What's new

Sidelights to LEDs, back to bulbs!

tbourner

TAF Member
Messages
1,722
Reaction score
12
Location
Havant
Car
Abarth 595
So I changed my sidelights to LEDs, and they looked VERY blue due to the facelift plastics. I tried 3 different types of LED at varying cost, and they all looked blue.

So now I've just gone on to the MTEC bulbs, which are physically very blue in appearance but give a very white light.

38710_1_xlarge-800x600.jpg




So here's the old LED, which was a pretty good quality one, and the MTEC bulb:

10cjiox.jpg
2mxpp8g.jpg


2rxiu6x.jpg
2lcl09e.jpg


Sorry the pics are a bit rubbish, it was raining and not really dark enough to show it very well - didn't want to change the second one in pitch black!



But now my sidelights are the right colour again, which is good, and match the HIDs much better as well:

344xk42.jpg

2q1dtls.jpg
 
Is the first pic (blue) the led? Or mtec

Those are the MTEC bulbs.

The LEDs I had looked like these:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/310407328240#ht_2286wt_1344
 
lol, i ment the first picture of your car, not the picture of your bulb. the first pic of the car is with LEDs?
 
Aha, OK well like I said in the post:

So here's the old LED, which was a pretty good quality one, and the MTEC bulb:

10cjiox.jpg

2mxpp8g.jpg


So first one (blue looking) is the LED, and the second one is the MTEC bulb.
 
I have also changed to MTEC, that together with 5000k Xenon did the trick.
 
Passed my MOT on Tuesday with no advisories, I don't think the LEDs would have as it was noted on my service report that it had blue sidelights!
 
Just search eBay for mtec 501 bulbs, cost about £6 for a pair.
 
+1 for the Mtec's. I bought these on recommendation from Neil. Cheers Neil :)
 
Looks like it's time to replace my sidelights on the gen 7.

I'm going for these:
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/HONDA-ACCORD-ALL-MODELS-94-MTEC-W5W-501-WHITE-BULBS-/400380944010?pt=UK_CarsParts_Vehicles_CarParts_SM&hash=item5d38905e8a
 
Did they look blue because the sidelight lens has blue in it? I've put LEDs in mine and they look blue from some angles, but it's a blue car.

They're not that bright either, apart from when viewed from the front straight on.
 
I believe they did, the frequency of LED white light is different to that of bulb white light, so through a blue tinted lens the bulbs appear white whereas the LEDs appear blue. I don't know why.

Incidentally I tried replacing my rear bulbs with LEDs but through the red plastic lens they weren't very bright at all, I can only guess that again because of the frequency of the light a lot of it was being blocked by the filter (as in; there wasn't enough 'red' in the spectrum coming from the LED as opposed to the bulb).

This could all be nonsense of course it's just what I imagine is happening.
 
I've swapped my sidelight LEDs for MTEC bulbs and they do look better. Not the same colour as the headlights though, so I think some white xenon bulbs will be next.

The LEDs are now in the number plate lights, and they look fine in there.
 
I've been down the ebay LED sidelight route on my civic and they weren't great, but then I got some Cree LED ones and there's a massive difference, both in looks (not too blue) and light projection.

will see if I've got any before and after pics...
 
I've got MTEC sidelight bulbs in, and last night I noticed that one is brighter than the other!
 
I'm swapping mine back to bulbs. One of the taillights failed the other week so I put the original bulb back in, thinking I'd order a replacement LED bulb. But at the weekend I saw the car in the dark with the lights on. The side with the bulb looks much better. The whole light lights up. The side with the LED has a bright red dot in the middle of the light. Can't tell the difference in the daylight.
 
I also installed these MTEC bulbs at the weekend after reading this thread and I have to say they don't match OEM headlights at all. They are very blue and one is also slightly brighter than the other. They might look good if you have blueish HID/XEONS fitted but I'm going to revert back to the standard sidelights for now
 
Left: Standard sidelight bulb. Right: MTEK bulb
http://imgur.com/C7VPhqU
When I first fitted them and took this photo I thought they looked great but it was only when it went dark and I turned on the main beams I seen they didn't match

This image shows the MTEK bulbs on their own at night, you can see they are very blue:
http://imgur.com/1nIAwX0

MTEK bulbs with standard factory fitted headlights turned on. The picture doesn't really show the colour of the lights too well but you can get some sort of an idea
http://imgur.com/sFligJ0
 
With the LEDs on the facelift it was even worse!! It's due to the blue sidelight housing, you need yellow bulbs to get a white light - which is just silly.
 
Top