both have the same coating and light color.


Picture Below is the original stock bulb GE912


Picture Below is Sylvania Silverstar 921ST Bulb. Camera settings were exactly the same for both pictures.

Is quite alot brighter and only costs $7.99 for two of them. Course I'm not sure what I'm going to do with the extra, just keep it for backup I guess. Burns a little hotter but the plastic lens didn't feel much warmer than with the regular bulb, and definitely wasn't hot enough to be worried about melting at all.

I also got the 194ST bulbs for the license plate, they are visibly brighter than the regular 194s that were in there (I compared with one being the 194 and the other bulb being the 194ST) It is also more of a cleaner white vs. the yellow white that the regular 194s put out. Isn't too bright so it's not like I put spot lights on my license plate, just a bit brighter and a whiter light. I like it better, but $7.99 2Pack is a bit pricey compared to the normal $4.99 2Pack. I hope they last a fair amount of time.

^^ try prying the front of it(near sunroof) and looking in to see how its held in if you can't figure it out.. There's two pieces that push in, and then it slides back and drops down.

Oh, and.. Trunk light anyone?
Blue led's:

^looks really good. What color is your car?

My car is black, here's a pic.. Need to get updated ones, I'm lowered about an inch now.

Here's the interior led's:

^Awesome and very clean car. Blue always looks great with black I think.

I would've put blue LED's in my car, but I wanted to match the red dash, so I put red LED's all in my car and LED tubes that I can turn on while I'm driving