Gen 3 rear LED indicators

I am considering replacing my rear signal indicators with LED's on my 2014 ES and was hoping to get some clarity.

First will replacement LED's require a resistor or flasher swap on a Gen 3? I wondered about this because the front indicators are LED from the factory.

I would like to confirm that the base is in fact an 1156 base bulb from the factory.

My reason for change is to increase the brightness and reduce power consumption. I have already swapped out the tail/brake bulbs & that achieved an incredible boost in light output. pictured below

I'd be interested in the details on that bulb (ok, not a bulb) shown. Source? Price? Easy switch?

The source is Vizi-Tec. For all the size drama of the OP's picture, here is a size comparison.



The bulbs are plug 'n play, a straight 1:1 swap right after paying $15.75.

The base is a two pin 1157 style contact. The running light draws 100mA and the brake light 550mA so the running wattage of the brake light would be ~7.7 watts ea. This is a hard way to save watts on a Gen II or Gen III.

The odds of the LED being equal to a standard bulb when viewed at an angle is probably pretty low. Note the filament is linear and keyed to only go into the socket one way so the reflector is designed for those optics.

The Gen III signals are flashed by the ECU, there is no longer a flasher relay so I would expect that you would NOT have to do anything to the flasher circuit. Man up and be the guinea pig for the Forum It's only $30 bucks for $6 worth of lights and but it saves 40W every time the brake is activated and an entire 14 watts the rest of the time.

Thanks Ionbeam after all that verbiage no answer to my questions . I will confirm your suspicion that brake/running lights can be replaced with 1157 LED bulb indicated from Vizi-Tec. I have done so and as I indicated they are almost twice as bright than a stock 1157 incandescent bulb in the red version.

I spoke with my dealer today who informed me the rear signals are 1156 bulb base but could not confirm if an LED bulb would require a resistor or not.

https://www.vizi-tec.com/1156-led-bulb-26-powerful-hb-smd-led-tower/ I plan to purchase a couple of these 1156 base yellow version for the rear indicators in hopes of being seen better in day & night conditions.

unfortunately the brake/ running light 1157 base is only available on the wish list & can not be purchased at Vizi-tec for some strange reason however the 1156 is available.

The MCU that does the flashing will probably measure the current draw and may assume the lower current means a broken bulb, in which case it will flash quickly.

If this is the case, there is no sensible way to fix this other than using a shunt resistor to draw nearer the original bulb's current.

Madmudder said:

Thanks Ionbeam after all that verbiage no answer to my questions

. I will confirm your suspicion that brake/running lights can be replaced with 1157 LED bulb indicated from Vizi-Tec. I have done so and as I indicated they are almost twice as bright than a stock 1157 incandescent bulb in the red version. I spoke with my dealer today who informed me the rear signals are 1156 bulb base but could not confirm if an LED bulb would require a resistor or not.

https://www.vizi-tec.com/1156-led-bulb-26-powerful-hb-smd-led-tower/ I plan to purchase a couple of these 1156 base yellow version for the rear indicators in hopes of being seen better in day & night conditions.

unfortunately the brake/ running light 1157 base is only available on the wish list & can not be purchased at Vizi-tec for some strange reason however the 1156 is available.

Click to expand...

More non answers to your post, please feel free not to read my wordy, useless posts that contain no information.

The 1156 is a single filament bulb, the 1157 is a dual filament; the 1156 only works as a signal indicator, the 1157 works as a running light and a signal/brake lamp. The locking nubbins (highly technical term) on the base of the bulbs are keyed so that you can't interchange a 1156 with a 1157.

Brightness doesn't matter if the reflector is not made to focus the light source, such as a linear filament vs a distributed, circular light emitter. Brightness alone isn't an indication that the LED bulb is better unless you read what the LED company says, it's almost like they are trying to sell you something.

Some BMWs that I've ridden do measure filament current, it goes along with a dash warning that tells you that a filament or filaments are open or shorted. Since the FJR doesn't have a lamp failure warning I strongly suspect that the ECU simply is a switch to turn on the signals. Since it is just a switch it shouldn't matter if the load is a filament or LED.

Based on what Tec says in their propaganda ad, I can tell you that the Tec LED bulbs have a built-in current limit so they can be directly plugged into a 12 volt system, no drop resistor needed.

I installed hyperlites. A little more expensive, but mucho better. https://www.hyperlites.com/

Just replacing existing bulbs is a band-aid at best. IMO