Back in June of last year, I ordered some WLED 6-LED bulb LEDs from superbrightleds.com to use as my parking lights on the advice of other board members.

I was very happy with them until recently when I realized that both of them now only have 3 LEDs left each (out of 6).

Are any of you experiencing the same problem? I could reorder some (they are not expensive), but the prospect of having to go through that difficult installation process is not one I am looking forward to (since it is not easy for me to lift the car and remove the wheels).

 

I had burn out problems with ALL my led's from both superbrightleds.com & autolumination.com after installing last year (parking lights, interior map ballast-style, reverse lights, etc.). You get what you pay for....decided never again with cheap led's for me. Have PIAA's for parking lights now & have worked perfect for the past 12 months.

 

Ehh... that's why I resorted to making my own. Solder joints go bad over time...

 

Yup, me too. Cheap garbage.

My luxeons i got from Ares are still burning strong after 2 years!

 

I emailed SuperBrightLEDs about my problem and they shipped me two new LED bulbs for free saying there early ones had some issues. I am going to try and replace them this weekend if I canfind the thread that had the great step by step instructions (with pictures).

 

I was reading somewhere that if you turn the wheels to the extreme right or left that you can remove the opposite wheelwell cover and change the lights without too much difficulty... I plan to try it when I put in my LEDs, hopefully tomorrow...

 

Actually, you aree correct. Turning the wheels all the way to the left to do the right light and vice versa worked pretty well although it is a tight fit.

I only had to remove one screw from the inside wheel well. The trick, however, it to bend the black plastic wheel well in the opposite way than its normal curvature. That is what allowed me enough room to put my hand in there.

 

Good to know! Thanks!

 

its not the solder thats going bad. solder might not last forever, but somehow the rest of the solder in the car carries on.

the problem is they overdrive their LEDs to increase output. also, what kind of business plan is it to sell something that essentially could last forever? most people will just say, "eh, it was cheap, just buy them again". which you are saying, you just dont want to keep doing the install(and I cant blame you at all).

Id look into the piaa bulbs. spend the money once and be done with it.

 

I have ares bulbs in my parking lights and they are still working strong after a year.

 

those LED bulbs don't last too long, i've replaced mine 3 times already.

 

They are definitely supposed to last a long time. I bought some LED bulbs off this one vendor on ebay. The front and rear turn signals have lasted over a year. I then bought a different color for the front that had smaller LEDs but more of them. They burned out in a week and I was back to using the original LED's I got from that ebay vendor.

 

Well, the replacement LED bulbs that superbrightleds sent me (under warranty) failed again within a month of installing them.

I guess I will be looking at Ares or PIIA bulbs.

 

Same boat here. It now says on their site under those buls that they are not to be used in headlight housings b/c the heatr will cause them to fail and they will no longer warranty them for that application.

Last time I ordered, I got the 5 LED bulbs with the 1 high flux LED facing forward and 4 radially mounted 3mm LEDs; I like the way they light up the housing alot better than the 6 forward facing LED bulbs. No idea how long they will last, though.

Were's a good place to order the PIAA LED bulbs?

 

Autolumination and SuperBrightLEDs ... here - all of them are crapping out after 50-100 hours of use. The tail lights, the license plate light, the parking light up front, and even the festoon light in the ceiling lights ... I've blown about $100 on LEDs and got about a dollar and hour use out of them!

I've been though four festoon lights between my old Honda and my Z. At first they flicker like a disco and then fail. The turn and parking signals just go. I have some with more than half the LEDs out but oddly enough none of them in the top (hottest) part of the front headlights. The license plate light really ticked me off as the cops can pull me over for that.

Now I have to take the wheels and fenderwells off for a third time - and this time I'm going back to filiment bulbs. Bad product. When I confronted the seller they say that NOBODY else is having a problem. BS.

 

I had the same problem with the ones I ordered from superbrightLED's. I just replaced them with some from http://www.frickinbrite.com/catalog/.
So far, so good.

 

Old thread, but I thought I'd put in my .02. I ended up giving Superbrightleds.com one last try after several sets of 6LED 194 bulbs. I decided to buy a different kind, the WLED 1-LED bulb and they are working fine, you have to plug these in a certain way or they won't light up.

They're not as bright as the 6LED bulbs, but this mod was just for looks anyways. I put these in my parking lights and license plate lights.

 

I originally went with the Superbright 6 LED bulbs for my tag lights; they are very bright...but burned out rather quickly. So, I went ahead and got the 4 LED from PIAA instead. The PIAA's are not as bright, but they are still plenty bright, significantly brighter than OEM and nice and crisp white at night. They seem to be holding up a lot better (so far) than the Superbright LEDs.

This is a comparison between the one good remaining bulb from Superbright and the PIAA bulb.

The PIAA is on the left and the Superbright is on the right. Like I said, the Superbright bulbs were noticably brighter than the PIAAs, and maybe a tint more towards purple/bluish; but in the end I am much happier with the pure white PIAAs.



This is a side by side comparison of the two brands of bulbs. The PIAA has the white base and the Superbright has the clear base. For whatever reason the PIAA seemed to be more 'beefy' than the SB brand.



This is a night shot of the PIAA's on my tag. I had taken a picture of my tag with the SBLED bulbs in, but I can't find it. The one thing I can tell you is that the PIAA is a lot more white then the SBLED brand, but the SBLED brand is overall brighter.

 

I'll order some luxeons from Ares if I can if these 1-LED bulbs don't work out or last long.

Overall, I am NOT impressed with Superwhiteleds bulb products and I think that they're not even work the couple of bucks per bulb. It makes me wonder what resistors they're using in the bulbs. That would perhaps explain why their LEDs themselves seem to work, while the bulbs do not.

 

Hi,
Curious if you tried using a Luxeon LED and how that worked out.

sdl13
2006 35Z Roadster Enthusiast 6MT