I have a MCS 06 with factory rear fog lamp.

In an attempt to "clear" the entire back-end, I bought...

Clear rear fog lamp.


and

Red 1156 LED bulb.


Now the problem:
After installation, the LED bulb will not light up.

Troubleshooting:
When replaced with the incandescent bulb, it lights up fine.
LED works fine on the work bench but not when powered by the car.

Anyone run into this situation and have advice to get the LED bulb working?

Thanks

 

You have to reverse the polarity (swap the + and - wires). The polarity doesn't matter for incandescents but it does for most LED bulbs.

The connector on the harness that plugs into the bulb holder comes apart and you can swap the positions of the connector pins. There is a C shaped clip that wraps around the center part where the contact pins are. You can remove this clip, then you have access the spring loaded metal part of the pin that holds it in place. When you press down on the catch with a small screwdriver, the pin releases and it can be pulled out of the housing. Do that for both pins and swap their positions. It's difficult to describe without pictures (in fact, if you do this and could post pictures, it will serve as a good reference for others).

Or you can do it the brute force way -- cut the harness wires and splice them back together opposite.

 

Awesome rkw.

I'm getting close to writting up a comprensive guide to clearing out the tail lights, third brake, and fog. Documented will be all the trials and tribulations I went through to achieve said result.

Said all that to say, this step with polarity issue will be included.

Thank you.

 

did it work?

 

Yup, thats what i had to do, even without a LED blub, when i switched from the red housing to a clear housing i had to swap the polarity of the wires to get it to work. It wasnt as bright and i eventually switched back to the red housing but eventually ill find a way to get a LED thats just as bright.

 

Where did you find that bulb? Autoillumination? Let us know how bright it is.

 

x2! If it's really bright I could use that as my back-up bulb... In SuperWhite of course..

 

I'd like to know about that bulb as well... Do they make one like that that can be used to replace the OEM red brake lamps? I like the look of LED in the tails, personally, but was avoiding replacing the stock lights because I wanted something that glowed to the rear AND the sides to light up the reflector - looks like that bulb shines in all directions.

 

Whew! Luckily i came across this thread! I too, faced the same problems when i did my clear lights trasformation. And I almost threw the red LEDs away thinking it was spoilt! What i did was to use the bulbs provided by the clear taillights and carefully removed the bulbs and re-used it on the fogs!

I will head home later to change the wires around.

 

Thanks for the great question/answer! I couldn't tell how to open the clip, so I just sliced em' and switched em' and wrapped them up in layers and layers of electrical tape! Works great!

 

Btw, the ones sold by autolumination sucks. I'm using LED bulbs from this Ebay store.

http://stores.ebay.com/Velocity-LEDs

 

Really? The ones I bought are fantastic. I have this type in my rear lamps...

 

Where did you get the clear fog light?

 

It is actually the back up light for 02-04 MINI, which is part number 63-22-1-477-678. You can order it from your dealer. It seems to have jumped up in price. A year ago it was only $8.80, the latest price I got was $22.50.

 

Photos here at post #5:
https://www.northamericanmotoring.co....php?p=1593034

 

Thanks rkw and matma92er.

I thought the LED bulbs I bought were dead or I accidentally cut a wire in half with the equalizer splicers. Reversed the wires and everything works great!

 

SMD (surface mount display) LED's are brighter than this style (diode LED's). the 1210 SMD LED's are ~ 2X brighter than diode LED's and the 5050 SMD LED's are ~ 5X brighter than the diode LED's. Also the SMD LED's can be packed much denser. I'm using 68 SMD LED's bulbs for my brake lights and a 102 SMD LED bulb for my back up light. I'm also using SMD LED's for my interior lights. This is what they look like. The top is a festoon 16 SMD LED replacement bulb and the bottom is a T10 25 SMD LED replacement bulb.