LED bulbs showing error

murphm45

Sorry about this folks, I know this is a bit random but I'm hoping someone with a bit more knowledge my be bale to give me a steer. 2 of the the rear lights on my car (2012 Jetta) went recently and I decided to try and replace them with LED ones, officially because I thought they'd last longer and I wouldn't have to worry about them blowing out on some horrible day when I was in the middle of nowhere but it's probably more related to me being a bit of a sap and think LED lights sounded "cool"!!

Anyway, i ordered the bulbs off the internet (from china) so they eventually arrived and when I put them in they light up fine but the dash console is still telling me to check them. Given the bulbs cost about 50c I've no issue with them being either inappropriate or dodgy and binning them but the question I have is if i was to get different LED bulbs could I have the same problem? i.e. is the way the car's computer checks if the bulb is there just not going to work with LED bulbs. I would have thought it was just going to check if the circuit completed but i'm less sure now!

Thanks

rex-x

murphm45 wrote: »

Sorry about this folks, I know this is a bit random but I'm hoping someone with a bit more knowledge my be bale to give me a steer. 2 of the the rear lights on my car (2012 Jetta) went recently and I decided to try and replace them with LED ones, officially because I thought they'd last longer and I wouldn't have to worry about them blowing out on some horrible day when I was in the middle of nowhere but it's probably more related to me being a bit of a sap and think LED lights sounded "cool"!!

Anyway, i ordered the bulbs off the internet (from china) so they eventually arrived and when I put them in they light up fine but the dash console is still telling me to check them. Given the bulbs cost about 50c I've no issue with them being either inappropriate or dodgy and binning them but the question I have is if i was to get different LED bulbs could I have the same problem? i.e. is the way the car's computer checks if the bulb is there just not going to work with LED bulbs. I would have thought it was just going to check if the circuit completed but i'm less sure now!

Thanks

You need special canbus safe leds. Buy from a reputable seller on amazon etc and pay more and you shouldn't have issues. The cheaper ones even from good sellers can still give problems.

Car checks the resistance of the bulbs and because the LEDs are so low it looks like they are blown

bazz26

As said above VW like a lot of manufacturers use a CANBUS system that monitors for blown bulbs. You need to buy CANBUS error free bulbs and even they can be hit and miss with throwing up bulb out errors in my experience.

murphm45

Thanks folks, in a million years i never would have figured that out (or figured out how to ask google properly )

I'll just stick with the regular ones I got in the moter factors so - thanks again!