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- Jan 7, 2017
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I decided to change my front indicator bulbs.
Now I appreciate that this is very small beer indeed in the context of stage 3 tuning, a bigger turbocharger, coilovers, spacers, beefy anti-roll bars and stretched tyres on 20" 10J alloys , but it is what it is.
For months and months the way the original orange bulbs reflect in the... erm... reflector couldn't have bothered me less, but then all of a sudden it did. I've no idea why.
The indicators went from being perfectly functional and entirely satisfactory things which flashed orange to make other road users aware of my intentions to being a bit naff and ever-so slightly cheap-looking.
Now I don't take replacing incandescent bulbs with LEDs in a car with a particularly complicated electrical system lightly.
Not at all.
Over the years I've been there and done that with LEDs that didn't work properly, flashed too fast, flashed too slowly, didn't flash at all or simply stared darkly back at me, refusing to do anything whatsoever. I've bought cheap ones, expensive ones, ones which are non-polarity sensitive and even - though not in this particular application - ones which would work on both AC and DC without causing an epileptic seizure in anyone susceptible to such things who happened to be passing by.
If changing the bulbs had meant removing wheels, wheel arch liners, bumpers, wings, radiators, gearboxes or engines I wouldn't have bothered and turned my attention to something else completely unnecessary, but removing them is a refreshingly (and surprisingly) speedy operation which takes no more than thirty seconds, tops.
So I thought I'd give it a go. The first candidates were a pair of Philips PWY24W Silver Vision incandescents , but I couldn't find any for less than about nineteen quid each. £38 for a pair of indicator bulbs which only work 50% of the time even when they're on is just nuts.
Instead, I bought a pair of these.
There was a five quid off voucher on them at the time, so I reckoned I could swallow the loss of £7.95 if they didn't work.
They turned up two days later. It was raining at the time and continued to rain for the rest of the day, so I left them in the spiffy silver envelope until the next morning.
When the next day arrived it wasn't raining, so I removed one of the original bulbs, replaced it with one of the new ones and very gingerly turned the hazards on.
Nothing went pop, there were no sparks, no smoke, no rattle of multiple fuses blowing, no warning lights and no robotic Frau shrieking "Achtung! Nein! Nein! Gott in Himmel! Remove ze bulbs immediately! Your modifications are not in order! Schnell, schnell!"
The flash rate was normal, the colour was bang on, the light snapped on and off instantly rather than wheezing into incandescent life, and that orange reflection in the indicator unit when they weren't working had gone.
Ace!
A question then. Has anyone here replaced the incandescent rear indicator bulbs (WY16Ws) with the LED equivalents?
There are a few about, and I suppose I could always just get a pair and try them, but I thought I'd ask first on the off chance. I don't want those nasty 'super bright' 1000 lumen Cree jobs that float about on eBay because they'll be pants, fry my wiring, make me look like a tasteless chav, make my car look like a souped-up Corsa and are probably illegal to boot.
Maybe I'm pushing my luck in attempting to change all four, especially in view of the fact that you can't really see the fronts and rears at the same time, but I was so encouraged by how utterly whizzo the fronts turned out that I thought I'd give it a whirl.
If I can make a success of it, I reckon I might even try installing a set of those nifty metal valve caps with the Audi logo on the top next.
.
Now I appreciate that this is very small beer indeed in the context of stage 3 tuning, a bigger turbocharger, coilovers, spacers, beefy anti-roll bars and stretched tyres on 20" 10J alloys , but it is what it is.
For months and months the way the original orange bulbs reflect in the... erm... reflector couldn't have bothered me less, but then all of a sudden it did. I've no idea why.
The indicators went from being perfectly functional and entirely satisfactory things which flashed orange to make other road users aware of my intentions to being a bit naff and ever-so slightly cheap-looking.
Now I don't take replacing incandescent bulbs with LEDs in a car with a particularly complicated electrical system lightly.
Not at all.
Over the years I've been there and done that with LEDs that didn't work properly, flashed too fast, flashed too slowly, didn't flash at all or simply stared darkly back at me, refusing to do anything whatsoever. I've bought cheap ones, expensive ones, ones which are non-polarity sensitive and even - though not in this particular application - ones which would work on both AC and DC without causing an epileptic seizure in anyone susceptible to such things who happened to be passing by.
If changing the bulbs had meant removing wheels, wheel arch liners, bumpers, wings, radiators, gearboxes or engines I wouldn't have bothered and turned my attention to something else completely unnecessary, but removing them is a refreshingly (and surprisingly) speedy operation which takes no more than thirty seconds, tops.
So I thought I'd give it a go. The first candidates were a pair of Philips PWY24W Silver Vision incandescents , but I couldn't find any for less than about nineteen quid each. £38 for a pair of indicator bulbs which only work 50% of the time even when they're on is just nuts.
Instead, I bought a pair of these.
There was a five quid off voucher on them at the time, so I reckoned I could swallow the loss of £7.95 if they didn't work.
They turned up two days later. It was raining at the time and continued to rain for the rest of the day, so I left them in the spiffy silver envelope until the next morning.
When the next day arrived it wasn't raining, so I removed one of the original bulbs, replaced it with one of the new ones and very gingerly turned the hazards on.
Nothing went pop, there were no sparks, no smoke, no rattle of multiple fuses blowing, no warning lights and no robotic Frau shrieking "Achtung! Nein! Nein! Gott in Himmel! Remove ze bulbs immediately! Your modifications are not in order! Schnell, schnell!"
The flash rate was normal, the colour was bang on, the light snapped on and off instantly rather than wheezing into incandescent life, and that orange reflection in the indicator unit when they weren't working had gone.
Ace!
A question then. Has anyone here replaced the incandescent rear indicator bulbs (WY16Ws) with the LED equivalents?
There are a few about, and I suppose I could always just get a pair and try them, but I thought I'd ask first on the off chance. I don't want those nasty 'super bright' 1000 lumen Cree jobs that float about on eBay because they'll be pants, fry my wiring, make me look like a tasteless chav, make my car look like a souped-up Corsa and are probably illegal to boot.
Maybe I'm pushing my luck in attempting to change all four, especially in view of the fact that you can't really see the fronts and rears at the same time, but I was so encouraged by how utterly whizzo the fronts turned out that I thought I'd give it a whirl.
If I can make a success of it, I reckon I might even try installing a set of those nifty metal valve caps with the Audi logo on the top next.
.
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