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What's up guys, I finally got a professional job so now I have money to play with. Among many other things, I want to make the car look nicer. I figure one of those things is to put LED's in my car.

What I mean by that is to have LED bulbs for tail lights, reverse lights, signal lights, etc. My question is simple: Can I simply screw in an LED bulb and expect it to work? Or is there further modifications to be done to integrate LED bulbs into said areas? Where can I buy the bulbs, are there any you recommend? Give me all you got

 
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Ebay. If you do leds for turn signals you will need load resistors. But anything else you should be fine.

 
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Just going off what i remember reading around the forums-

For the blinkers it will cause the "hyper flash" meaning it will blink really fast...pretty sure you'll need a resistor to stop that.

For the brake lights, the cruise control will not work if you just plug in leds. Again im pretty sure youll need resistors.

Reverse lights are fine.

This is a great site for LEDs- http://www.superbrightleds.com/

If youre trying to save money you can use ebay bulbs on all the dome lights and the reverse lights. Dont cheap out on vital signal lights though like brakes and turn signals, they undergo waaay too much use to have anything put high grade bulbs.

 
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to solve hyperflash without a load resistor, you can replace your flasher relay unit with one that doesn't hyperflash when it senses a burned bulb. Dunno if it'll be the same for a 6thgen, but the Triton EP-34 is the one I use in my car. It does, however, flash a tiny bit faster than stock (80 flashes/min vs 60 flashes/min, or something like that).

v-leds.com has some really nice bulbs, but they can run a bit expensive, especially if you're like me and you wanted fancy *** switchback turn signals
If you're wondering what the whole switchback thing is, here's a video of my headlights:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2PijOlCLqEc[/youtube]

the cruise control thing, if you replace all of your brake light bulbs with LEDs, then yes, you're gonna need a resistor in the cruise control box or use a load resistor. There's a DIY guide lingering around the 7thgen section. However, if you leave your third brake light alone, you'll be fine.

 
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The disadvantage of LED is that they have less lumen output usually and they are directional, they don't spray light in every direction like an incandescent unless you get the LED bulbs that have a bunch of LEDs in it. They look cool but are they safer? They are sensitive to high temperature so if you get high performance LED bulbs and you are running it on a hot day, the lifespan may be cut down because there is limited space for the heatsink design.

Don't LED bulbs these days come with load resistors built in so they are just plug and play? Or, the high performance ones take enough wattage to not confuse the car?
Interesting how the cruise control doesn't work if it senses that a brake light is out, doesn't really make sense to me.

 
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Well, now it's time to sound like a noob. What ohm resistors should I use? I can do the wiring, as long as I know what to do. I was never good at guessing. That's why i'm in school for engineering...everything is backed up by scientific facts. Speaking of that, I haven't taken my electrical circuits course yet, so I don't know much about resistors.

On a side note, I did wire RadioShack brand LED's through resistors to a 9volt battery on my xbox (flashy xbox with LED's). That's kind of the same...Any DIY tuts around for this job?

p.s. the xbox did not blow up. I threw it out of the window. I now have a PS3. Let's play COD-BO2

 
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it's not going to be a standard small resistor you can buy at radio shack or something. It's a thing that simulates the load a regular bulb puts on your electrical system. I tried using a 1/2 watt resistor that a DIY guide said would work, but that f***er got hella hot. Load resistors you can buy from online stores that sell LED bulbs usually have huge heat sinks surrounding them.

http://www.ddmtuning.com/Products/LED-Resistor

Also, as far as I know, LED bulbs don't have load resistors built in. Like I mentioned, I have spendy LED bulbs on my front turn signals (and rears, as well), and I still needed to replace my flasher unit.