I am looking to add a bit of light to the interior of the car and I miss the old blue led lights that I had in my GS. Does anyone know how difficult it is to switch the dome lights in our car to white led? There appears to be one bulb in the back seat and two for the front seats. I know the "reading lights" are already led's, however, I am specifically referring to the dome lights.

 

easy, www.dealextreme.com has the bulbs you need, T10 for the front and one festoon for the back, I also replaced the doors, they are T10s too, as are the two in the trunk. Just realize that the nice fade to black only works with filament lamps.. so they start to fade and then just cut off , but its not an issue for me just a heads up for you.

 

Any pics of them installed?

 

unless I took a pick with one bulb of each you would not point of reference. I tossed the original bulbs out, sorry.

I can tell you they are whiter, brighter and take a LOT less energy. Overall a huge improvement.

 

Thanks! I'm gonna look into it!

 

Can you estimate how much extra illumination the switch give you? Do you just pop off the plastic covers or how do you go about installing? Thanks!

 

I would say "perceived" about 2-3x depending on the bulb you choose.

At DealExreme they have a great selection of sizes and types.

http://www.dealextreme.com/products....sort.relevence

I only used white for my replacements, but you may choose to use some that are more blue etc.

The doors (4) use a T10. I went with these, http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.51372 and just took the internal plastic shield off to make them fit.The outer shell has a plastic catch on one side, just take a small screwdriver and look for that, push it in and the whole thing comes out easily, these are the easiest to change. I like more light coming off the bottoms of my doors at night and these worked great. The inner shield just pulls off, not sure what its for.. but the bulbs that are in there are about 8 watts and will burn your fingers if they are on for a min or more, so be careful. This replacement bulb is just 2 watts..

The map lights in front are also T10s. There are two philips screws under the eyeglass holder to the front that you take out, but opening that door. Then the whole thing pulls out with clips, just use a flat head or other device to help get your fingers under the lip away from the eyeglass holder and it just pops out, it goes back in the same way. These lamps has to be shorter, something like these, http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.13043 works well in the maps up front.

The back is a festoon shape, the plastic plate just pops out and your can replace it with something like this, http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.51003 to get a LOT more light in the back, which is what I was after, the factory bulb was just for show.. no one could see in the back.

In the trunk you have 2, one in the lid and one under the rear deck. You could use these, http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.51356 but i went with a longer bulb and just drilled a small hole in the lens to the end of the bulb was lined up with the edge of the lens and I have about 4x more light in the trunk with this bulb, http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.51372

That is about it, they are cheap enough that you can buy some different styles and experiment, but they will all be an improvement over factory, and you wont have to worry about leaving any on and coming back to a dead battery, relative to the factory bulbs. I hope Lexus just drops the filament type soon.. LEDS have progressed far, the only slight drawback is that when you close the door at night the bulbs slowly fade out to about 1/2 way and then shut off.. if you like the fade to black effect that the factory bulbs give you, leds wont do that unless you add something to the circuit. its not an issue for me, but I bring it up if that is for you.

I have been searching for good LED auto bulb sources from 2005, and to date dealextreme.com is the best I have found for price and quality, they ship direct from Hong Kong so add the .01 cents to your order to take off the order info so they slide through customs, I get my packages in about a week, and they almost always pay the shipping 100%

 

cmasten,

I decided to get the longer bulb (51372) as well for the trunk. You mentioned that you drilled a hole for these to fit. Did you drill that lens cover for the bulb to poke through? Can you clarify? Thanks.

 

I bought my LEDs from Nigel-jdm and they are bright and white, not any hint of blue in them, that was what I've been searching for. I am very satisfy with my LEDs.

 

correct, I used a unibit to just make a hole in the lens a bit smaller than the bulb some the element on the end could shine through without the frosted plastic. the side elements fill the area up nicely and the end element adds a nice touch as a spot, all in all the trunk is very white and very bright over what was in there. I also used the same bulbs for the backup lamps in the trunk lid.

I double checked and the 51372 will fit without drilling, I just liked the spot effect and the lenses are inexpensive from the dealer if I wanted to replace it. hard to tell from this photo, but its bright.

 

this may be a really noob question but how do you pop off the dome light cover?? haha i suck at this but i really want to make the dome lights the same as the reading lights as well

 

Did you read post #7 in THIS thread?

 

whoops my bad must of skipped that :S

but im def going to do this when i can