Recently, a merchant friend of mine sent me a set of LED strip lighting which I installed in the trunk of my '06 MCS cabrio. The peice consists of about 25 5mm blue LEDs which I installed under the boot cover. They're wired directly into the power lead that used to go to the 194 wedge bulb in the trunk (I just snipped the leads and wired the LEDs right into them so I can reverse the install at a later date if desired).

I love the lights - they're so much brighter than the anemic OEM light, but I have a weird issue... When I push in the button that should totally turn off the boot light (simulating when the boot would be closed), the LEDs are still weakly illuminated, almost as if there's some residual current flowing through the boot light power lead.

Is there something about the boot light that the car runs a weak "station keeping" charge through those leads or something, even when the power should be cut by the boot closed switch? In case it matters, I wired positive to the red/yellow wire and the ground to the brown wire and I assume this is OK - the LEDs lit and are polarity protected, so if I flipped the wires they should not light...

Thanks in advance!

 

It seems to be a common phenomenon when using LEDs on MINI. Some people who installed "angel eyes" LED parking lights reported that the LEDs may remain dimly lit or flickering 10 minutes or more after the car is turned off. Their conclusion was that it is harmless and may be safely ignored -- there is residual current in the circuit and it had always been there but it was not enough current to be visible with incandescent bulbs.

 

That's more or less what I figured... I guess I could tape down the switch and walk away for a half hour or so and see if they ever go out. It's quite dim and after a full night, the battery seems fine in the morning... I just was worried about leavng the car at the airport for like 5 days and coming back to a flat battery or something.

Never heard about the issue with the LED angel eyes parking lights. Interesting.

 

What are LED Angel Eyes Parking lights?

 

There's a thread on MINI2 with lots of pictures: http://www.mini2.com/forum/exterior/...ics-added.html

It is sold in the US by Moss: http://mossmini.com/Shop/ViewProduct...eIndexID=52439