stratosurfer Posted April 8, 2014 Report Share Posted April 8, 2014 I am short-timing in an RV while we are building our house. I have been replacing all the 12V incandescent bulbs inside and exterior to the coach with LED's. In this venture I have done some research and found a number of aftermarket companies offering LED retrofit headlight kits for many applications. The only caveat seems that though the LED's put out terrific for a low energy draw, they nonetheless do make heat that will destroy the LED chip quickly if not removed, and the kits have either heat-syncs or even fans. I like the non fan type heat-synch due to simplicity. The non-fanned type however do make the install a little harder and might even preclude an application depending the space immediately behind the headlight reflector. I would think that if we could retrofit to LED headlights that our glide time on battery would be appreciably extended at night with the headlights on. I believe the LED headlight elements draw less than 1/3 the amperage.Anyone done this or reviewing doing it?Mark Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
plus 3 golfer Posted April 8, 2014 Report Share Posted April 8, 2014 (edited) Sounds like a great idea if one does a lot of driving with their headlights on. Yes, I had reviewed the economics of using LED headlights a year or so ago in my C-Max I never could find a kit though. Can you provide links. Have you reviewed the economic benefit? Also, there have been questions about whether one might get a warning message about "Headlight Failure" due to the current draw being significantly less than anticipated. A few simple calculations under several scenarios show that the likely fuel savings might be between $40 - $100 per 100,000 miles of headlight use. I don't know how much your LEDs might run. My guess is that even factoring in one pair of conventional headlight replacements that one will be lucky to break even at 100k miles of driving. I think you will find that "our glide time on battery would be appreciably extended at night with the headlights on" is not the case. Saving 75 Watts over 3 hours might get you one extra mile. You can travel a great distance in 3 hours at 30 mph average and even farther at 60 mph average. So, I think one will be lucky to save 1% of their fuel costs when using their headlights (lower average speed for the same distance traveled saves more fuel). Edited April 9, 2014 by Plus 3 Golfer Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ScubaDadMiami Posted April 9, 2014 Report Share Posted April 9, 2014 If I am not mistaken, I believe that DrDiesel posted that he installed the LED kit for the Focus, and that it worked perfectly. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fbov Posted April 9, 2014 Report Share Posted April 9, 2014 I think that was an HID kit, not LEDs... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ScubaDadMiami Posted April 10, 2014 Report Share Posted April 10, 2014 Now that you mention it, I think it was for HID, not LED. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Adrian_L Posted April 16, 2014 Report Share Posted April 16, 2014 They do make H11 LED replacements. H11 is the size of the 55 watt halogen bulb that the C-Max uses. The only problem is that I guarantee the lumens (that is the brightness or light output) will be much less in an LED replacement. Not so great for headlights. (you can see LED marker lights and brake lights on trucks and vans all over the place). I suspect Ford (and Toyota) have valid reasons for going with halogen. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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