12/24v LED rear lights

[Rhinoman]

Rhinoman: yeah, besides being really dim, the cheap LED bulbs also had a dire light pattern. You could just about tell that an indicator was lighting up if you were directly behind the truck, but off to one side and you couldn't really tell.
E marked lamps for the win, cheap ebay bulbs for the bin.

I was following a Golf this morning that had LED rear lights, the indicators were a thin strip under the rear light and were completely invisible when the brake lights were on. Looked OE too!

[Anton]

I'm tempted to put one of those LED bulbs back in for comparison photos to show just how poor they are.

I think it's pretty important that your lights actually light up properly, and I'm not sure why these cheap bulbs aren't banned by now.

At least I would have thought VOSA would've tried to get them pulled from sale, or Trading Standards...

I mean, how many people put them in, haven't tested them for efficacy (like the guy with the Golf) and are running the risk of an accident that was otherwise avoidable?

[Rhinoman]

Are any of those cheap bulbs E marked? the problem with the ones that I've looked at is that there is no light going backwards to hit the reflector. I just looked on VWs site and those LED indicators are standard.

[Anton]

Not from memory, they're just cheap (I assume Chinese) LED clusters made to fit a standard bulb holder. No light goes backwards - a simple diffuser on the front could sort the angle issues for almost nothing - but since they're nowhere near bright enough from directly in front, that'd make them even more worthless...

I don't know what to call them, other than bin fodder. Good job they were really cheap!

I suppose I could jury rig a few of them into some kind of internal/cabin lighting for the SJ? Not sure I can be bothered, but we'll see.