6411 courtesy lights

[Pbuck1]

I recently noticed that several of the 6411 courtesy lights in my car were out. I've seen posts where others had installed LED replacements, discovered these were difficult to find. You can buy them on that on-line auction site, but I'm reluctant to provide my credit card info to someone in china. Eventually found them at an Advanced parts store, from Sylvania. $12 a piece.! yikes. Figured I'd go for it anyway, just to try 'em out, and put them in the front doors. I expect they will run a whole cooler than the incandescent ones (not that we'll be handling them regularly but you get the point.) The photos below show the light difference. The very white pic on the left is from the drivers door. The yellow-ish pic on the right is the "OEM" incand. bulb from the L.rear passenger door. Except for the color difference the LED bulbs don't throw much more light than the regular kind.

[RichSPK]

It looks like the incandescent bulb creates much more diffuse light. Does it look that way in the flesh?

[Pbuck1]

I took the pictures in the garage with the lights off. If I had designed this "experiment" correctly I would've turned off the dome light in the car, as well. Will try that next. One obvious difference between the 2 is that the LED bulb is frosted, and the regular incand. bulbs are not. I've seen ads for LED bulbs which are not frosted and wonder if they'll make a difference. The package the Sylvania bulb comes in shows the bulb is "6000K" which means something on the color 'heat' scale. It also shows "up to 150% whiter". Well, it certainly is whiter than the regular kind. I'll try to find out what the "K" number is for regular bulbs. but I expect they will be somewhere around 4000K based upon this graphic I found on wikipedia. You will see that 6000 is smack in the middle. Another thing to try will be to mix the two types and 'see' how that looks. I think there are a few locations which have multiple bulbs (the foot wells?).

[Pbuck1]

Eureka ! I stumbled upon this company recently. All sorts of LED's, at reasonable prices. I can now afford to swap out ALL the 6411 bulbs, and maybe some others, in my car.!

[ https://www.superbrightleds.com/search/festoon/6411/ ]