Interior LED Swap & Review

I thought it may be helpful to summarize my findings of the past month or so experimenting with converting my interior lighting to LED, since I had a lot of initial questions, and didn't find a source with a lot of consolidated info. I have made several orders with both www.superbrightleds.com and www.autolumination.com, and experimented with a lot of different types of bulb to see what I liked best, and which ones I'd want to keep in my car. I'll try to take and add photos over the next few days, but it is hard to do justice, so a lot of this will be my opinion and verbal comparisons.

First of all, let me say that both companies were great to deal with, and I was happy with shipping, and with their products. I would note to those shipping to Canada, don't use the UPS option from Superbright, as customs/duty and brokerage fees really killed me. My second order from them used the slower regular mail but didn't cost me as much when it showed up. I had my order from Autolumination shipped to a friend in the US who was coming up, so I can't say how they would have been to ship here.

Let's just go in order through the car and I'll babble on about what I found...

Overhead Console Lights:

These are the ones people are probably most interested in, so I'll start with them. My first order was from Superbright, and I tried the following:

I started with the standard WLED bulb

I used white in the front, and red in the rear. The white weren't really bright enough for reading maps, etc. in medium darkness, and they gave off less light than the stock bulbs. The red in the rear were also dimmer than the stock bulbs, but they were OK for accent lighting and getting rear passengers in. I decided I would have to swap the fronts out, and leave the rear in for now.

Next I tried the WLEDx4 bulbs

(just the white ones in the front) These were brighter, and provided probably something similar to the level of light you get from the stock bulbs, if a little bit dimmer, however the colour was much nicer and whiter.

I also got one WLEDx5 bulb

(again, white in the front) This one wasn't bad, but I decided that with the reflector type housing, a straight-ahead type bulb looked the cleanest, and gave the best distribution of light with a nice cutoff.

Then I tried the T13x6 bulbs

(also only white in the front) Another step up in brightness, these were quite good. Nice even white light, and it was brighter than the stock bulbs. These worked very well.

The last one I tried from here was the WLED-WHP bulb

This one was my favourite of the bunch. Very bright, very good, even distribution, and the colour was a little bit nicer, more pink/blue (very slightly) than the other LEDs which looked a bit yellowish in comparison. It's hard to explain the very slight difference, but skin tones looked better under the WHP, and if I held my hands up one under each, the others looked almost a little sickly in comparison. i guess it was a little more vibrant. I really love how this bulb looks in the overheads.

Next, I had some from Autolumination which I popped in to compare to my current champ. The first one I tried was their 4-Star SMT

(still in the fronts, in super white) These had good light output, and a nice even dispersal, on par with the other high power LEDs, but the colour wasn't as nice (IMO) as the WHP, so I kept testing. For the record, this is what is in my overheads now, and in the pics below (I only had a single WHP, but a pair of these).

Next I tried the SuperStar (w heatsink)

(in fronts, super white) These were very similar to the 4-stars, in brightness and in colour. They're very nice, but not quite right compared to the WHP. They would be a great one to use, depending on your colour preference. These are currently in my doors.

In fact, I am using the Super Star in red for my rear overhead lights

and they are MUCH brighter than the original single LEDs I had in. these will stay here until I get tired of having red.

Door Lights:

I tried all of the above combinations in the doors as well, and they all looked pretty good. All gave a nicer light than the stock halogen bulbs, but you will want to use one of the brighter bulbs to get more output through the covers. I thought maybe the x5 bulbs would have a wider dispersal and provide more light in general, but they really weren't all that different. I think ideally in these, I'd just match them to whatever you are using in the overheads to be consistent.[/i]

Vanity Mirror Lights:

The vanities use Type 74 bulbs, which come in a few different versions. First I tried the 74-xHP

I thought the high power would work well, but it was a bit too bright and just caused glare when you tried to use the mirror.

Next I went with the standard 74-x bulbs

These worked better, and were a little easier on the eyes. There is a big difference in colour between these and the stock, and although I'll keep these LEDs in for colour consistency, the stock bulbs really do work better in this location. They don't have as much glare, and the softer light makes it a lot easier to see yourself in the mirror.

Trunk Lights:

The trunk also uses a single Type 74 bulb, which doesn't put out a lot of light. I tried a few different bulbs here, including the above two, and I'm currently using the High Power one, which really isn't enough.

I should have tried the 74WHP3 for a boost


But in the end, I ordered two of these from Autolumination

I'll post details when I get around to doing the install, but I am just going to tap into the stock wiring and run all three.

Here are a few pics of my results. Sorry some of them are a little blurry, I didn't have a tripod, and as much as I hate blurry pics I wanted to get some done.











Here is a link to my Exterior LED Review

once again great write up! I replace mine with the WLEDx5 bulb, i did the whole interior in the black light. It looks pretty cool especially when someone is in it! Not the brightest bulbs ( but of course black light never is ) but still looks cool. Ill post pics soon!

Thanks again speed6 dude. Wow, you did the whole interior in black!!? You HAVE to post pictures of that. I got one little bulb to test, and it looked cool, but was hell on the eyes when trying to read maps or something.

Gonna finish the install... pics tomorrow!

i'm resurrecting an old post...

Hey OJ Bartley, in one of the pictures up there it looks like you have lighting coming from above the pedals, or is it just reflecting from the overhead lights? If you or anyone has done this, i want to know how

yes, would love to see the pics and what he thinks

Why haven't these been stickied?

I found both the interior lighting write up and the exterior to be EXTREMELY helpful. (as lighting isn't one of my automotive strong suits) I am just wondering why a moderator hasn't made both of them a sticky yet. I think both quality and reliability of the information is well up to par.

TXSpeed6: That's just reflecting from the rear overhead lights. It was unintentional, but a nice effect.

Atreyu3388: Thanks, and I'm glad you found them so helpful! I went into the project knowing next to nothing, but I thought I'd post what I learned to save some time/money for anyone else doing lighting if possible.

I have a question, I know this is old, but I used the 74-x lights for my vanity mirrors and kept blowing a fuse, I was not able to get anything but the stocks to work, any idea why>?

also I used the T13x6 bulbs for the interior, but i had to widen the area for the bulbs to fit in. Did you run into the same issue?

MPG, I've had the single, normal (not high power) type 74 LEDs in my vanity mirrors for months now with no problems. Unless something was causing a short, or possibly if you're trying the high power ones, I have no idea! Maybe double check all the leads and connections?

As for my interior bulbs, I didn't have to modify anything. All the ones I tried fit just right. The only place I ran into trouble was when I wanted to try the x5 LED in the DRLs, so I just skipped it and went straight to the Tower II.

The one thing funny about mine is that my front passenger overhead light will flicker when the door is open, or it will receive about 1/4 power. All the others work fine, and it works fine when I use the switch and it lights up full power. This happened with 3 different LEDs, all of which performed normally in the other side. I am thinking there's a bad connection in there somewhere, I just haven't had time to track it down.

Just a another warning T13-x6 Wedge Base LED bulb from super bright will not fit the dome lights.

So I can safely assume the doors use the same lights as the overheads ?

Yep, but be careful with the overhead lights because of the angle and small opening they will only take certain bulbs. The doors you can put pretty much anything you want into them. And i've ordered a bunch more to test, ordered them from ebay, way cheaper and free shipping.

I did all my interior dome lights and door lights with the SuperbrightLED.com WLED red bulbs, and I love it. They're a little dimmer than I wanted, so maybe I will swap them out for the red SUPERSTAR bulbs.

For the trunk light, even changing the bulb doesn't make a difference, it just plain sucks. I wired in a 28" LED strip. Soooooooooppppaaa bright!