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Hi guys. So I have a 01 civic ex coupe and I ordered LEDs from ebay (http://www.ebay.com/itm/121161958521) and I was going to put them in my brake lights because of the long lasting life of the leds, so I tried putting it in, but it fits really loose and it didn't light up. I believe I purchased 3157 leds and my left brake bulb burned out last week so I went to sears auto center and bought some 3057 bulbs as a replacement and they fit fine.


I tested the LEDs with a 12v power supply and they lit up fine, so that rules out the LEDs being defective. And then I plugged in the old bulb into the brake light place and it worked, so I'm not sure what to do now.



Does anyone have experience with replacing the stock brake bulb with a led one? Thanks.

 
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Did you try flipping the bulb 180°?

 
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Yes I have. I have reversed the polarity on the leds, and they still don't light up. The leds actally fit really loose compared to the glass bulbs, I don't know if I should get new connectors or something

 
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Sometimes you can bend the contacts in the socket for a tighter fit.

 
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The actual contact area for the LEDs are slightly shorter than the glass ones. I don't know if that's a reason, but I can try making it have a tighter fit. I'll see how that goes. Thanks

 
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Just checking.. Some people don't realize that an LED bulb, despite having "diode" in it's full name, can only be installed one way. I found the best way to work online forums is to assume that the original poster has no prior knowledge of the "thing" they're asking about.

Anyways, I'd go to radio shack and make yourself a little 12V power supply for testing things. That's what I do when I'm testing lighting and whatnot. They have a thing that uses 8 AA batteries, lining them up in series so it creates 12VDC. Test the bulb to see if it lights up. If it does, use a multimeter to figure out which contacts give you a +12VDC reading. Make sure the contacts on the bulb base are lined up properly (if not, bend them in place, had to do that once with some bulbs I bought on eBay).