I've been dabbling with LED bulbs for over 10 years now and I think this may be the best real life review and information video I've seen to date. Well done and thank you for taking the time to post it!

Hey man. I'm an electronics engineer whom designed led lighting fixtures. You're totally right. The problem about replacement led bulbs is that the original housing is not designed to dissipate heat so, the LEDs work harder. The heat is an enemy of LEDs. Other than that's these cinese bulbs uses crappy LEDs, so they will color shift and loose loose luminous flux very rapidly with the time. Ok, it costs 1 dollar anyway. A decent led costs one dollar itself. Unfortunate there's no miracle. All these retrofit LEDs suffer from the lack of dissipation by design. Be ready to replace it in a medium therm. Keep the good working. Peace brow.

I bought the same LED bulbs, all I need now is a car.

Thanks for the video, very helpful, very clear voice, no profanity used, subscribed, never ashamed of the Gospel, love it.

Hi dear! I am Prasad 64, from India. Recently through my son, I too process a car. I wanted to replace most of the old generation bulbs in the indian built car. Your video taught me so many interesting things about car lighting. Hope with these fundamentals, I can proceed further. Thanks a lot.

Oh THAT"S how you get those overhead map lights out!! THANK YOU! Been trying to figure it out for years!

I've had similar problems. I replaced them with the newer style 4014/3014 bulbs. I think yours are 3535, these bulbs also have resistors built-in them to avoid hyper flashing or canbus errors. One has to bear in mind that these bulbs are evolving quite rapidly as opposed to the old style tungsten/halogen bulbs which were unchanged for almost a 100 years. Thank you for sharing your findings.

Well... I WAS going to order the LED bulbs to replace my map lights and others in the Nissan Titan until I stumbled upon your post. THANK YOU!!!! I will now order the correct ones for my truck Andrew

Diode Dynamic bulbs are one of the best and have a 3 year warranty. Sylvania 194's are a great product as well.

From Amazon. JDM Astar. Bright. No shorts. Backup lights, cargo lights. 2 years. Love them.

I agree man! I bought a pack of 30 green led (194s) for my 1971 C/20 Chevrolet. About a yr later I started getting a flicker from random LEDs that I installed. I've added a few autometer gauges that offer led upgraded bulb replacements. They were way more expensive, about $15 each. Butt wow, they've lasted twice as long, no issues, no problem or flicker thus far

Solution for the square plugin...take a hobby file, gently taper the plugin end to a slight v, the sides are ellectricaly connected thru the via's on the board (small gold holes) and the tiny bit on the very end won't matter...but will make it 100x easier to insert Thanks for the video and link!!!!

I use those Sylvania 194 bulbs in my conversion van and love them. They have not let me down for the last year and a half and still going strong. They're pricey but looks like a lightbulb rather than a circuit board. I still kept one incandescent in one lamp for warmth. One thing I would never do is modify any of my lampholder to accommodate odd shape bulb. If it don't fit, I don't use them and move on to looking for other options. You would not have had to modify any of your lamps with those Sylvanias.

I been having the sealight for 2 and a half years with no problem at all, live those LED’s

Got some for my plate lights and reverse lights for my '08 Endeavor. Still working great

Especially appreciate that you showed how to remove the map lights, how to reinstall the door courtesy light -- I need an a to z where and how-to on removing interior lights so don't BREAK them!! Thanks for video, informative and very helpful!

We use LED bulbs (the 6 volt versions generally) in pinball machines. We have lots of failures of the LED bulbs due to vibration. Plus some are dead right out of the package. Sometimes, we revert back to incandescent bulbs on some machines because we don't have many problems with incandescents.

Sylvania Zevo leds are amazing I have them for all my outside lights and inside lights on 2 different trucks and have had them installed for several years now

Thanks for sharing your experience. I went with little more expensive ones from a longstanding well reviewed brand. 2 years so far no fit or function issues. Don't cheap out on LEDs of any kind, like you note they aren't all made equal.

The new bulbs you purchased are definitely the way to go... for two important reasons. I had those types with the thin wires as contacts to the socket. What I experienced were dimmed lights after the normal 15 - 30 secs most vehicle allow after exiting the car. Due to the poor connectivity and shielding, any residual current caused the bulbs to remain in.. ever do slightly. The residual current is normal in cars and is not enough to light up factory halogen bulbs. Some suggested using the resistor technique to eliminate dimming, but I first researched different designs. The design that eliminated the dimming, are the ones you switched to. The metal ( or whatever it is) shields the residual current picked up by the little wires of the first led set you showed. The second reason is simple the build, more solid and the thicker base (I found) makes a more secure connection. Bottom line they just seat better than the wiggly older led types. Great video btw 👍

The main issue with a lot of the older bulbs (and some new ones) is that the manufacturer used the cheapest LED's they could get away with. They then overdrive them to make the light brighter than they're rated for. And that's why you get the excess heat and high failure rate. Or if you're lucky the bulb lasts a while, but the heat gradually damages the LED's and changes the color tone a bit

i have used the flatones for 1 year now and i have not been needing to replace one yet and still going strong.

I replace my interior dome light with an LED a year or so ago, and, man, has it made a big difference! I work out of my car and often need to flip it on at night (while parked, of course). The brighter, whiter light helps a ton. It's like the Sun shining in through a hole in the roof, good stuff. My next step is to replace the anemic reverse lights (or maybe wire up a light bar, instead).

I use lasfit led bulbs. They use the same flat blade bulb for the 168/194 bulbs. Very bright and have been working for close to a year now without problems. Little pricey but very well made. Good video.

They look great with black or gray interiors, but I changed back to regular bulbs in my light tan leather Grand Cherokee. They made my tan interior look like crap at night. I've also had many of them fail in my other two cars, but regular 194s failed sometimes too

I've done a few teardowns of these cheap LED bulbs, and more often than not I always find the same common problem with them: small 1/4-watt resistors that become scaldingly hot the moment 12 volts are pumped through them. These basically act as heating coils that slowly roast the LED chips to death.

I used seriusLED flat 194 on amazon. I like them because you don’t have to trim anywhere to fit the bulbs. And they fit in the license plate

Another factor is your vehicle's circuitry. Even though Amazon said an led bulb would replace the interior bulbs on my Tacoma, which it did, it didn't work at all. I found out that certain year Tacomas have a different resistance value in the interior light circuitry. A fix was to install certain value resistors in the circuit which I chose not to do. I installed some battery powered led puck lights with Command strips and now my interior is very brightly lit.

JDM Astar works, super bright. got some amber leds for my turn signals on my 2001 Chevy Suburban C1500

Have you seen the "RGB 194" versions of these bulbs, quite a bit longer than the original but would fit in the door perfectly. As the name suggests these can have their colour changed by remote, and even better be made to flash (saves last mode after power off) good as a safety flasher when doors get opened.

Thank you for the heads up on these led bulbs !! They'll fit 4 of my vehicles 👍👍 and for all your vids you post !!

Silvania led bulbs work pretty well and the quality is great, I’ve had the cool white and super bright versions and their the same size as the originals, I’ve had them for 2 years now on my 01 Chevy Silverado

Jimmy you DO have your priorities in order my friend. Enjoy the videos.

Ideally, the LED should align exactly with the filament of the conventional bulb so the light is properly focused by the reflector. I noticed the bottom LEDs put all their light through the holes of the reflector. Maybe you could have had more light.

I use LED Tops. They seem good, as I have had them in all my Ram truck lights for a year. The interior courtesy lights are awesome, with a remote for about 20 different colors.

I have sealight headlights and they have lasted very well so far (6 mos) What I really like about them is that haveva really heavy duty heat sink, and its a passive system, so no moving parts, or fans to fail. So far I'm very happy with them

Great Comparison! I'd like to install in the gauge cluster, but still need the ability to use the dimmer as well, so they aren't Eye Piercing bright. Did you by chance do a test to see how they do while using the dimmer function of the light switch?

Loved the way your presentation ended great video thank you. Jack

I’ve got 10 of the “newer” board style 194’s spread over three vehicles, none have failed. For backup/tail/turn signals, the brand Luyed has been great. I’ve also got one pair of SeaLight LED headlight bulbs in our Ford Ranger; again, no problems. The maker of this video is correct, there’s a ton of cheap junk out there; guess I just got lucky with Luyed & SeaLight. I can’t overstate how great the change is with new LED interior lights, literally like night & day. Cheers, safe motoring.

I did my 92 suburban and after only 2 or 3 months one headlight was out on low beam. So much for buying the cheapest ones I could find. Now I have to start all over again. They are not the easiest to get to, not like the 2001 yukon. Thanks for the info on better led's.

I've had these Sealight 194 bulbs installed in my 2005 Chevy Malibu Maxx for over a year now and I can safely say that they are a huge upgrade from the other 194 LEDs you've shown. One of my favorite differences - the Sealight bulbs don't care about polarity! The crappier 194 LEDs need to be installed with the proper polarity otherwise they won't light up - the extra circuitry that's visible between the contacts takes care of the polarity preference that LEDs have on their own. Very, very useful feature when installing a large number of bulbs - nothing is worse than plugging them in, reinstalling your trim, then realizing you've got the polarity wrong! The Sealight LEDs are the closest things I've seen to direct replacement for 194 incandescents on the market thus far. Great summary video!

Had issues with all the eBay unknown brand LEDs that I’ve bought. Switched to Osram and Philips T10 LEDs for a little more money and they’ve been solid. I also thought the color on these branded ones were more visually pleasing as they are close to, if not actually, neutral white (not too cool and not too warm).

I bought a pack of 18 Auxbeam 194 bulbs that are made like these. Been using them for parking and tag lamps. Six months, still work great, and I have plenty of spares. Was 12 bucks on Amazon.

Thanks Jimmy for being up front honest about your video. What you do know is that the bulbs you tried in the past didn't work so you are trying something different. Also you are asking for feedback on a subject that isn't covered. You have started a conversation, that needed to be started. I read many of the comments and they vary from very helpful to sarcastic. I like a person that has the courage to ask for help, so I subscribed.

Thanks Jimmy! Going to have to check some of those LEDs out.

The first LED you showed looked like a 912/921 bulb rather than a 194. They both have the same base, but a larger filament end more commonly used as a back-up bulb.

I've had sealight bulbs in my old Toyota Camry. They worked awesome! I also bought led headlights from the same company and havent had any issues so far. Hope everything goes as good with you as it did for me

Great presentation. Problems I have are a much newer car like my 2012 Mini Cooper has a computer that does not like the LED's. So, everytime I crank the Mini it will give me the warning sound and bulb light on the console. I can live with that. So far, 4 months later none of the bulbs have failed. At night I can light up the interior, change the ambient color and it is bright enough to have a disco party!! LOL!!

1 Road - Appreciate the video! Have you by chance run across any "warm light" LED upgrade options, in the same "wafer" thin design seen in the video? Not really into the super bright blue-ish LED's currently saturating the market, especially for interior lighting. Actually, someone really needs to come out with a interior LED map light upgrade that can cycle between "warm white" and "red Light"!! Rather surprised no one has done this yet...

I switched all of my 99 Jeep Cherokee interiors bulbs to LED last year and still no issues. Just nice and bright and easy to find stuff at night. I also did the reverse lights and license plate light. I did do the brake lights and turn signals but had to switch them back as one was causing flicker. I'm fine just having the reverse lights as LED's making visibility great. I have the One Way Light brand from Amazon.

I went with a 15 piece kit from eBay for $10. Only negative was that it took 1 month. Still strong after a year in and out of storage

Love your videos man, i still have yorkims from your first led video. They all still work just fine, did them shortly after your video, with the modifications needed to make them fit.... keep them vidoes coming man!

Best part of the video, last 4 seconds. 😎

Smooth! On to something that really matters in life...yes I was listening,watching...cool brother..amen.

One MUST be sure the (LED) light source lands in the same place the incandescent filament would be . To short or long and engineered focus will scatter the light instead of the designed collimation . Good layman's video , Thanks.

Enjoy your vids I have an 05 suburban that I’m trying to keep running and looking good. Going to try these LEDs

One thing to note about LEDs, they are diodes. They behave different electrically than an incandescent bulb. If you expect the LED to dim from a controller, they may behave very differently than the original incandescent bulb. If the original bulb has one brightness-level (for example, function is just an "on/off" -type of light), you will have no problems with a good quality LED mentioned below or in the video. Dimming of LEDs can be a major concern for retrofits... It just depends on the dimming circuit.

Panasonic led bulbs come with a 12 year warranty and have never let me down once!

Good video I like how you point out the flaws and changes that have occurred. One thing I've noticed in the specs more, having aluminum vs composite pcb board along with the aluminum shell. As mentioned you still want to see how it's built/designed as much as possible as you can't always trust reviews. The led itself getting a led by cree vs epistar 5050, 2528 etc.. is often not the concern rather the board it's built on and the other components. If you find quality ones then it's down to a few +&- with the led's are they on the top, sides and lumes of each. For example the ones coming out of the reading lamps. they had leds on the ends and sides direct and reflected light. Where as the replacements were on the sides and only bounce off the reflectors. Which in this case looks more normal in say a backup light you may want ones on the ends in addition.

A lot of practical information but not a whole lot of technical information. Thank you for sharing

I've had the LED get so hot that the solder joints liquified and the LEDs fell off. I was using them in camper lights

I've used JDM's for 3 years now. NEVER had an issue with them.

One idea I have is to make my own LED lights. Starting with the inside lights and aux lights with the common LEDs you can find, then moving on to signal lights if I can find brighter leds.

Yeah I've had good luck with led but i can see how they would get to hot in that plastic under the sun in the dash. But now those new ones i think will work fine and i am going to try them. Thanks for the link

Sylvania osram and Philippines make some of the best when it comes to OE led replacements

I gotta say, I like the LED's in the dash, but I still prefer the warmer light of the old incandescent bulbs. LEDs in the cabin feel like the fluorescent lighting in Office Space ...lol.

I purchased these on Amazon for my Corvette so far they work and fit well.

I love car videos, and I’ve been watching a lot of yours lately, but the ending just makes me want to watch even more. 🙌🏼

"Something that really matters". You are so right.

Well.. A free advice. If you want some really quality led bulbs, then look for those who have voltage stabilizer. They usually came with load resistors to match the original consumption of the original bulb that you are about to replace. So... you end up with a really good light and with good led bulbs that will last a decade.

LED bulbs also attract less bugs, flies, insects. Keep up your excellent research and reporting. I definitely like the white light. The white light is much brighter and looks more like natural sunlight. God Bless, Prost

Going to take your advice and I ordered some. Thanks for your information. I also have been having issues with the LED's I have bought in the past and not lasting long or not fitting.

I'd probably stick with the classic incandescent until they get some out with a warmer color temperature. The ones in this example are still too blue. (Technically they should be available, but what's on the shelves varies still.)

What about all the smaller backlighting bulbs that illuminate gauges, switches, and the radio? In my 06 Silverado, my headlights auto on more than I’d like due to probably a slightly faulty light sensor, but anyways the buttons on the radio get so so hot from those incandescent bulbs. Is there an led option for those?

Nice video, For interior i make my own bulbs, works longer then 6 years already, but I always have the problem with tail led bulbs they never bright enough for my car

Love the ending of this Video ✝️

2 problems with LEDs. 1. They are over driven which in return blow the IC or blow the led. 2. Lead free solder. Lead free solder cannot take vibration which causes the solder joints to crack.

Lasfit bulbs have worked phenomenal for me I have them on my ram for a little over a year on a projector headlight conversion and man I’ve had no issues looking to upgrade my interior lights from them.

VLEDS seem to keep working. One of the most important aspects of an LED bulb is the position of the LEDs. If those don't match the same position as OEM incandescent bulb filament, you'll have issues getting good reflections and will have dark spots and also could have light reflecting in directions not desired.

Phillips led bulbs are so nice and last long time

I’e also had no issue with Phillips/Sylvanias

You need an led with built-in microprocessor to regulate the voltage to maintain something between 12v-18v. Corrects many of the heat and failure issues.

I have changed my interior and daylight bulbs with those color changing led's. At nighttime its sometimes pleasant to have red light in the car for reading.

Oh yeah, my car also feels much newer now for sure!

I have an 01' tahoe. I put leds in brake lights when I put it on the road. Then I discovered this was why the cruise didn't work. It needed to see resistance in brake light circuit.

Jim, I converted almost all of my lights to led, my dash stars to flicker, is the similar bulb with black one you showed in the vid, 4:47. This is great lesson! I really need to know what make and style is really good and lasts long time. I have 99 GMC Suburban k1500 and 98 Chevy Blazer ls. Most are already converted to LED.

Diode dynamics are the only ones I use and trust. Used them on the license plate , cargo , 3rd brake light, and interior on my 15 Ram . 5 years running strong.

Get Zevo LEDs. Great quality and lifetime warranty. Those are made by Osram. Plug and play application, just like replacing a incandescent bulb.

What I often notice with LED bulbs is that the LED series resistors are chosen too small - so get the LED's a higher current and burn through it sometime faster. I am a hobby electronics technician since I was 7 years old. But I've been a trained electronics technician for energy and building technology for 15 years. I've soldered together an LED bulb for the interior lighting of my car myself. I have deliberately calculated the series resistors for operation at 15V because the on-board voltage can quickly rise to around 14V with the engine running. This self-made replacement bulb has been in the car for almost 10 years without any breakdowns. On the board there are 16 LEDs, which are interconnected in 4 rows. Each series circuit also has its own series resistor. The power consumption is about 1W. The power loss on the resistors is so low (0,013W) that they heat up only slightly. But what you can do against destroyed bulbs: Connect a varistor directly parallel to the battery to prevent voltage spikes. Because I also had problems with often failed low-beam lights. Since I've installed the varistor, the bulbs last almost 2 years and longer. I also had a car hi-fi system built in with two 1F capacitors. The power amp was a Mac Audio ZX4500 Black Edition with 4x125W / 2x300W RMS at 4 ohms. The power amp was able to pull up to 900W from the electrical system. 3x 25A fuses in the power amp itself and a 80A ANL fuse on the battery. The alternator was designed for a load current up to 120A. The sound pressure was a few years ago when measured on a dB-drag event in the "Bass race" at 138dB. That was definitely more than enough. I've installed two JBL GT 4-12 Woofers (250W RMS each) in one sealed Box, but separated to each other (2 Chambers) to drive them in stereo. The other 2 Channels were used for two PA-Tweeters with a Power handling of 250W RMS each. I choose the sealed Box because of the relatively linear Frequency response before it goes down. And depending on JBL's schematics and technical data only in the sealed Box the Woofers can be driven at their full RMS Power of 250W without overheating. Actually i use this selfmade-Box at Home in my 7.2Ch Home-Cinema System. I had paid attention to crystal clear and possible distortion-free audio output. Without the Capacitors the lights are slightly flickering, with the capacitors nothing flickers. It was an Opel Astra G-CC from 2003. Despite the additional installations, everything worked flawlessly.

I have a Chevrolet 2003 suburban and I replaced all of the lights to led but the LEDs I installed I built to my liking so they are very bright and they look great.

I'm gonna try them on my '99 'Burban. My wife uses the map light a lot, and would appreciate the brightest whiter light. I do have some backlighting bulbs out, will have to check them out.

Bless you man! I love Jesus!

I changed to LEDs the first week I got my new car, back in 2011. And back then, there wasn't so much of a variety of LED equivalents to chose from. So I did my own thing and made custom LED lights for all the interior housings, using LED tape. Cut to length pieces, stick 'em on a piece of cardboard, small wires for the connections, and 2019......all my interior lights still work perfect, no heating issues, and they turn on and off thousands of times whenever I open and close the doors. Just passed the 100.000 mile mark, and nothing to worry about. It's an Idea I can safely recomend. Although, it requires a bit more involvement to it, and soldering and all.......but I think the end result is worth it. You have interiour lights that literally never burn. Problem solved!

I like the LEDs from the brand Auxito. I've bought a variety of their different bulbs for different applications and after more than a year, I have yet to see one go bad. Overall excellent quality and price

lol my headlights in my Prius are made by sealight. I got to tell you for me the headlight quality is top-notch. I have the fanless version. they are bright and have been installed for about 2yrs problem free!

Sylvania zevo. Pricey, little less light. I have ones going for years

cool i may buy some oh wait Amazon don't ship to Australia!

I'm gonna try some LED's. My '97 Ranger needs replacement bulbs in the instrument cluster. It's a bit of work to get the cluster out, so I plan to replace all 6 instrument backlights. I'm assuming the dimmer switch will still allow me to adjust the brightness for comfortable driving at night. Navy ships use red lights and blackout curtains at exterior hatches to adjust your eyes for night vision. I am wondering if the brighter interior lights will affect my night vision?

Nice video thanks for taking the time to shear! It was very helpful!

You should have went to Precision LED or JDM ASTAR. Both have complete sets of Interior Bulbs for both of your SUVs . My interior lights are 3 years old ..... No problems at all . Exterior all good .