With my mind made up to order the Phillips red LED bulbs for the rear parking/brake lamps, I went ahead and placed my order with Rakuten, and then a few days later:
First thing I did was to measure the width to ensure it would fit.
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Then it was off to the garage to install on the car.
So after installing, the increase in brightness was immediately apparent. I was definitely going to switch to these!
You can see that the left lamp, which is the standard incandescent, looks a bit dimmer, and a bit more reddish, than the the brighter LED on the right lamp. Although - is it my imagination - the LED side actually appears more orange than red??
Here are some videos to demonstrate the difference between the LED bulbs (on the left) vs the incandescent bulbs (on the right).
First, brake lights only - note how the LED on the left lights up a few milliseconds before the standard incandescent bulb on the right.
More interesting actually is how the right side lamp "fades out" - which I actually think is very cool! (Should I keep the standard incandescent bulb??)
But, with the brake lamps coming on a few milliseconds faster, that means a quicker reaction by the car behind me, thus resulting in a lowered chance of being rear ended, right?
Second, the parking lights only. Again see how the LEDs light up faster.
Third, the parking lights on - then braking - so this is how it would look like running at night.
Putting aside the coolness factor of the standard bulb fading out, and of course the safety factor due to the LEDs coming on more quickly - I noticed upon close inspection that the "fins" of the LED bulbs were causing shadows.
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| Because I wasn't sure if this was going to work, given the cost (around 6000 yen), I only ordered one box containing one pair. If this works, I will order another pair. |
First thing I did was to measure the width to ensure it would fit.
Then it was off to the garage to install on the car.
So after installing, the increase in brightness was immediately apparent. I was definitely going to switch to these!
 |
| Right side has the LED bulb. |
Here are some videos to demonstrate the difference between the LED bulbs (on the left) vs the incandescent bulbs (on the right).
First, brake lights only - note how the LED on the left lights up a few milliseconds before the standard incandescent bulb on the right.
More interesting actually is how the right side lamp "fades out" - which I actually think is very cool! (Should I keep the standard incandescent bulb??)
But, with the brake lamps coming on a few milliseconds faster, that means a quicker reaction by the car behind me, thus resulting in a lowered chance of being rear ended, right?
 |
| At 100km/h, the car behind will react 0.3 seconds slower, for a 9 meter difference, if you brake with incandescent bulbs compared to the LED bulbs (because your car will have moved 9 meters between your stepping on the brake pedal and the rear lamps lighting up) |
Third, the parking lights on - then braking - so this is how it would look like running at night.
Putting aside the coolness factor of the standard bulb fading out, and of course the safety factor due to the LEDs coming on more quickly - I noticed upon close inspection that the "fins" of the LED bulbs were causing shadows.
 |
| With LEDs |
 |
| Without LEDs |
As you can see above, it looks like the standard incandescent bulb side also has some vertical lines but they are not as obvious as the LED side... what to do...love the brightness but not so sure about these lines... (and yeah the orangish color bothers me a bit too...)