I've replaced the festoon lights in the overhead with six LED festoon bulbs and have had the second one fail in a month. I just swapped them out two months ago. It appears that the combination of the Southern California heat and a black car is causing the LED's to over heat and die. It often reaches 140 degrees or hotter inside the car on a normally sunny day.

When they fail the LED's start flickering at a rapid pace flashing on and off. The car looks like a 1980's disco

Bummer.

 

Hmmm...is overheating a known problem with led's? You'd think cars with led taillights like caddy's, g-35's etc. would have a problem also. Just think how hot they get if you park them where the tails are getting direct sun on a hot sunny summer afternoon.

You sure it's not an overload(power) problem frying them? Maybe wire a resistor inline with them to drop the voltage some. Could also be quality problems using low quality(low power) led's.

Good luck.

 

I thought quality problems but autolumination says I'm the only one having problems. My Honda has a set of 4 LED festoons (the Z's hand me down) and it sits outside all day long and hasn't had the same problem but they use different LEDs.

Bummed.

 

heh since Ive purchased the "bad" bulbs from a unnamed but major LED website. I can say you are not alone; as there were quite a selection of bad bulbs to purchase.

bottom line? they are made like crap. cold solder joints everywhere. and the LEDs are often over driven to give them some extra umph.