After reading a lot of folks' experiences here, I put off trying the LED conversion until I had a laptop set up to run NCS Expert. But, perhaps I won't have to.

I've used units from Autolumination previously (motorcycle, M coupe), with mostly reasonable results. I've also bought and rejected a variety of 1156 LEDs from other vendors (almost always worse), so I decided to give a couple of their 5W "Cree Eagle Eye" units a shot (see http://autolumination.com/1156_1157.htm).

I'm happy to report that these seem to draw enough current that, when used in the rear turn and brake sockets on my R55, no additional load resistors are required to avoid the 'bulb out' warning. I did test with no bulb installed, and got the expected result. They also fit without any modification (thankyou, Mini... my Dremel gets the night off).

I used the 'spot' version, and they seem to work well. They are also significantly (subjectively, at least) brighter than the bulbs they replace.

 

Holy smokes, didn't know there are so many choices available!

BTW: what year MINI you try these on?

 

This was on a R55 built 11/11 (so I guess a 2012 model).

 

I have a full LED turnsignal bulb conversion on mine, my friend ordered the bulbs, which are shaped like bulbs, lol. The fronts are as bright and clean as stock, and can be seen over my xenons which is good! The rears are clean and brighter, thinking of doing the brake lights next. Sidemarkers are perfectly aimed also!

 

Sweet! I going to check these out. Thanks DrZ!

 

A brief update:

- Watch out for the front turn bulbs; they are 7507s, not 1136s. I now have two spare amber LEDs...

- The brake lights worked without the bulb check warning while parked, but after driving off the warning triggered, so I'm guessing that there's something more subtle going on there and coding will, sadly, be required.

 

The brakelight warning and the turnsignal warning look the same. (it is also the eyelid warning and the plate light too). How do you know which one it is? Sounds like you made several changes at once. I made that mistake a couple of years ago.

Do your turnsignals flash correctly or do you get three quick flashes and then normal flashing? Also when you turn on your signals does that clear the warning? That made me think I had a turn signal fault for years but if you have an eyelid error you can clear it by using the turn signals. The computer is not very straight forward when it comes to the non critical bulbouts.

 

I know it was the brake light warning because I'd driven the car with the turn signal bulbs replaced with the LEDs previously without the warning triggering.

Subsequently, I've hooked up NCS Expert and discovered what others seem to have as well - the 2012 vehicles ship with a number of the bulb warnings disabled by default.

I'm sorry for getting folks' hopes up. 8(

 

Hey, you got your turn signals to work! I'm impressed. Hold your head high!

 

Has anyone put together a which one goes where conversion chart/list?