I have some from Eagle Eyes, i like them. Paid less than $150 pair inc ship.

 

I remember reading someone's explanation about how LED tail lights are actually safer than regular bulbs because they light much faster. Something along the lines of if you're travelling down the highway and you slam the brakes - if you have LED taillights, the driver behind you will see the brake lights 20 feet sooner than they would if you were using normal taillights thus giving them more space to stop - thus making you less likely to be rear-ended.

 

Those look nice. I would consider a set for my own van if I knew they made 'em for my year.

 

ooof $150 a pair lots of money but they DO look awful nice.

For now I prefer "stock" socket led bulbs. Most manufacturers are clueless when it comes to led bulbs. Morons even. LED's are HEAT sensitive. If they so much as feel more than WARM in your hand they are NOT working properly.

anything over 100' is bad for LED's that means anything over your body temperature is bad for them. They degrade quickly.

Most people think of led's as being cool but they do not realize that while LED's are insanely more efficient than Incandescents they still shunt 80% of there power into HEAT. (incans push something like 98% of there power into HEAT)

but UNLIKE incandescents LED's can not tolerate heat. typically you need 9 square centimeters of passive cooling area per watt of LED power. so a half watt LED lamp really needs about 4.5 centimeters square cooling area.

to make it works people making these fixtures like to "overdrive" led's ie put too much power into them or use CHEAP low tolerance resistors etc.. or improperly wire them in series etc..

Result? you spend oodles on an LED bulb and it does not even last as long as you incan did.

A properly designed LED bulb should Outlive your Car Outlive YOU and outlive your Children and give your Children's Children a run for there money IE 70,000 to 100,000 hours minimum.

You do NOT make LED's brighter with more power. you make them brighter by using MORE led's

in a car fixture the conditions are WORSE because now they are enclosed in a plastic insulated container making it even harder to keep them cool making properly powering them even more important.

I will eventually go all LED including the headlights if I can manage it (those will require active water cooling and no the radiator in your car is twice as hot as permitted for the led so it will have to be a seperate tiny little radiator)

Why? first they last longer. Second they use less power. A LOT less power. Less power means your alternator does not have to provide as much power which means your engine does not have to work as hard IE better fuel economy.

Your Alternator is the largest drain on your engine next to the AC compressor. Under even a normal load you would be physically incapable of spinning an alternator! its "resistance" is directly connected to the load you put on it. at 8+ watts EACH do the math. 110watts for your headlights and at least 10-12 8+watt bulbs. thats somewhere around 200 watts in lights bulbs

 

Since an automobile is in motion more than stopped, why would the temp be a concern? Also these are D.O.T. approved. True they require less energy to light, to flash at a normal rate requires a load equalizer which calls for the alt. to put out the as normal bulb. An article i read about L.E.D. traffic lights mention they are more noticeable as red and green, but the yellow light was not changed because of the effect of a cand bulb. Also the article said that in the more Northern states the L.E.D.s did not burn hot enough to melt ice and snow unlike the cand bulb.

 

Motion is irrelevant. The led's are not dangling in the wind being cooled down they are INSIDE a relatively sealed plastic enclosure.

DEALER designed LED's (the ones your talking about) tend to be designed properly. Its the AFTERMARKET LED's replacements I am talking about. I have a stack of burned out bulbs to show for my effort

 

So how do I find out if these are any good?????

 

sadly trial and error is pretty much the only way. Watt Consumption helps but I am not sure of the 120 to 12v conversion there. IE a watt load that is good at 120v may not be the same at 12v. Basically if the lights "feel" warm to the touch they are probably drawing too much power.

Best bet is to see if anyone else has purchased them and see what there LONG TERM results are.

If the bulbs "dim" more than a tiny bit they are likely being overdriven and will eventually burn out.

 

My tail lights are on a TAXI approx 6 months and 9K per month, no problems. Eagle Eyes is an after market man. Nothing last forever, even SEARS says DIE HARD not NEVER DIE.

 

well that just means yours after market lights were designed PROPERLY thats all (at least we hope)

I did not say ALL after market I said after market is where you "tend" to have the problems.

WELL manufactured units will last as they should because they were properly designed within the limitations of the LED.

its the chinese made or home made units where the IGNORE cooling and just pump up the watts to make them brighter.

 

I have had L E D taillights installed on both cars for about a year and have had no failures or ill effects. The only thing is the flashers on the van flash a little faster but I have not installed an extra resistor as the mfgr recommends a heavy duty flasher instead.

 

Do not install an extra resistor. That defeats part of the reason you want LED's ie lower power. The resistor will ABSORB more power to compensate for the LED low power which is what the flasher needs in order to function properly. IE the lower power of your LED is lost because now that resistor is going to increase the power consumed from your car.

Better is to get an LED flasher. They sell them on ebay. its a replacement flasher thats designed to work at the lower power consumption of LED's

 

Actually, you have 2 choices.
1)
Let the lights flash faster -- gets MORE attention that way ! ! !
2)
Get a 3 wire flasher, compare the terminal emblems with the old one before installing, It will also require a ground wire. These are designed to flash at a preset rate, with a load, or no load, hence the 3rd wire.

Personally, I'd go for the fast flash. People notice it, more so, than a slow flash.

 

just be careful there is legal limits to the speed of the flash (yeah thats regulated) if its too fast you could get into trouble or at least get hassled. Either way the replacement flasher is not expensive (under $10 iirc)

 

what about these at the front?

http://www.mytightride.com/dodge-caravan-96-projector-headlights.html

 

WoW those are Choice ! ! ! !

In case you're worried about flash speed, then get the 3 wire flasher, a short piece of wire and spade connector, for the ground connection. As I mentioned, this flasher will flash at one rate, with, or without, anything hooked to it.

I chuckle at many of the new cars, that have L.E.D. tail lights, and brake lights, but the turn signals are lite bulbs, why, because they haven't figured out how to make the L.E.D.'s flash using a "standard" flasher (they don't pull enough current). If they paid a little more for the "flasher", they could have ALL L.E.D.'s .......

It's a NoBrainer.
:lol:

 

A Note About Those Aftermarket Headlights

Those after-market headlight units look pretty freakin' awesome, but I feel I should mention that they might not work on *ALL* 3rd generation vans like you think they might.

---These Vehicles All Utilize The Same Headlight Housing---
1996-2000 Dodge Caravan/Grand Caravan
1996-2000 Plymouth Voyager/Grand Voyager/Chrysler Voyager
1996-1997 Chrysler Town & Country

This universal housing includes a single, Lo/Hi-Beam Bulb in the inboard compartment of the housing, and a single Signal/Hazard Bulb in the outboard compartment of the housing, incorporating the turn signal/parking lights/hazard lights into the main headlight housings.


---These Vehicles DO NOT Utilize The Standard Headlight Housing---
1998-2000 Chrysler Town & Country

For the 1998 model year, Chrysler redesigned the front fascia of the Chrysler Town & Country models to include "Quad Headlamp Housings." The redesign removed the turn signal/parking lights/hazard lights from the main headlight housings, to their own separate light housing assembly located below each main headlight housing. The redesigned Quad Headlamp housings used in the main headlight assembly for these models now still utilized two separate bulbs as before, but the inboard bulb strictly dedicated to the lo-beam, while the outboard compartment [where the turn signal/hazard lights/parking lights are located in the other models] is dedicated to the hi-beam.

Conclusion?

Though these aftermarket headlamp units may physically fit in all 1996-2000 Chrysler minivan models, they MAY NOT function correctly in 1998-2000 Chrysler Town & Country models.

STANDARD LIGHT MODELS:

QUAD LAMP MODELS:

 

See also "cleaned up my headlights" thread

Though these aftermarket headlamp units may physically fit in all 1996-2000 Chrysler minivan models, they MAY NOT function correctly in 1998-2000 Chrysler Town & Country models.

But they already have quad lights, so they probably wouldn't want these :ask_wsign The same lights are discussed also in the "finally cleaned up my headlights thread." http://forum.chryslerminivan.net/showthread.php?t=8871

 

Wow they are nice but holy crap $269 !!!

 

wow makes me glad i got a 96

besides the odd electrical issues my voyager has been virtually maintenance free.

 

Glad to hear it, I've got the same '96 as you, with 120K miles now. I've had some issues, see: http://forum.chryslerminivan.net/showthread.php?t=10209 but I'm hoping it's back on track now. It's great for hauling all my stuff!

 

Well I have a voyager not a T&C but I hear there virtually identical.

anyway had this odd issue whenever it rained car would not start. I would crank it for minutes (in sessions of course) would get "rough" almost starts but nothing would stick. Let it sit try again let it sit try again sometimes I would have to whip out the jump box.

anyway every time it would eventually start up and run really crap for a few moments and then be fine. every time ONLY after it had rained. Period.

eventually while looking under the hood I just happened to see a "spark" hmm thats not good. had him do it again and again and I saw it again. This little module on the backside of the engine. I then found out it was a "coil" pack or something like that. It had a CRACK in the housing and when it rained it was damp and the electricity took the path of least resistance and sparked over this gap instead of going to the spark plugs

From then on I would DRY this off really good and it would start up much faster. Once I replaced that problems went away 100%