Have anyone tried to change their brakelight bulb with LED type?
It looks like its a standard P21W that are installed and the system gives the bulb more or less power depending on brakelight or normal backlight function.

 

Never tryed but i thought it would be a nice upgrade, Its sad that BM didnt put them on as standard like on the MB e-class!!!

 

Don't waste your money and time, if you put them in your stock taillights all your going to get out of them is a little bitty red dot instead of the whole taillight illuminate. The performance will deminish substanually. Seen them on Hondas terrible. IMO

 

The one in that picture has the LED's pointing in one direction. If you do buy some you should get the ones that have side projecting LED's as well so that the light would be reflected and distributed by the reflector in the tail light, instead of being a single point of light. Also, most of these LED lights will make the car think that the light bulb is burnt out and you will get warning messages.....unless you buy some resistor packs that some of the LED bulb replacement companies sell which would "fool" your car into thinking that there is an actual light bulb with the correct resistance there.

 

Here are the ones you need. Click image for full info.
You can get them in single and dual filament.
They can blink amber, red, or white (xenon color).



I have tried these on various of my cars, the 545i inclusive.
As others have stated, the light intensity is not as good as our regular bulbs.
If you put them on the blinkers, it will make it flash fast. You will need to put a load resistor in place. Pic below, and more info if you click the image.



It is important to note that the niples on the side don't always match up to the socket. In such a case, I used a dremel tool to cut one of the niples off. You can file it down if you wish. Once I did this by simply carefully rubbing the niple on a hard cement pavement. It worked.
Hope this information helps. Good luck.

 

The original lamps switches between to different brightnesses depending on tail or brake light. Will the LED lamp do the same or will it only work when the brake light comes on?

 

What you are trying to explain is the single or dual filament bulb.
Single filament bulbs are the ones that only give you one light intensity (e.g. backup light and blinkers).
Dual filament bulbs give out dual light intensity (e.g. one bulb for driving light as well as when you press the brake pedal).

The LEDs mentioned above do achieve the dual filament as long as you buy the correct bulb. Two connectors at the base means dual filament. One connector at the base means single filament.
Even though the bulb does give out dual light intensity, it is still not a match for regular bulbs. The bulbs shown above do have LEDs on the sides as well, but they are not strong enough to reflect off of the mirrored surface.
Dual filament LEDs, not sure that is even the correct term for an LED bulb, will give out regular light intensity when driving normally with lights on, and when brake pedal applied, it will increase light intensity. That is why there are two positive connectors at the base.

 

All of my lamps have "single filament" and are of the single contact P21W type.

So it must be some kind of system in the car that gives the lamp more or less power (voltage) depending on the function (tail or brake).

Does anyone have any experience with this system and the LED lamps?

My car was built 07 2004.

 

sorry if i sound dumb...

but why? what is improved with leds? power consumption is negligible. looks the same. Maybe faster response and longer life.

Is that it or am i missing something??

 

Well its just to get a more "special" car.

Instant on!!

LED brakelights should be standard on a high class car as the E60.