I have tried out a number of 194/168 LEDs and hope this helps someone. You can get all these style of LEDs/bulbs from many different sources; I am just listing where I got mine. Note that my camera phone is not great at capturing the brightness and colors of these. You'll have to trust my words over my pictures!




WHITE:

The first is the standard inverted lens filament LED.
This is the least bright of them, but very cheap. It is a little bluish, but I would still call it white. It is not very good at illuminating an area, rather it is more of a spot of light, especially from the side. I bought a bunch of these years ago, a few failed here and there eventually, but they are very reliable overall, and you can't beat the price.

In my corner bumper light



The next is an SMD led. It is the WLED-WHP from superbrightleds.com
These are extremely bright, especially for their size. They are a very pure white at first, but start to get slightly more yellow after a minute or so, but still very white overall. The website warns not to use them in headlamp housings because the heat will cause LED failure. One of them remained as bright as the first day I put it in. After maybe 10 uses, the other became very dim, but still worked.

The bright one in use (looks better in person)

The one that dimmed


Next is a "high power super white" (as on the ebay ad) or "highpower 12v" (as on the back of the packaging) from USHD Motorsports on ebay, also an SMD LED.
I bought this because it has an attached heat-sink, which I thought may prevent heat failure like the one above.
It seemed very bright and white for a second, and then it blew my fuse.


And then there's the 6 LED one from USHD Motorsports. It is 6 filament LEDs together. This unit is very bright and white. It is whiter than the WLED-WHP, and certainly looks brighter from straight on, but I am not sure if it is actually a brighter unit. From the side, it is a little less illuminating than the WLED. I do not know how long these last, but I have a feeling they will be more reliable than the the WLED-WHPs. I was surprised because I've heard these suck as far as output, but I have absolutely no complaints.

In use




AMBER:

The amber 6 LED from USHD Motorsports is very bright, and a very deep amber. It looks fantastic. Like the white 6 LED unit, it is not fully illuminating from the side, but it is so bright and has such a great color, that I'm not sure I care. It looks exactly the same as the 6LED from USHD, only the base is red, not white.

In use

In person, all that whiteness that you see in the picture is actually amber. I guess it was too bright for my phone to capture it. And I notice that it looks a bit red instead of amber here. It is just a very deep amber.


Finally, we have the Xtec "Amber Chrome" standard bulbs, which I bought from eurosportgarage on ebay. They are not LEDs, but I wanted to compare them with the amber LEDs.
They are a lighter amber color than the 6LED, like there is a bit more yellow to them, but they are still a good amber color. If I had not seen the 6LED amber unit, I would have been pleased with them.
They are not as bright, nor as deep an amber as the 6LED unit. They are not as illuminating overall as the 6 LED, so the difference in a spot-light effect from the side is basically nonexistant.

In use

Note it is more yellowish than the LED.

Here is the amber LED on the left and the chrome amber bulb on the right.
Not a great picture but you get the idea.


Final run down

"Inverted lens" - Buy a couple dirt cheap and keep them in your car for backup.

"WLED-WHP" - Would be excellent if not exposed to heat. I'm thinking of putting them in place of my license plate bulbs.

"high power super white" - Don't buy it.

"Xtec Chrome amber bulbs" - A great choice if you are sticking with amber bulbs. I may put these in my corner bumper lights.

"6 LED" - My overall pick out of any bulb or LED I've tried so far, amber and white.



Everyone please feel free to add to this.

 

Wow, this is gonna help me a lot when i redo the lights in my car. Thanks, good write-up!

 

Thanks, glad to help out around here

 

A+ shnee. thanks for this.

 

Glad you like it!

 

question is which last longer
i personally hate when leds burn out. the flickering drives me crazy

 

same here... i've personally had bad experience with led bulbs for the car... i think ill stick with the regular bulbs...

 

Yeah, I can't really say how long the 6LED ones will last. But the SMDs so far have been terrible as far as longevity, while the filament inverted LED has been stellar. The 6LED unit is all filament LEDs, so I assume they will be more like the inverted LED than the SMD LEDs. Only time will tell I guess.
Other people probably have them, so maybe if they do they can chime in.
I will update on lifespan after some time has passed.

 

i put in almost all my LEDs summer 2008 and theyve all been excellent. I did have a 5 SMD LED bulb burn out tho, but other then that all my other SMDs, filaments and festoons have been great.

 

In the interior or corner bulbs? I would think SMDs would be fine for interior lights because they wouldn't be on long and heat up too much.

 

good job bro.
I got some regular amber 194 bulbs from walmart and they seem to be working perfectly. They are slightly lighter than the bumper corners, but they do the job for under $2.

 

You forgot these, perfect for interior and guage cluster

 

Oh I'm definitely not saying these are all our options, I'm just saying these are the ones I've tried, so I thought I'd share what I thought about them.
I'm encouraging anyone who has tried different ones to share their experiences.
The more info the better!

Also, I was only testing these out in the corner lights. What's good and bad may very well be different depending on where you're putting them.

And I used the amber corners today in daylight. They are basically spots of amber, they don't illuminate the whole lens. I personally don't care about that, but it's something to consider when choosing your bulb. I'm not sure how regular bulbs compare in daylight.

 

the one that burnt out for me was in the corner. but the other one i bought at the same time is still really bright and going strong.

and the WLEDs x5's are pretty good. ive had them in for a couple months, seem alright.

 

OK, well in that case, I have these in my corners and they're bright as fawk

 

what do you guys have for your rear plates? I have the SMD ones (as seen above) and they're alright but is there anything brighter?

 

I have some superbrightled white led bulbs, 5 led i believe they look just like the ones in the middle of the first pic, I had 1 set of those, and got 2 sets of the piaa led bulbs to replace the piaa super white bulbs I had, so I put the superbrights in the back, they look good

 

 

I have had the 6 led ones in my corner markers for over a month now they are working fine no dimming still as bright as day one seemingly. no problems. I work at night time too so they run quite a lot.

 

CL juice, yeah those look pretty much just like the chrome ambers when on.

That's great news sparr!

 

Talked with the master tech and he has had LED's in his supra for like 2 years or so now and hasn't replaced them yet. He work the same hours as me essentially, doors, corners, overhead, etc.

 

I've had LED bulbs in my car for like 5 years

 

Yeah my inverted ones have lasted like 4 years so far, but this is my first time trying out these 6leds.
Theoretically LEDs should last you practically forever. Basically the only things you need to worry about are heat tolerance and build quality.