Smoked LED tail lights

[Ricky Bobby]

HEY OP!


Do me a favor and start your car and tell me if you notice a "flashing/strobing" effect from the LED tails on startup.


My mother-in-law asked me the other day if I had strobes on my tails because she apparently saw a flashing sequence from the rear when I started my car. Interested to know if anyone else experiences this, I started my car last night to get dinner and could see the "flashing/strobing" happening when I started the car.


I have Cesar's capacitors and no errors at the moment (although I did get a random error one day a couple weeks ago), and the lights are working fine with no flickering.

[SlickGT1]

Originally Posted by Ricky Bobby

HEY OP!


Do me a favor and start your car and tell me if you notice a "flashing/strobing" effect from the LED tails on startup.


My mother-in-law asked me the other day if I had strobes on my tails because she apparently saw a flashing sequence from the rear when I started my car. Interested to know if anyone else experiences this, I started my car last night to get dinner and could see the "flashing/strobing" happening when I started the car.


I have Cesar's capacitors and no errors at the moment (although I did get a random error one day a couple weeks ago), and the lights are working fine with no flickering.

Ricky, got the LEDs in my licence plate lights. When the engine cranks, they flicker, no matter if the lights are on or off. But once the car is running, they are off, or on depending if the lights are on. My light switch is always in the off position when starting. I like to work my lights myself.

[Ricky Bobby]

Originally Posted by SlickGT1

Ricky, got the LEDs in my licence plate lights. When the engine cranks, they flicker, no matter if the lights are on or off. But once the car is running, they are off, or on depending if the lights are on. My light switch is always in the off position when starting. I like to work my lights myself.

Got LEDs in my license lights as well, and they work when the car is running!

I leave my lights on off (never use auto feature) so when the car cranks and starts all my lights are off, and there is no flickering.

However, when the car first started up (after cranking) the other day, the lights almost did a "startup flashing" sequence in the back, at least from the tails. I don't know if the LED's had the same flashing sequence. I will check again later to see if it does it every time I start the car, I'm guessing it's a stupid "cold diagnostic check" that I only notice now that I have LED's in the rear.

[JonK]

I did my LED for 05. Got clear chrome from zomkspeed, I think. They look gangster I regret a bit. Anywho, the ebay seller said it would work for model 04 & up. It did. However. it has light flickering issues which is hard to notice.
I got 4 capacitors from ebay like 2$ each from ebay with same specs. Capacitors are capacitors, folks. Didn't solder them in yet. I will keep you posted when it is done.

I also had to do LED Tail upgrade on E46 by necessities. They are horrible regulating voltage, they all burn out causing weird inconsistent problem. Kudos for BMW...

[Ricky Bobby]

Not talking at all about flickering while running.


Almost a strobing/flashing sequence just after start of the vehicle, then completely normal operation after.

Maybe it's something we all have and just live with and don't notice, because who really looks at the back of their truck when they are starting it?

[JonK]

Originally Posted by Ricky Bobby

Almost a strobing/flashing sequence just after start of the vehicle, then completely normal operation after.

Maybe it's something we all have and just live with and don't notice, because who really looks at the back of their truck when they are starting it?

Eloquently put. That's what I am having... Thanks.

[Ricky Bobby]

Originally Posted by JonK

Eloquently put. That's what I am having... Thanks.

If you are having what I have then I don't think the capacitors fix it because I have those installed. The capacitors fix the "flickering" while the lights are on, aka the difference in voltage from the lights. search youtube and you will see, the flickering while running is different from the "strobing at startup"

[weekend camper]

Got the set in. $210 to my door was the best I could do on fleabay. Choose the clear/black combo as the others available didn't do it for me.

Had expected far more problems, but thanks to posts like this one, had only minor trouble. The main lights slid in just fine, but the pass tailgate one has one screw hole off kilter just enough to not line up at all.

Have running flickering in one side (!?) the pass parking lights. Interestingly, that was also the only light that needed the solder fix. Have a cap ready to go on today. Will remove the red "fog" bulbs when I reshuffle the setup.

Overall very impressed.

[JonK]

Originally Posted by weekend camper

Got the set in. $210 to my door was the best I could do on fleabay. Choose the clear/black combo as the others available didn't do it for me.
Overall very impressed.

I got the same one last year. I got one for 2005 X5. Supposedly slightly different electrical scheme with adaptive brake light?
Works fine mostly but I could see slight flickering, need to try to put on capacitors I got from eBay.

[wrex]

Hey there -

Does anyone know if the ebay seller "zomkspeed" is still around. My tail lights are looking faded and I want to upgrade them to LED, but have had bad experiences with ebay sellers. The seller mentioned above seems to be legit as numerous forum members have bought from him with good end results. Do you think I should go for the smoked or clear LED's? My truck is Estoril Blue w/Dark grey style 87's.

Thanks