When I say stop... STOP

One thing about running an old car and mixing it with modern cars on the road is that although in some ways you are more conspicuous (you see the necks snap as you drive down a high street), in other ways you are less conspicuous... are those weedy little tail lights going to be noticed on a wet night on the M6 by the guy in the Range Rover on the phone as he bears down on you...

Well, after a little debate over on the Facebook forums, I decided to experiment with replacement LED stop and tail lights, to see if the increased brightness and reaction time would make any kind of material difference to visibility of my car.  

Opinions seemed divided on this - some questioned safety (after all the lights on a car are designed for the technology of the time), others pointed out that some LED bulbs are fundamentally different from the filament bulbs they replace, in that LEDs are directional, and filament bulbs shine in all directions.   After a detailed email conversation with Gil Keane at 4Sight Automotive (www.bettercarlighting.co.uk) I felt confident enough to order a pair of LED stop and tail bulbs.  Total price with tax and shipping around £37.  The bulbs arrived well-packaged next morning.  Gil assured me that if they didn't meet my expectations for any reason, I could have a full refund.  

As you can see, these are unusual looking bulbs.  They appear to be of a good quality of manufacture, and are marked with the CE mark. 

To mimic the omni-directional quality of a standard filament bulb, the LEDs are arranged in a pattern with six "elements" on each of the top, bottom, left and right of the unit, plus a domed lens with LEDs behind it on the end facing rearwards.  

As you can see from the below picture, they are longer than a standard filament bulb, and on comparing them, I was concerned that they may not fit behind the plastic lenses.

Installation was as simple as replacing the bulb!  Note however that replacing the indicator flasher bulb is more involved (as a different flasher unit needs to be fitted - the old style relays do not notice the low current demanded by the modern LED, and so won't flash).

You may notice the the new (longer) bulb stands proud of the chrome housing, but does still fit behind the lens with no clearance issues.  

Note that you need to order red coloured LEDs for use in red tail-lights.  This is because the increased brightness would shine pink if using a white LED bulb behind the red lens.  

The results:

Do they fit / are they easy to swap?

- Yes, couldn't be simpler

Are they brighter?

- Yes, I've included some video below to illustrate the difference.  As well as brightness, it's notable that the brake lights respond much faster. 

Any issues with the light pattern? 

- Not that I can see.  I can imagine that a single, directional LED would perhaps not illuminate the full lens enclosure, but these appear to give a good even light. 

Any other benefits?  

- They run cooler - after a few minutes with tail lights on, I placed my hands on the rear tail lenses, and the lens with LED fitter had remained at ambient temperature, whilst the filament lens had warmed up to the touch.   They are said to last a lot longer, but obviously I can't evaluate that yet. 



By way of comparison, I changed only the right-hand side bulb and then did some video during late evening daylight.  The results in terms of difference may be more noticeable at night, but I wanted to be able to see a material improvement in brake light performance with good ambient light, as this is typically when I'll be driving my car.  I'm not sure how well this will come across in the video, but I think it's appreciably better:  

Video comparison

So - I've put both bulbs in, kept the old filament bulbs in the boot as spares, and I'll get an opinion from my friendly and knowledgeable local mechanic next time I fill up with juice. In the meantime, let me know what you think.  Personally I think this is a noticeable improvement for not a huge outlay and less than 5 minutes of screwdriver time.