LED brake light problem

Nissan 300ZX technical discussion forum: Maintenance, performance, installations, modifications, how-to's and troubleshooting.
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95FairLadyZX
Posts: 330
Joined: Sun Jul 20, 2008 11:51 am
Car: 95 300ZX 2+0 NA
Location: Long Beach, CA

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I converted all of my brake/turn signal bulbs to Sylvania zevo LED bulbs and was getting hyper flash on my turn signals and brake bulb replacement light was lighting up in my dash. So I bought load resistors to fix the problem, my turn signals are fine now but my brake lights are not. I connected the resistors to black and red wires- Left brake lights are brighter than the right side and bulb replacement still lit up in dash. So I tried switching the wires (black and green) and now the right side brakes are brighter than the left (bulb replacement light still on in dash).

Any help would be appreciated


everpresentnoob
Posts: 152
Joined: Sun Sep 11, 2016 7:29 am
Car: 1990 300zx Base. Manual and abused by previous owner....

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just pull the bulb out of the dash and remember to keep an eye on you brake fluid level. Our cars are electronic wizards, but when something is even a LITTLE out of spec they like to show errors. LEDS will do that every time. Hell, I put some off brand bulbs in my brake lights and it triggered the dash warning light and the replacements werent even LEDS!

elecfus
Posts: 99
Joined: Mon Oct 17, 2016 4:09 am

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LED bulbs are no good for old cars. I had an old '88 Honda legend, replaced all the dash bulbs with LEDs, had to take them out the next day. every bulb stayed lit. if I had to guess, I'd say it was something to do with floating voltage (voltage not staying at 0V for off) which wasnt a problem with incandescents.

or rather, the way lights work, is that the positive lead isnt clamped to ground when it's switched off. meaning it will float high, getting a signal from the noise in the cars electronics and keeping it on.


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