I've been looking into replacing the brake light bulbs and the Turn signal bulbs (Both front and back actually) with LED bulbs. Just bought my 2013 Red Fit Sport a month ago, so im kind of a newb. Lol
I don't want to spend a TON of money but I definitly want to get something that is as bright as the stock bulbs, or brighter.
PLEASE let me know some brands of bulbs or places you have bought lights from that have been good!
THANKS IN ADVANCE!

 

Get the brightest ones from Superbrightleds.com. They're not cheap ($25) but they are as bright as OEM. Most of the ones on ebay are much dimmer. The ones that are bright enough also cost a lot, like $25 again. You get what you pay for.

 

Is that $25 a pair? Or 25 per bulb?

 

25 each.

45HP-LED 16mm Wedge Base 7443 Tower bulb | LED Brake Light, Turn Light and Tail Light Bulbs | LED Car Bulbs | Super Bright LEDs

Look at the Lumens rating. This one is 220. Many other sellers don't even mention lumens, so you have no idea how bright they are.

 

The best PnP LEDs on the market are v3 tritons by vleds.

Ambers are 80 a pair and switchbacks are 100 a pair. The ambers output 430 lumens, white is 600 lumens. Control box/load resistors are included to prevent hyper flash. These are definitely brighter than stock as you can see below.

Here they are on my fit.

 

Those look great! But there a little out of my price range
Are those Axis tail lights Conner55? Where did you get them & how much?

 

They might be a bit high priced. But remember when it comes to LEDs you get what you paid for.

My thinking is this: if I try and cheap out on LEDs, I'm just going to end up disappointed and want to buy something else. I figured I would just skip all that and go straight for something that's tried and tested. There are tons of YouTube videos comparing these to other LEDs and stock bulbs. These are by far the brightest of anything else out there. They use the same LEDs that the new dodge ram front led turn signals use.

Not only that, but they come with lifetime warranty in case anything does go wrong. And this company does actually honor claims as I've read online.

Yes those are axis taillights, the drivers side one in the video has a v3 switchback in the "reverse" light housing, while the other side is the stock axis turn signal. I got them off TW panson as part of a group buy. 280 bucks.

 

I see your point.
So do the axis tails not come with LEDs in them already?

 

Great info, had a question.
which did you order from vleds.com for the tail lights? I don't like how dim the stocks appear. their site is not easy to maneuver.

 

They do, but the problem is that the turn signal portion tends to be really weak as you can tell from the video. In direct sunlight, most drivers around won't even notice them so I needed to boost them.

There are other led taillights out there for the fit, but I don't know if they're any brighter and I also like the design of the Axis lights a lot better.

 

These are what I got, but with the cheaper control box and with a sale promotion. Btw their 6000k is actually 5000k so I got the "6000ks"

6K WHITE AMBER SWITCHBACK V3 TRITON LED SYSTEM | 1 PAIR

 

thank you!

and the red tail/brake lights? I appreciate it.

 

I assume you're using them in the stock lamps right? If so it's better to use a white bulb for the brakes. The reds only have 210 lumens for some reason. White is 600 lumens.

6K WHITE V3 TRITON LED SYSTEM | 1 PAIR

 

Those amber signals look good at night!

Car's looking good, Connor!

 

Thanks man! Still a work in progress though

I love seeing the reflection off signs at night from them.

 

The reds have lower output because there is a red filter that filters out the rest of the spectrum. The red portion should be equally (or almost) as bright. The Superbright red tails are 220 lumen in red. You can put in a "brighter" white bulb and let the lens filter it to red, or you can start with red leds and the lens won't filter anything since it's already red. Either way you'll have similar output (based on the quoted specs from both companies).

Think of it this way: you need Red, Green and Blue to make white. If you filter out the green and blue, you're down to 1/3 of the light output. 1/3 of 600 is 200 lumens, right near the 210 they quote for the reds.

I have no doubt the V3's are excellent. In the case of these taillights, I don't see that you gain much for the extra you pay above the Superbrights.

 

Interesting points, that makes a lot of sense actually.

In terms of raw lumen output you are right, but remember that there are still optics to consider, which are actually just as important (if not more important).

The housings we are installing these led bulbs into were optimized for filament based lighting, which naturally spreads light out in every direction almost completely evenly and seamlessly.

Most drop in LEDs try to mimic this by placing 30 LEDs or more and facing them in a bunch of directions. But the best you'll get is a "spotty" looking light source with this method. That is because LEDs naturally tend to be directional in terms of light output (as opposed to very spread out like the filament bulb).

I'll be honest, I did not look at the link you posted so I'm not saying that's how the superbrights work. But it is how the vast majority of drop in led bulbs work.


Now the v3 tritons on the other hand use 3 high power philips luxeon rebel LEDs that are in a triangle formation and pointing into a single point. Their light is focused into a lens which then spreads out all the light very evenly. There is no patchiness, as it is one solid light source which very closely resembles the spread out nature of filament bulbs.

This makes better use of the available lumens for the housing that the bulb is situated in. Not to mention that the less LEDs there are, the less chance there is of having issues with individual LEDs.

 

Yes, that is how the Superbrights are built - a bunch of small led's in a cylinder arrangement, with some on the end as well. They're still "standard" led drop-in's, but some of the best and brightest available in that configuration.

There is no way this arrangement could work for headlights, where you need light projected a long distance in one single direction. For taillights, what you want is visible light in all directions. For that purpose, having a slightly bigger light source hardly affects the dispersion at all.

It's hard to see in the videos since it gets washed out, but do the V3's put light out in all directions or mainly forward (backward in taillights?). Not criticizing, just want to know more.

 

Oh yeah, any PNP led on the market today is purely for signal usage. There are some LED headlights around, but they are not yet worth retrofitting.


The v3 bulb puts out light in every direction just like a filament bulb does. There is not forward facing hotspot. It's not about the size of the light source, it's about the nature of it. The "regular" led bulb is okay at spreading light, but the v3 do it just as well as a filament bulb.

I will take closer videos of the rears and fronts when I get the chance.

I'll take them out to show you what I mean too. But if you wanna see some cool videos now, YouTube "v3 triton vs" it wins in every video. Not just head on, but in off angles and in sunlight/dark.