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Debating on swapping interior lights for SMD LED's...

8K views 17 replies 13 participants last post by  The X Men 
#1 ·
#2 ·
What is the advantage?

I've seen some of these blue/white interior lighting kits. Seems like a cool color like that would clash with the orange dash colors and ambient lighting.
 
#7 ·
I agree with this. BMW has really done an amazing job with the ambient lighting and this mod would mess it up in my opinion.
 
#3 ·
#14 ·
I would like to see some pictures of how this looks.

Personally I think it would be better of these were not blue/white but a warm white to blend better with the ambient lighting.
 
#4 ·
$225 for 10 bulbs is nuts.

$225 is a ridiculous amount of money for 10 LED's. There are 15 bulbs in the interior and trunk. 6 on the ceiling, 4 under the doors, 2 for the footwells, 1 in the glove box and 2 in the trunk. I didn't do the lights over the visor mirrors.

www.superbrightleds.com

6 ceiling lights WLED-x6 $2.79ea
4 doors, 2 footwells, 1 glovebox, 1 trunk lid WLED-xHP6-AC $4.95ea
1 trunk 4210-xHP6 $14.95ea

That comes out to $71.29 for 15 bulbs, not 10.

Hope this helps. :thumbup:
 
#5 ·
True. However I've had inconsistent results with superbrightleds.com over the years. My last project had several bulbs fail or have color variances that were distracting enough for me to pull them out.

That's a lot of bulbs, though.
 
#8 ·
I replaced all the interior lights except for the overheads on my wife's X5 with LED's. One thing to be careful aware of - lights that stay on for a long time will get hot (really hot) and possible melt off the little circuit board. I had this happen on the lights that come on when the tailgate is open. Since the tailgate has the potential to stay open much longer than a door when taking in groceries or whatever I just put the stock lights back in.
 
#16 ·
Wait...now I am confused, are you saying the LEDs are getting hot when stay on longer??
The biggest reason I am considering replacing stock bulbs with LEDs is the heat and power consumption. I was under impression that LEDs do not get hot and consume much less power (no battery draining), am I wrong here?

Anyone is who is using BMW LED interior package, are they getting hot?
 
#10 ·
I don't see how the ambient lighting and having LED interior lights have anything to do with one another...its not like you are cruising around with the interior lights on and the ambient lights on at the same time. Most of the time when the interior lighting turns on the car is off or just being started and maybe a brief moment the two different kinds of lights are on. Just my thoughts.
 
#17 ·
LEDs do not get hot!!!!!

Hello. See this thread:
http://www.bimmerfest.com/forums/showthread.php?t=629844&highlight=led

I similarly replaced all my interior bulbs with LEDs on my 550i GT. I didn't use the bulbs in the OEM package, but instead bought T10/194 LED bulbs off eBay. The total cost was a whole lot less than what the OEM LED package is selling for.

With LEDs, the bulbs will never, ever get as hot as a OEM bulb. Just the nature of LEDs. The LED bulbs also fade to off just as the standard bulb does. This project is a DIY and should take less than 45 minutes or so. I vaguely remember, but total replacement of the interior was 17 or 18 bulbs. Again, I have a GT.

In the footwell, I installed T10/194 LED strips as these provide much more light than a regular LED bulb.

See the thread above. Has pics too! Later in the thread, there should be a pic of the actual LED bulb installed.

And I totally agree with jason60050, the (orange'ish) ambient lighting is such a separate entity from the interior lights that switching out to LED would not "clash". For example, the interior lights are only on when a door is open or when the switch is manually turned on. The ambient lights are only primarily during driving. So unless you are driving around with your interior lights on, which is rare, there aren't many instances when both sets of lights are on at the same time. Hope that makes sense!

Good luck!
 
#18 ·
Personally, I find the 5000k or 6000k LED too glaring for interior lighting, it looks cool years ago when LEDs were far and few in behind. Now a day, everybody had LED and it is no longer any special. The 3000K LED would be a bit more soothing to the eye, but then what is the point of changing to LED, the energy saved is not enough to justify it.
 
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