Help: Replacing Map Lights

Forum for Infiniti M37, M56 M35h Hybrid and Q70 owners.
Bradw3451
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Joined: Wed Dec 05, 2018 7:00 pm
Car: 2013 Infiniti M37X

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I’m hoping someone on this forum can help me. I’ve replaced all interior and exterior bulbs to LED’s but still cannot get the map lights to properly function. I’ve tried three different types of ‘bulbs’. A standards LED bulb, the ones listed in the bulb replacement write-up listed on Amazon as well as a set from eBay.

Would someone be willing to take a close up picture of how their LED sits in the bracket/socket? I’m at a complete loss. Thanks in advance for your help!


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reggiebrown40
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What exactly do you mean by properly function? LED's are polarized, meaning they are one-way. If you put them in the wrong way they won't light up. I HOPE you disconnected the battery before doing this. A lot of us, including myself, have zapped wiring and/or the BCM and it's not a cheap fix to repair the damage.

kmiles
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I'm out of town and my car is sitting in an airport parking garage, so no pictures. I replaced mine a couple of months ago with these: http://www.vleds.com/shop-bulb-numbers/57-led.html and they work beautifully.

I agree that most of the LED's are polarized, but these can only be installed one way. So, either they work or they don't.

Bradw3451
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Car: 2013 Infiniti M37X

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reggiebrown40 wrote:
Thu Dec 20, 2018 11:04 am
What exactly do you mean by properly function? LED's are polarized, meaning they are one-way. If you put them in the wrong way they won't light up. I HOPE you disconnected the battery before doing this. A lot of us, including myself, have zapped wiring and/or the BCM and it's not a cheap fix to repair the damage.
I didn’t disconnect the battery but every other bulb/outlet works. No fuses are blown. The factory bulbs had to be turned a half turn to remove. So I followed the same process with the LED’s, however no matter which way I turn the LED into the bracket it doesn’t light up. Like i said, this is the third set of bulbs I’ve preferred for the map lights.

Bradw3451
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Car: 2013 Infiniti M37X

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kmiles wrote:
Thu Dec 20, 2018 11:10 am
I'm out of town and my car is sitting in an airport parking garage, so no pictures. I replaced mine a couple of months ago with these: http://www.vleds.com/shop-bulb-numbers/57-led.html and they work beautifully.

I agree that most of the LED's are polarized, but these can only be installed one way. So, either they work or they don't.
I appreciate it. I’ll check them out.

Frog
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Put the original bulbs back in and make sure they work. There will be no blown fuses if you burn the wire harness like some of us did. My advice is I would never touch it again it’s like a $3000 repair

Frog
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Do the floor puddle lights work seems like mine blew with the map lights. All others worked.

Bradw3451
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Car: 2013 Infiniti M37X

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Frog wrote:
Thu Dec 20, 2018 1:01 pm
Do the floor puddle lights work seems like mine blew with the map lights. All others worked.
All other interior and exterior LED’s work perfectly.

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Ilya
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Does the factory bulb still work? Definitely sounds like an issue that some of us ran into that Frog mentioned...

Bradw3451
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Car: 2013 Infiniti M37X

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Ilya wrote:
Thu Dec 20, 2018 1:52 pm
Does the factory bulb still work? Definitely sounds like an issue that some of us ran into that Frog mentioned...

I’m going to buy new bulbs tomorrow. I stupidly threw out the originals. I’ll be sure to let you know tomorrow.

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Debonair
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Its been a while but the front dome are reverse polarity. So the led's need to have their positive and negative reversed to work.

I had used panels in my car which made reverseing the polarity super easy. Red to black, black to red, let there be light.

Image

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Dark_Knight
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2013 Infiniti JX35 AWD

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Make sure the contact points are good.

Bradw3451
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Debonair wrote:
Fri Dec 21, 2018 11:34 am
Its been a while but the front dome are reverse polarity. So the led's need to have their positive and negative reversed to work.

I had used panels in my car which made reverseing the polarity super easy. Red to black, black to red, let there be light.

Image
Do you recall where those dual panels were purchased?

Bradw3451
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Purchased factory map light bulbs and everything works fine except for one thing. The map lights and do not turn on when I open the door. Only when I press the button. And the light lock switch isn’t depressed. I’m assuming it’s a fuse?

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Ilya
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Bradw3451 wrote:
Sat Dec 22, 2018 11:35 am
Purchased factory map light bulbs and everything works fine except for one thing. The map lights and do not turn on when I open the door. Only when I press the button. And the light lock switch isn’t depressed. I’m assuming it’s a fuse?
Nope. You likely fried a bunch of **** behind the dash. Welcome (most likely) to the issue that I and Frog and some others experienced. You're likely looking at a $5.5k bill or just dealing with the issue. We were under warranty when our issues happened so we got them fixed, but if you're out of warranty, you might as well just deal with it.

Here is what the damage was on my car when I fried some stuff while installing LED's into the footwells:

https://forums.nicoclub.com/post6679074.html?#p6679002
Ilya wrote:
Tue Nov 24, 2015 3:55 pm
Okay, I got the car back. All is well.

From what I was told (the paperwork I was given doesn't have the full breakdown), the following ended up being the issue:

- BCM was replaced
- Main dash harness was replaced
- A 'sub' harness was replaced
- They found one of the connectors to the CANBUS controller was melted/fried

All in all, if I didn't have warranty, this would have cost me $5,442. #$%*@*#$(@#$*@#$*(#$(*@#(@#$ INSANE!

I'm going to leave the footwells alone permanently and just do the other interior lights (which I had no issues with last time).
You can read other posts who had the same issue here:

https://forums.nicoclub.com/someone-hel ... 95581.html

Bradw3451
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The BCM is fine. No codes and completely functional. A buddy of mine just tested everything. I’ll have to look around a bit more. Recheck the fuses as well as reset the ECM.

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Ilya
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Bradw3451 wrote:
Sat Dec 22, 2018 2:10 pm
The BCM is fine. No codes and completely functional. A buddy of mine just tested everything. I’ll have to look around a bit more. Recheck the fuses as well as reset the ECM.
I went down that road before I took it to the dealer (testing BCM, fuses, etc.). I even got a 2nd BCM to make sure. You will have to inspect the harnesses mentioned in my post.

By all means, if you can save yourself $5.5k in work, share the fix with the community because this has happened far too many times on this forum to be a freak incident. The car has poor protections in place when it comes to the lighting system and it's evidently very easy to fry the system(s).

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Debonair
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/\ What he said. I cringe every time I read about these sensitive UN-fused light bulb circuits taking out a BCM. I hope you find the issue somewhere else.

The panels were from ebay. They weee two separate ones soldered into one with polarity reversed.

Frog
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Car: 2011 M56s

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The problem u have Of the map lights working only when. U push the button and. It coming on when the doors are open is the same thing I had. It requires replacing the entire wire harness sorry to say no bcm. No fuse will be found. I can find the wire I bet. My service tech took very detailed notes and sent the entire harness to Infiniti for research. But they replaced the entire harness like I said for something crazy $$$$

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reggiebrown40
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2011 Infiniti M56x - Dead

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There's also another thread about this same issue: https://forums.nicoclub.com/topic617955.html

"Pin 148 of connector M23 behind dash found to be blackened/burnt causing open circuit, replaced: Problem FIXED!!!"

Nothing else needed to be fixed so I got off lucky. It worked for me, it might work for you. Credit goes to Pedsemdoc for posting this.

R

Frog
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Nice work, now no more changing lightbulbs without disconnecting the battery first

Malbec 56 Beast
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Fry a harness, what a crap design to not be fused.

I have always wanted to do this with my car but I'm fearful to do this. These cars are finiky enough and I don't think I'll attempt it.

Aren't there other issues with doing this to the car?

Andy

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reggiebrown40
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Frog, I think you might be confusing me with the original poster. He hasn't replied back yet but hopefully the tip Pedsemdoc provided helps resolve his issue.

Frog
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Oops

UOFM37
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Just curious, Is this risk there for exterior parking light or Fog light LED installs?

kmiles
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On my M35x I had replaced all of the exterior parking lights and fog lights with VLED LED bulbs. They all worked great and improved the lighting significantly.

On my "new for me" Q70, all of the exterior parking lights and fog lights are OEM LED's. I've replaced the backup lights with VLED's and all of the interior lights and trunk lights with VLED's 5000K bulbs. I had zero problems and the interior lighting is awesome now. The only lights that I want to replace, but have not are the rear turn signals. They are not LED, but the space is very tight, especially between the rear lighting fixture and the body panels, and the VLED Triton V6 won't fit - I know because I tried.

This tread has made be realize that I may have just been lucky to have not fried anything, but I did all of this work without disconnecting the battery.

I appreciate all of the guides on lighting on this forum - I've referred to them numerous times.


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