Beware of aftermarket LED bulbs

So I decided to "upgrade" my interior light bulb to LED. While vacuuming the interior the LED overheated and smoke was coming out from behind the instrument cluster. I quickly shut off the interior light switch avoiding a fire. Now I have no interior lights, radio or high beams. I definitely burned something important up. I took a quick look at the fuses but couldn't see any problem. Sometimes you're better off to just live with what you have. I bought the LED bulbs from Amazon. They are Combriller brand. They have a heat sink on the back of the LED. DO NOT BUY.

 

No pics?

 

Sorry to hear that, hopefully no serious damage occurred. A previous owner had installed some COB LED bulbs throughout the interior of my 2004 VW. They flickered at times, did not illuminate well and gave off a cold, uninviting white. I promptly switched them back to factory incandescent, which give off a nice warm glow.

My 2007 Tacoma has always had incandescent lighting and has never burned a single interior bulb or fuse. I will never use LED bulbs of any type in any of my cars, unless they are equipped from the factory.

 

Thanks for sharing the info. Please post a pic here and Amazon review of the damaged with proof. It will really help anyone buying. That is serious. They have to be careful on the circuits and have quality control. Imagine someone buying same ones from a company website who sell at higher price..!!

 

Yeah at least I can live without high beams, interior lights and radio while I trace down the problem. I think the LED became a dead short after it burned out. Kind of weird it didn't just blow a fuse. I'll post on here when I find out what melted. I'm going to check everything in the fuse boxes and then take the dash apart if need be since that's where the smoke seemed to be coming from. Stay tuned.

 

If a 12v LED needs a heat sink...something ain't engineered right.

One thing people don't look at with these bulbs are the power requirements. The bulbs TOYOTA uses are often rated for 14v and have differing power rates. LED bulbs that draw LESS power and can handle up to 14v should work fine, but you can't just buy whatever, you have to know the ratings required. Some of the "Super Bright" LEDs draw MORE current than the old bulbs. This is a recipe for disaster.

I agree, it sounds like the bulb dead shorted, something an incandescent won't ever do and something no circuit designer would probably design protection for. I am surprised a wire or junction burnt up before a fuse blew. I think you need to check all your fuse ratings and make sure they are correct. Many an inexperienced youth has decided that a higher rated fuse is the solution to an electrical issue and wonders why their car burnt to the ground.

I just swapped my dash bulbs back from LED, they gave weird problems. Every bulb is new from TOYOTA and everything works as god intended. No idea why they were so flaky, I checked their electrical requirements and they were within what Toyota has for ratings. I'm going to chalk it up to cheap Chinesium.

 

Yeah I totally agree. Chinese junk. I was just trying to brighten up the lighting a little. I think what caused the issue was the extended time that the LED was on while I was vacuuming. Still that should not have happened. I'm hoping that my worst case scenario is replacing the gauge cluster. If I have to deal with melted wires and plugs that won't be fun. I do have a schematic that shows which wires for the dome light and high beams plug into the cluster housing. I will double check the fuses to make sure they are correctly rated. I wonder where I would get new harness plugs if mine are melted? Junk yard? Anyway thanks for your input.

 

If I read the schematic right, I'm kind of thinking it may be the "Combination Meter" which is in the gauge cluster. Radio and high beams route into that for the illumination.

I'd pull the gauge cluster and look for damage.

 

Yeah that's my plan. I found a remanufactured cluster on Ebay for $249. They'll even program it to your specific mileage. Hopefully it won't get to that point. It might be a few days before I can take things apart. I watched a video on YouTube about how to take everything apart. Looks pretty easy. At least I can still drive my rig. Things could have been worse. Thanks bud.

 

I haven't seen any without heat sink. Including the ones people "think" that is not from China.

 

Hold up what actually started to smoke? The LED itself or something else?

 

Smoke was coming from behind the dash cluster. The LED had some burns on three of the LED panels. Apparently a dead short caused all that energy to travel to the dash. Not sure why the fuses didn't blow.

 

You. Are. Right.
Actually the ones without heat sinks are the dubious ones, as aluminum costs money. That heat needs to dissipate somehow. Don’t buy the ones without heat sinks.

 

Correct. Toyota has different wattage ratings throughout the dash, instrument cluster, etc. Even bulbs that have the same dimensions and plug style will vary. That tells me things are not interchangeable and will defer to the electrical engineers at Toyota. They know what they are doing.

 

Your local Toyota parts department can look up and order connectors, plugs, terminals, etc., if they are still available from Toyota. Other options, like you suggested are wrecking yards or ebay.

 

LEDs shouldn't be making heat to start with. That's what I really meant.

12v LED's that are making that much heat, don't make any sense to me. Their whole point is that they should be hugely LESS power consuming than incandescent lights and therefore far less heat. I'm pretty sure somebody made a cheap ass circuit and everyone just goes with it.

 

There was a thread on the forum somewhere about on of these shorts, specifically from an led installed in the door, that ended taking out a body control module computer thing.

 

Ok thanks. I'll search for that thread.

 

I started changing out light on my truck to help lessen the load on the battery. I didn't buy ant cheap chinese ones or anything sourced from here in Los Angeles (via China). I have started with the 2 interior dome lights using Philips LED and just changed out the reverse and brake lights as well. I plan on doing the front turn signals next. The only one that will stay Halogen are the headlights. I had the interior ones now for about a year with no issue.

 

I'm no electrical engineer, but does it make a difference if they were intended for a CANBUS system (like Wranglers) instead of the computer in these rigs that run electronics? I wouldn't think so but it is something to confirm.

 

I'm not sure what caused the failure. They were cheap Chinese lights from Amazon. I do still have that same brand installed as LED reverse lights. No problem with them so far but they don't see extended run time either.

 

Did some reading becasue I was curious. I'd pull all of the bulbs and replace them with non CAN Bus bulbs. Resistance is different in regular LED vs Can Bus. Your packaging above shows what you bought to be for Can Bus (like Jeeps).

https://www.superbrightleds.com/blog/can-bus-led-bulbs/

 

Wow. Thanks for the info. I'll be pulling the reverse lights as they are Can Bus also. Once again thanks.