LED taillight bulb

Has anyone replace tail lights bulbs with led bulbs? And where did you get them?

I can't answer the 1st question but the 2nd one i can, look under the ford parts link, every thing i bought from them was reasonable and i was happy with the results

thanks Dix

I tried them and the ones I had didn't work well. The red lens on our vans isn't set up for LED. We have rings on the inside and the led bulbs I tried needed to have bubbles to help reflect the light out. The 1157 bulb was brighter then the led. These are the ones I tried. I'm sure there are different kinds out there. But to me these ones are a FAIL with factory lens.

You may also need a ballast resistor for the flasher to work correctly.

Usually they have a resistor built in.
I just got some nice glass tails with the blue gem in the middle.
Looking forward to getting those in!

Udo, if you don't mind, please post pics once you get them installed. I was looking at those and would love to know how they work out for you. Thank you!

Yeah for sure man.
I am hoping to rewire it this weekend with the new 20 circuit harness I bought so those will get wired too for testing.
Will try and take a few pics for you.

Cheers
Chris

One more thing about the bulbs I tried...They were exact replacement bulbs for the 1157 bulb. They had the center LED's for signal and brake light.The outer ring of LED's were for running light. I'm sure they would have worked great had they been used with the proper lenses. But I think buying a complete light with housing, bulb and lens is the way to go. That will be my upgrade next time I look at lighting.

I don't remember where I got them from, but I've been using the same red LED 1157 replacement tail light bulbs for about 6 years now with the stock tail light lenses. The only modification to the van was replacing the flasher with an electronic one. People are always asking me what kind of bulbs I have because they are so bright.

EconoCarl wrote:I don't remember where I got them from, but I've been using the same red LED 1157 replacement tail light bulbs for about 6 years now with the stock tail light lenses. The only modification to the van was replacing the flasher with an electronic one. People are always asking me what kind of bulbs I have because they are so bright.

I was looking at the red ones. I'm glad to hear those work good. I was told to use a resistor on each light and a electronic flasher.

The "white" LEDs do not put out much red light, and our lenses block everything but the red light. Get the "red" LEDs, which put out red light, which passes right through our red lenses.

A resistor defeats the energy-savings of the LED. Get an electronic flasher.