2004 Reg Plate LED Replacement

[TitaniumTom]

Morning,

Doing checks ready for MOT on Monday and notice I have a reg plate light out. It's a 'solid' LED type, no bulb, and works if I push on it so obviously a loose connection somewhere. I've tried bending the pins on the back but it lasts a few seconds before failing again. Can anyone link me a replacement I can get before Monday that won't cause CANBUS issues?

I'm fairly sure one plate light out is now a 'minor' rather than a fail but would still like as clean a sheet as I can get lol.

Cheers
Tom

 

[Daveyonthemove]

Why not put it back to a standard bulb for the MOT and source a replacement LED for future use?

 

[paddy]

If it was down to me i would ban LED No. plate lights anyway, what's the point ? they do nothing to enhance the look of the car or the driving experience, massive fail

 

[gokiwi64]

The number plate lights are not wired in but use two fingers to contact to copper pads , I had to hardwire mine in as the fingers would get soft and not make contact.

 

[TitaniumTom]

Why not put it back to a standard bulb for the MOT and source a replacement LED for future use?

Because it's a single unit fitted by a previous owner. If it had bulbs I would've swapped back to an original.

 

[Daveyonthemove]

I wasn't aware it was a single unit, I have yet to change mine. Handy to know, thanks for the info.

 

[TitaniumTom]

If it was down to me i would ban LED No. plate lights anyway, what's the point ? they do nothing to enhance the look of the car or the driving experience, massive fail

I didn't fit them lol. But they do look a bit 'cleaner' tbf, a lot of modern cars use them as standard. Plus they're more efficient and should last longer (OE ones, not the Chinese ebay rubbish lol).

But what annoys me is when they put them on cars with halogen headlights. I also drive a Mk3 Focus, which came standard with LED reg plate light, LED strips in the tail lights, LED puddle lights under the folding mirrors...BUT dull yellow halogens up front.

 

[Daveyonthemove]

My last car was a 66 plate Focus ST and I agree about the yellow at the front.
I had the ST3 with Bi-xenons so it wasn't too bad, but the White DRL/Sidelights made them look yellow, so I had to change them.

 

[TitaniumTom]

My last car was a 66 plate Focus ST and I agree about the yellow at the front.
I had the ST3 with Bi-xenons so it wasn't too bad, but the White DRL/Sidelights made them look yellow, so I had to change them.

Why the change from the ST3 out of interest?

 

[Daveyonthemove]

Why the change from the ST3 out of interest?

I actually liked the car, but it had issues with the Sat nav freezing up and needing the car to be stopped and locked up for 15 mins to reset modules (not helpful on motorways) and Android Auto would connect and then disconnect within a few minutes without warning. I effectively had no navigation!
Several trips to the dealer over a year with promises of a software update fixing the car (even though a known hardware fault was diagnosed) and refusal to do anything else got very frustrating. The software update arrived almost a year to the day since the car was collected and it didn't fix the problem, and Ford UK and 2 separate dealers offered no solution, so the car was rejected.
I bought the S3 with money I was refunded and despite doing age related maintenance its been more enjoyable.

 

[TitaniumTom]

I actually liked the car, but it had issues with the Sat nav freezing up and needing the car to be stopped and locked up for 15 mins to reset modules (not helpful on motorways) and Android Auto would connect and then disconnect within a few minutes without warning. I effectively had no navigation!
Several trips to the dealer over a year with promises of a software update fixing the car (even though a known hardware fault was diagnosed) and refusal to do anything else got very frustrating. The software update arrived almost a year to the day since the car was collected and it didn't fix the problem, and Ford UK and 2 separate dealers offered no solution, so the car was rejected.
I bought the S3 with money I was refunded and despite doing age related maintenance its been more enjoyable.

Ah, very interesting! I've had a similar experience...I previously had a Mk2 Focus for over 3 years which was great after 'fixing' initial DPF issues. But the Mk3 is awful tbh, I've got problems with pretty much every part of the car...they just seem to be so poorly built these days. Mines a prefacelift and a diesel though...I was hoping a facelift ST might be better but I guess not lol!

 

[Daveyonthemove]

Mine was Diesel too.
Aside from what I listed above, it was a very good car. Economy wasn't as good as they claimed (it rarely is) but I could live with that.
Ironically, when my car went in for the 5th time I told them I wanted an equally powered or better car as a courtesy car as I was fed up of being given crappy ford KA's which were dangerously under powered at roundabouts and junctions. They gave me a brand new Focus ST2 petrol, which was so much faster than I expected and loads of fun. I knew I couldn't afford to lease the petrol ST and keep it on the road with 15k miles a year in fuel costs, but when the time came to reject mine I decided to get a petrol car I could own outright and something with more than 200bhp, and after lots of looking around I settled on the S3.

 

[paddy]

I suppose i am a bit of a dinosaur, i come from an age where the less conspicuous your number plate the better
They just put in average speed cameras on the A24 to catch the bikers going to Boxhill , at least they had the sense to point at the back of the bike, most of these cameras point at the front so they dont record bikes anyway
it wont work, they will catch a few cars out but no biker worth his salt actually has the correct number plate on his bike

 

[TitaniumTom]

So, after all this... The replacements didn't arrive in time.

However, the tester closed the tailgate after checking the spare wheel and the plate light started working, and has done ever since!

I must have closed the tailgate 10+ times myself beforehand so no idea how that happened lol.

Anyway, it is also only a minor fault if you have one of two reg plate lights missing or inoperative now, no longer a fail.