LED failures

J

Jman136

:
2021 Acura RDX
Yikes! I keep reading about all of these LED failures. Why are they so expensive to replace? Im guessing theyre much more expensive than HIDs?

I am wondering if I should purchase an extended warranty on my 17 GT now?! Is this a 17 problem as well?

What are the signs of a LED going bad? Ugh, guess Ill be calling the dealer to see what an extended warranty would cost.

Thanks guys!
 
Also, it would probabaly help if you could actually turn them off so theyre not on during the day time too!
 
Jman136 said:
Also, it would probabaly help if you could actually turn them off so theyre not on during the day time too!
Click to expand...

I have a 2017, and I had my dealer turn them off. There's a tricky, borderline stupid procedure that must be followed, and I believe there's a posting elsewhere on this forum containing a PDF that outlines the procedure. I could do it myself, but the dealer offered to do it at no charge, so I had them do it.
 
Jman136 said:
Yikes! I keep reading about all of these LED failures. Why are they so expensive to replace? Im guessing theyre much more expensive than HIDs?

I am wondering if I should purchase an extended warranty on my 17 GT now?! Is this a 17 problem as well?

What are the signs of a LED going bad? Ugh, guess Ill be calling the dealer to see what an extended warranty would cost.

Thanks guys!
Click to expand...
Firstly the design of 2017 CX-5 LED headlights is different from 2016's, hence the longevity of the LED can be different. LED lights should last very long but I suspect Mazda or Stanley screwed up something in design (such as bad heat dissipation) or parts selection which requires 5 addition revisions on LED headlight assembly in short 2 years of production run. 2017 LED headlights are too new at this time to find out if it'd be like 2016's reliability wise. We can only wait and see.

Secondly, the price for whole LED headlight assembly is high and has to be replaced as a whole unit. HID is a thing of past and the whole assembly can be expensive too. But we can replace HID parts separately which makes the repair much cheaper. Hopefully for 2017 LED headlight Mazds has learned the lesson and the internal parts in LED headlight unit can be available for replacement like HID, which should bring down the repair cost dramatically.

Thirdly, there're two different kind of frequent failures on 2016 LED headlights but one is cosmetic where most owners can live with it if there's no warranty to cover the replacement.

Fourthly, LED DRLs are not mandatory in the US so even if they fail, we can leave them along if the replacement cost is too high. But LED headlights are totally different story and we need them for nighttime driving. That's why I always urge 2017 CX-5 owners at least calling Customer Experience Center of Mazda North American Operations to express your major concerns on LED headlights which are always on as part of DRLs. We don't want sacrifice the lifespan of LED headlights for unnecessary DRL function.

Fifthly, there's no warning sigh before the LED failure. It either starts flickering or dim suddenly, in my case both LED DRLs were simply died suddenly within 3 days.
 
SweetPete said:
I have a 2017, and I had my dealer turn them off. There's a tricky, borderline stupid procedure that must be followed, and I believe there's a posting elsewhere on this forum containing a PDF that outlines the procedure. I could do it myself, but the dealer offered to do it at no charge, so I had them do it.
Click to expand...
I did save the pdf file with procedure on how to turn off the DRL function including LED headlights in my phone at the time. Unfortunately the screen of my iPhone suddly died and I can't communicate with my iPhone to retrieve any data out of it. I'm going to Apple Store tonight and see what they can do. In the mean time any suggestions getting the data out in this case would be appreciated.

Now I really miss the Apple CarPlay capability as if our CX-5 has that feature, I can simply utilize the infortainment screen as the interface to communicate with my iPhone getting the data out!
 
yrwei52 said:
Now I really miss the Apple CarPlay capability as if our CX-5 has that feature, I can simply utilize the infortainment screen as the interface to communicate with my iPhone getting the data out!
Click to expand...

So instead of it being the iPhone's fault it's Mazda's?? Really???????
 
brillo54 said:
So instead of it being the iPhone's fault it's Mazda's?? Really???????
Click to expand...
No, I'm saying I didn't care that much having ACP feature in a vehicle before. Now I can see a major benefit of it if anyone has the same situation like me. With additional screen interface, ACP should easily resolve my issue getting the data out from my iPhone with a bad screen.
 
yrwei52 said:
No, I'm saying I didn't care that much having ACP feature in a vehicle before. Now I can see a major benefit of it if anyone has the same situation like me. With additional screen interface, ACP should easily resolve my issue getting the data out from my iPhone with a bad screen.
Click to expand...

So would having a desktop PC connected to your phone. Right?
 
Kaps said:
So would having a desktop PC connected to your phone. Right?
Click to expand...
The problem for me is this iPhone has never paired with my PC at home and using iTune or other softwares backing up the data needs an acknowledgement input from the phone. Since the screen on my iPhone for human interface is dead, I can't reply the request sent by PC. Of course my iPhone has to be paired with ACP on infotainment system once before in order to make automatic ACP connection with my iPhone in my situation. Then I can use my laptop and iTune backing up the data in the car while using ACP capable infotainment screen to respond acknowledgement request from my laptop to my iPhone. This means the ACP connection to my phone has to be wireless with BT, as I need lone USB connection on iPhone to my laptop via a cable.
 
yrwei52 said:
I did save the pdf file with procedure on how to turn off the DRL function including LED headlights in my phone at the time. Unfortunately the screen of my iPhone suddly died and I can't communicate with my iPhone to retrieve any data out of it. I'm going to Apple Store tonight and see what they can do. In the mean time any suggestions getting the data out in this case would be appreciated.

Now I really miss the Apple CarPlay capability as if our CX-5 has that feature, I can simply utilize the infortainment screen as the interface to communicate with my iPhone getting the data out!
Click to expand...
Is this the file:
527847dde9533ee284148c4c246937a3.jpg
 
So, do you all just drive around with your lights on? How big of a process is it for the dealership to turn off your lights?

Anyway, I am not sure what to do at this point with having them shut off, etc.
 
Jman136 said:
So, do you all just drive around with your lights on? How big of a process is it for the dealership to turn off your lights?

Anyway, I am not sure what to do at this point with having them shut off, etc.
Click to expand...
If I had a 2017 CX-5, I'd call Customer Experience Center of MNAO to express the concerns based on many failures on 2016's. Then I'd turn off the DRL function based on the instructions from that pdf file which is legit from Mazda, although I personally would prefer to keep LED Signature accent strips as DRLs without headlights. We'll eventually find out how reliable these new LED lights would be, but at least I don't use them all the time to save their service life. Let others who don't care much to test the longevity out.
 
Last edited:
Jman136 said:
So, do you all just drive around with your lights on? How big of a process is it for the dealership to turn off your lights?

Anyway, I am not sure what to do at this point with having them shut off, etc.
Click to expand...

I believe it took the senior tech about 20 mins (numerous tries) to get it right :) Which is why I had him do it for me (for free).
 
The process to turn off your lights is less than 30 seconds. It takes some practice but I've turned mine on and off multiple times. I leave them off since I don't like driving with headlights on during the day I'd have DRL in general. So far I haven't head of any 2017 models going bad but it's probably too early to say. I'm not too worried about it tho it'll be covered under warranty and I got the extended warranty too.
 
On a side note, I just realized today that the 17 GT has dual pane windows. Can PDR be done with these type of windows? I faintly recall hearing a PDR tech saying that these type of windows shatter pretty easy if there is any pressure put on them.

Does anyone know?
 
I have my DRLs/LED headlights on per the stock setting. If they fail, I want them to fail while the vehicle is still withing the warranty period. Mine's been in service for 4 months and I only have 2200 miles so not a whole lot of hours on the system. Winter is approaching which means MORE hours with the full power LED headlights active.

Wife's 2010 Camry Hybrid has LED tail/stop and have been flawless for 7 years and 125,000 miles.
 
my LED DRLs failed at 22000 miles (drivers side LED) and 32000 miles (passenger side LED) on my 2016 CX-5, both replaced under warranty. i left my DRLs on Auto. to be clear, the LED headlamps themselves never failed, only the DRLs.
 
jcpharm said:
my LED DRLs failed at 22000 miles (drivers side LED) and 32000 miles (passenger side LED) on my 2016 CX-5, both replaced under warranty. i left my DRLs on Auto. to be clear, the LED headlamps themselves never failed, only the DRLs.
Click to expand...
Ooh interesting. I have a 2016 too and it's at 23.5k miles. Both DRLs are still working so far and I also leave them on the Auto setting.
 
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