LED taillight bulbs

[Watazz]

Hey have any of you guys or girls used those 3057 LED bulbs for your taillights. If so were they any brighter. Im doing one of those LED 3rd brake lights off of ebay, and i was gunna black out the taillights and put those LED 3057 bulbs in the back.

[TheGr8Schlotzky]

Re: LED taillight bulbs

I'll keep it simple; NO!

I've tried 7 or 8 styles and price ranges of plug and play LED bulbs, and you don't want any of them in your tail lights, trust me; especially with blackouts. If you want LED tail lights, your best bet is to get the ones on eBay and black them out. That's what I eventually ended up doing, after a failed full LED conversion:

[BallerMaro13]

Re: LED taillight bulbs

schlotzky do you have any experience with the "spyder" type of led taillight bulbs that go into the socket and spread out?? i heard they may be okay to brighten up the tails with blackouts --- i was looking into some since i dont want to change out my '95 style lights for leds to get them brighter.

any insight is mucho appreciated bro.

[Watazz]

Re: LED taillight bulbs

see that sucks. Cause they dont make any LED lights like that for the firebird on ebay. Just the 3rd brake light

[TheGr8Schlotzky]

Re: LED taillight bulbs

Yes, I've tried the "spider" type LEDs. They seemed in theory to be a much better design, having a larger surface area, and using 120* SMTs. They cost me like 60 dollars, but they are literally no better than the 5 dollar ones you can buy on ebay.

I'll also note that the seller was AutoLumination, and they were a PITA to deal with, and only refunded like 60% of the price because I "opened" them, even though they shipped floating around in a post box filled with shredded paper. Absolutely no "packaging" other than the tape on the outside. I recommend no one does business with them.

And yes, unfortunately there is no real option for LEDs on a Firebird other than a custom job, which I will tell you from experience is a whole lot of work, and can be ruined by something as simple as a tiny leak that gets inside and destroys everything.

The only hope I have seen is the police cruisers around here. They appear to have the stock tail lights, but definitely have some type of LED inside. At this time I do not know if it is plug and play, or if they are actually different lights altogether that were styled after the stock ones, but if I find out I'll let you know.

[bigairboarder44]

Re: LED taillight bulbs

i will add that you can buy a brighter incandescent bulb but it's only the slightest bit brighter. instead of 3057, it's 3357. it's not a whole lot more light, but i was looking for any improvement with my blacked out lights. the only downside is a shorter lifespan since it's putting out more lumens than the 3057 bulb.

[IDoVoodoo]

Re: LED taillight bulbs

i've bought many 3157 led bulbs for my firebird tails. the only ones brighter than stock are a couple from v-leds

http://www.v-leds.com/Exterior-LED/B...34413-1-2.html

http://www.v-leds.com/Exterior-LED/B...70633-1-2.html

[BallerMaro13]

Re: LED taillight bulbs

voodoo are you currently running these with your tails blacked out like they are? can you get us some pics?? if they are as decent as what you say---i'm on board.

[TheGr8Schlotzky]

Re: LED taillight bulbs

i've bought many 3157 led bulbs for my firebird tails. the only ones brighter than stock are a couple from v-leds

http://www.v-leds.com/Exterior-LED/B...34413-1-2.html

http://www.v-leds.com/Exterior-LED/B...70633-1-2.html

There isn't a specified output rating of the first one you linked to, but the second one, which given the price and appearance, should be brighter still than the smaller one, is listed as having a luminous output of 210 on it's high setting. Compare that to the roughly 400 lumen that a standard incandescent 3157 bulb puts out, and again they don't sound too hot. One might say that luminous output is a flawed way of measuring the output of LEDs because they are direction and lumens are measured omni directionally, but in this case, using multiple 120* or greater SMT LEDs, this should be a fairly accurate comparison.

I stand by my original statement that there are no plug and play bulbs currently on the market to my knowledge that are as bright or brighter than it's standard incandescent counterpart. Not even close.

[IDoVoodoo]

Re: LED taillight bulbs

no, i don't have a camera right now to get pics.

yes, i've been buying a bunch of different bulbs to find something brighter for my blacked out tails.

both those bulbs are as bright or brighter than the stock bulbs. even better they fill the lense much better. Thinking i was biased, i put the led's on one side and stock bulbs in the other. I had several people look at them and they all chose the led side to be brighter.

The downfall is that they are expensive, but they're the only good led tail lights i've found.

[TheGr8Schlotzky]

Re: LED taillight bulbs

In no way am I trying to put you down, I obviously cannot speak on behalf of those bulbs as I have no direct experience, but given the data, incandescents still have more output.

That does not necessarily, however, mean that they won't or couldn't appear as bright or brighter because they could be more efficient, directing the light to the reflectors and lens better than the omni directional filament bulb.

While I would still like to see comparison pictures for myself, the main thing here is safety. If those are, in fact, highly visible in all lights (as, or more so than incandescent), then they are the first exception I've seen or heard of, and I think that's awesome.

All I'm saying is every bulb I have had experience with should be illegal to be sold as replacements for brake lights, as they are unsafe.

I am a repeat customer of vleds, and most everything I've bought from them was very nice, and the returns are also quick and painless, so it's a great seller to try your luck with. I may pick up a set of those to do some personal tests with and maybe stick them in my DD. I'm glad there is finally a set of plug and play LEDs that are actually SAFE.

[Pewter02Camaro]

Re: LED taillight bulbs

While I do not have smoked covers on any of my lights, I have however replaced all of the bulbs minus headlights with led bulbs from V-leds and they are much brighter in my opinion and my wife and friends all agree with me. Though in the end though it all comes down to personal opinion. They are pricey but i will never have to buy a new bulb ever again.

[Watazz]

Re: LED taillight bulbs

thats a crap ton of doe for one light bulb.

[tcrenegade50]

Re: LED taillight bulbs

I've bought a lot of bulbs from v-leds and they are amazing leds. But I don't have any experience with the brake lights. The thing that is so annoying about leds is that believe it or not, they are brighter, but they are EXTREMELY DIRECTED, hence why they are so great in flashlights. Which is why they are so hard to make light up a large area. But the new flat leds, you see v-leds has on most of their bulbs, are 10x brighter than the standard led and have a 180 degree beam on each diode. So that might really work and knowing v-leds, it does

[FirebirdGT]

Re: LED taillight bulbs

Brightness is an attribute of visual perception in which a source appears to be radiating or reflecting light. In other words, brightness is the perception elicited by the luminance of a visual target. This is a subjective attribute/property of an object being observed.

Lumens DO NOT measure brightness.