Mines not arrived yet unfortunately.

Royal mail saying its left Poland on 13th October and today landed at Langley HWDC in UK.

Lets hope they arrive.

I've PM'd you Josh, just wondered if you can track better than I can being the sender?

Cheers Dean

Looking at T’s tracking he had his three days after arriving at customs, so potentially you’ll have it Friday or Saturday. It just arrived at customs around 8pm last night, should hopefully clear today and be on its merry way to you. 2011 RRS HSE Luxury 3.0 TDV6 Fuji White on Ebony/Ivory
Born and raised in So Cal. Moved to the UK in 2018 for a few years. Now in Poland and looking at moving back to the UK.

I’ve had a couple couple questions regarding bulbs. To get it out of the way these kits come with standard incandescent bulbs, there are just too many options and people may have already upgraded so not going to try to predict that nor will it help the price.

All that said, I have tried a few bulbs and feel I have found the best ones for myself and recommend them if anybody wants to upgrade from incandescent. These are the Osram 2825DWNB TUV and many other country approved LED bulbs. Now, these bulbs are not cheap, nor are they the “modern” looking blue. They are bright though and they distribute light better through a single COB style led positioned like a filament. The bulbs are also non-polarized so they can go in either way and they will work (unlike many other LED bulbs). I have been through four sets of LED bulbs, first I was given a free (guessing cheap Chinese), a set of cheap Chinese I bought mostly to see if I was happy with LED since the free set had failing SMDs a week in. This set also had failing SMDs a week in, no surprise. In that time I contacted Daniel Stern (Daniel Stern Lighting) regarding the move to LED and his first recommendation was Osram followed by Phillips for a very simple reason, they make their own LEDs for their bulbs. As such I went all in a grabbed 8 sets of the LEDriving bulbs and ran them for a couple years. Then Osram released the street legal night breaker W5W Gen 2 bulbs, 2825DWNB. I coughed a bit when I saw the price was nearly double what I paid for other Osrams, but decided I’d gamble on 3 sets. When they arrived and I got them in I was sold. It’s not about the brightness, but the fullness of the light. It’s like the change from a spot light to a flood light.

Here’s what I got:

Incandescent, Osram 2825DWNB, Osram LEDriving and some Chinese thing. Notice which is as close to the W5W form factor as possible, it’s important.


Incandescent vs Chinese thing


Incandescent vs Osram LEDriving


Incandescent vs Osram 2585DWNB

At first glance it’s kind of like, yeah whatever. But look at them again and compare the light pattern on the lens. Incandescent bulbs are pretty much throwing light in a 360° sphere so it may be yellow, but there’s more of it. So you want an LED bulb that’s putting as much light as possible into the lens and if one is there, reflector. On the backseat map lights they have reflector-esque pieces built into the metal retaining brackets. It may not be much, but the light output being in the right place will help.

Osram 2825DWNB bottom vs Chinese thing top


Osram 2825DWNB bottom vs Osram LEDriving top

The color comes out a pretty neutral white, not really blue, not really yellow, which my eyes personally appreciate. LEDs tend to be bright to look at, but not so great at throwing light without a reflector. This is why the COB LED is positioned the same as an incandescent filament. The Osram LEDriving bulbs have the LED facing out the top through the diffuser which is good for downward light, not so much for light from the sides (like the backseat map lights, cargo light, door lights, footwell lights, glovebox light, license plate lights and under mirror lights). I’ll also add that I seem to get an odd purple/yellow stripe or checker pattern with most of the Chinese W5W bulbs or complete LED light units.

If you’re looking to change to LED, be sure to look at the actual construction and not just be wowed that it has 1,000 SMD LED chips all over it. By the way, the Osram LEDs (both) only pull about 1w which will cause issues with the under mirror and front door under door lights. They will need load resistors to function correctly. This is how I did it for my under door lights:


All pics were taken using a kit harness and lights on my test bed power supply which is around 11.8 to 12.2v. 2011 RRS HSE Luxury 3.0 TDV6 Fuji White on Ebony/Ivory
Born and raised in So Cal. Moved to the UK in 2018 for a few years. Now in Poland and looking at moving back to the UK.

Last edited by NoExpert on Fri Oct 31 2025 8:38pm. Edited 5 times in total

"If you’re looking to change to LED, be sure to look at the actual construction and not just be wowed that it has 1,000 SMD LED chips all over it. By the way, the Osram LEDs (both) only pull about 1w which will cause issues with the front door under mirror and under door lights. They will need load resistors to function correctly. This is how I did it for my under door lights:"

What do you mean without resistors they will cause issues.

I have replaced all the interior lights with LED bulbs in my RRS and did not add any resistors and they all function correctly.

I’m saying the Osram LEDs because they only draw 1w. The front door modules look for around a 3w draw from the door indicators, under door lights and under mirror lights. If the draw is too low it shuts them off. So that means your LEDs must be close to or over 3w. The Chinese things in the pics would work, but not the Osrams, had to have load resistors for them to come on. 2011 RRS HSE Luxury 3.0 TDV6 Fuji White on Ebony/Ivory
Born and raised in So Cal. Moved to the UK in 2018 for a few years. Now in Poland and looking at moving back to the UK.

I use PIAA (Japanese) LED bulbs and they have a high enough resistance built-in that they will work on any CANBUS system without installing any inline resistors.

Here is the Japanese webpage showing part of their current range:

https://www.piaa.co.jp/category/4rin/light/position-led/