notquitesane

I did not select the canbus option and I have no issues with the brake lights. The white LED you orders uses 2538 led chips, so it should be bright. I hope the white will look ok behind the red lens. For the Philips, 50 lumen per LED makes sense, as you mentioned. A regular incandescent 7443 bulb is rated at 440 lumens. I can say that the Philips compared to the stock bulb, look the same. My primary goal was having the instant on/off of an LED. However, I have pre-ordered new LEDs for the front turn signals and rear brakes. They won't arrive stateside till end of June, then I have to wait for insane amounts of time for the postal system to send it to Canada. I recently ordered reverse lights. They originated from Seattle, WA. I am in Edmonton, AB. One would think it would head to Vancouver, BC, then onto Edmonton. So far, my LEDs have gone from Seattle to Los Angeles. Eventually they'll start heading North!!!

I've pretty much replaced all the lights on the outside with LEDs, with the exception of the headlight and foglights. The only bulbs I placed a resistor across was the center brake light. After I put LEDs in there and they were ghosting. I know my license plate lights do it as well but haven't tried to fix it. No DTCs for me yet. I am guessing the flickering was enough of a draw to fool the car into thinking a bulb is there in my case. I hooked up a 1000 ohm resistor to 14.5V at work for an hour. It was cool to the touch since it is low current running through it. I just wanted to make sure I wasn't going to melt anything. I used a 1000 ohm resistor for my center brake lights to prevent the flickering.

So I guess that means it would be a good idea to buy those canbus compatible bulbs for our cars then. I didn't know our cars would throw a code for lights like that.

On my 2015 for the 7443 brake lamp socket is as you described, two grounds on one of the long sides. This is where I bought the Philips Vision LEDs (thought they were xtreme, but they aren't. My reverse lights and signal lights are). I also have the 1157 version for the inner tail lights to match. The Philips are the same brightness as the stock incandescent bulb using only 8 LEDs and consuming 2W of power. They just place the light where the incandescent filament would usually go in order to fully utilize the reflector. http://www.xenondepot.com/7443-LED-Philips-12835B2-Bulb-p/12835b2.htm It is a Canadian company though. It seems they charge in US dollars though. With the 15% discount and $5 shipping, the bulbs come to $30.49. I also saw them listed on Amazon.com for around $24. Usually white leds behind a red lense creates a pinkish colour and is usually dimmer than it should be. The lense filters out all other colours other than red, so you lose most of the light. With a red LED, most of the light passes through the lense as it is the same colour as the lense. I've always bought LEDs the same colour as the lense. Edited regarding pricing at Xenon Depot.

Oh my. It appears they are CK type. I thought they were standard as the Philips Xtreme Vision 7443 LEDs I used work. The bulbs have a + stamped on either side of the bulb base, they light up in park mode and brake mode. I even tested them like standard base LEDs when I got them. The Philips must have some sort of circuitry to detect standard and CK types and adjust accordingly. I appologize. I feel horrible. If you can straighten the wires and remove the base, you can adjust where the wires go to work with the CK type.

I'l take my tail light out at break and see what I can find out.

I have gone a little overboard stuffing LEDs in every nook and cranny that I could in the C-MAX, I couldn't leave the ugly yellowish, dim incandescent bulbs in the vanity mirror in the sun shade. I ordered 28mm LEDs from Diode Dynamics. This is what my old Fusion used and it looked like the C-MAX did too. Little did I know, you can't replace them in the C-MAX. The end caps had to come off. After some struggle, I got the vanity mirror out of the car, pried the mirror out and pried the metal reflector off. I was greeted with some traces and an incandescent bulb held in with metal crimped around it. Two metal strips are bent to touch the contacts on the bulb. I pried the metal strips up and removed the bulb. In the picture, the metal trace on top is the positive feed and the lower one is the ground. It's easy to tell as the positive traces are connected to red wires and the ground connected to blue wires. I trimmed off the ground metal strip and the bit that held the bulb in place. I then squeezed the metal strip for the positive trace so it was tight enough to hold my LED into place. I then heated it up and melted some solder to hold everything in place. I then ran a ground wire to the ground trace. I taped the metal reflector back into place. I could have used epoxy or silicone, but I suppose I was a bit lazy. And there we go... Repeat 3 more times and I now have cool white LEDs in the vanity mirrors. I can now say my car is all LEDs on the interior.

The only thing I can suggest is to make sure the wires on the LEDs are straight. Sometimes they don't line up with the contacts in the socket and do strange things. If you have access to a power supply, verify that your LEDs light up with that. If it does then there is something not contacting correctly in your socket.

Wow. That's a bit of trouble you've been having with those brake lights. The only thing I can think of is they didn't get the pins in the correct spot if it half works one way, and half works when spun 180°. Can you post a link to what you have tried so far?

Well, now I know. A Putco Plasma 921 LED (52mm or 2.05") is a few mm too long for the reverse light. I can snap everything back together, but the end of the LED is pressing on the U shaped plastic piece in the reverse light housing. I was contemplating removing that U shaped bit, but wasn't sure I could fish it out of the housing without damaging something or having to take the housing apart. In the end, I just put the Philips Xtreme Vision 921 bulbs back in. It's bright enough.

you could view your factory window sticker. I don't know if there is one on this website, but I've used the one located here. http://www.fordf150.net/misc/window-sticker.php Just enter your vin to see your window sticker. The trim package should show up there.

I used a flat screwdriver, tried to pry up a tab while putting pressure on the mirror with my other hand. I think if you push closer to the centre of the mirror, the better. Then I tried prying up another tab. Eventually it popped off. I started with the mirror all the way down and towards the car and used the exposed corner. I found, though, that when the mirror popped loose, it got wedged in the housing. I had to tilt the mirror toward a more normal position and was able to remove the glass. I didn't disconnect the wires for the heated mirrors, I lowered the front windows and just let it rest on the window sill. I *may* attempt to do this again, to put in brighter puddle lamps... lol

Madmax, Yeah, I think tying the ground to the body should be fine. That's what I plan on doing when I install a 12V socket for my dashcam. When you pop the panel off in the cargo compartment and see the wiring harness go to the rear tail light, I mounted the resistors to the metal surrounding that opening. I just drilled a hole and used self tapping screws. I hope you can return your current lights and get replacements. I'm always very impatient when it comes to waiting. It's unfortunate that I don't have any good stores that carry suitable LED bulbs for the C-MAX. I have to order everything online. I actually have an order coming for yet another attempt at brighter reverse lights. My co-worker gets my hand-me-downs. He was excited to finally buy my old VLEDS 921 white LED bulbs that I had in my old Fusion for reverse lights. He wanted to finally say all of his lights (besides the headlights and fog lights) were LED. He was so excited to get them home, but at some point between work and home one fell out of his pocket and he lost it. :doh: The other one fell on the floor as he was stepping out of his car in his garage.... *crunch* :doh: He didn't even get to try them in his car! If these new reverse lights I ordered work out, I'll get to sell him the Philips Xtreme Vision 921's I currently have in there. Those Morimoto XB LED 194 bulbs were perfect for the cargo lights. Nice and even lighting. I don't like how the light doesn't use a reflector. You basically lose half the light coming from the bulb. I tried putting metal tape around the light to act as a reflector, but the shape isn't right. Doesn't do much. I'll have to work on it some more.

I didn't need to put resistors on the front. I was lucky enough to get away with having just one installed for the rear lights. The resistors get HOT when you have your blinker on. I wouldn't recommend leaving them in the light housing as it might melt something. It's best to mount them on something metal. Looks like for both connectors on the headlamp, pin 8 is for the turn signal. Pin 7 looks like ground. Test it with a meter and let me know if those are correct.

Optional AWD would be nice for the folks that live in the snowy white north like me. I don't care about the MPG drop if it means easier driving in deep white stuff. I'll most likely be getting snow tires this winter, for the first time ever on any vehicle I've owned. I currently love everything about the C-MAX and hope a hybrid car this size would stick around, but I won't be needed a new one for another 7 years or so.

I have on order Morimoto XB LED t10/194 bulbs from The Retrofit Source. I'm going to try them in my reverse lights to see if they are any brighter than the Philips. They are smaller and lighter, so they should stay put, and seem like they will be really bright. If not, I'll install in the cargo area of the car. I haven't had one fall out yet but if yours are, I think I should put a dab of silicone on mine too.

beat me by a year :rant2: lol

Reverse lights don't stay on that long, so it should stay fairly cool.

My Philips Xtremes didn't click in either but so far they've stayed in place with me opening and closing that hatch at least 6 times a day. I am hoping they stay put. My co-worker put a dab of silicone around the bottom just to hold it in a little better. I lost a 921 in the tail light of my old 2008 Ford Fusion. I had to get a screw driver with tape stuck to the end to fish out the darn bulb that fell into the housing. The vanity mirrors never get used... I just want LEDs in there! lol I have a DOD RX7W+ dashcam that shoots forward and attaches over the rear view mirror. I hate the fact that I lose the auto dimming mirror in the process, but I will be getting the back windows tinted eventually so it won't be so bad. I got one that attaches to the rear view mirror so it blends in a little bit better. Doesn't look like anything out of the ordinary unless you look close. Decided to get one to protect myself in case an accident happens. Recorded quite a few decent 'bad driver' clips but haven't gotten around to posting any of them. Just to create a new project for myself, I might make it so the side markers flash with the turn signals. I did this to my old Fusion, used a solid state relay and a small capacitor and etched my own board. Shouldn't be too hard to do as all the wires I need are right in the headlight. I can never stop tinkering... lol

Well I got them installed, but didn't get any good pictures. Any pictures I took didn't show much of a difference as my car was pointed toward the sun at noon. The C-MAX sure has a funny shaped reflector, makes for the LEDs lighting it up in funny ways. You don't get a nice solid fill of light, like all of the lights in the rear of the car. At any rate, they are brighter than the old LEDs and I'm happy with that. When I get time I will take decent output pictures. All I have left to do is install a dashcam to a switched power source (got the Mini Add-A-Circuit, just have to find the right fuse to tap off of), install an LED for the glove box (since I'll have to remove it in order to run wires for my dashcam) and maybe figure out how to retrofit the vanity lights in the sun visors. I can't figure out how to take the lens cover off to get at the bulb. I tried going in from behind and there is no access to the bulb from there either. I can't have all the interior bulbs LED except the vanity lights. It just seems wrong! lol

No, the resistor to prevent ghosting isn't adding any current draw, it's just bleeding off what is already present. Some LEDs already have resistors built in, so if they do you wouldn't need to add one. You'll have to install your LEDs and then see if you have any flickering when they are supposed to be off. Seems all my Diode Dynamics 194s flicker when they are supposed to be off. I noticed my front sidemarkers were faintly glowing after I locked the car. They eventually turn off. Again, it's not a big enough deal for me to pull them out. The puddle lamps are 194 as well, exactly as pictured above. I've heard you can tilt the mirror up and towards to car and access it in the bottom corner away from your car if you have long needle nose pliers. If you are careful, taking the mirror off is the easiest. They don't give you much slack wire when you are pulling the bulb out. I have the Xtreme Vision 921 LED for my reverse light. They are nice and bright. I don't think it throws any more light behind the car, but they look awesome. I am sorry you are dealing with the dead battery issue. That would be extremely frustrating to deal with. I can only hope that Ford comes up with a solution soon. I received my really bright front turn signal LEDs, I will try to install them at noon. Unfortunately I won't be able to compare to stock bulbs and I left them at home. But I will be able to compare with what I currently have installed. They look like they will be pretty bright!

Hey Madmax98, I took a quick pic of the amber LEDs (well this one was white, but its the same length as the amber one) I used in the mirrors for the turn signal. It's not much longer than a regular incandescent, so make sure what ever LEDs you buy are short.

I would go for a 194 LED bulb that is about the same length as the stock bulb. Anything longer might not fit. I used Diode Dynamics 194 HP5 bulbs here, and they fit. Doesn't look like too much room was left over. In the picture below you can see the little bit of yellow from the base of the LED bulb. The bulb sits at an angle in the mirror. I was careful and was able to pop the glass off, and with LEDs in there, I shouldn't have to do it again. I have read you can try to get the bulb out with long needle nose pliers. Angle the glass so you can go through the top corner of the mirror that is furthest from the car. I'm not sure about the maximum length of the sidemarker light, but I used the same LED in there with no problems.

The C-MAX uses CK sockets, not the standard type. The 3157 bulb is a wedge bulb (push in type), not a screw type bulb. The ones you listed above will fit. Here is a picture of the bulb I pulled out of my front park/turn signal. Edited to correct my incorrect information.

I'm 36.