Model Railway Forum

Prices start at £16,000 this autumn.

Where are you seeing that Brian? Trade contact? R-

Edit: Found it.

I thought I might upgrade the daytime running lights to LEDs rather than the standard filament bulbs. A simple change you would think, but no, Ford have declared the front indicators and DTRLs as ‘non serviceable items’.

What I found today is that this definition really means ‘not diy’. You can reach the fittings, just, by loosening the inner wheel arch liner, but the sadistic designer has included a spigot on the back of the lamp housing to prevent the bog standard bulb holder being unclipped.

So, to change a £1 bulb actually requires the whole bumper to be removed.

Not exactly design smart is it?

It's the same on many cars nowadays. Bumper needs to come off on my Mazda3 to change the main beam bulb but the dipped bulb can be changed without taking the bumper off.

If you do manage to get an LED bulb fitted, the car's computer may put up a fault code due to different current draw or lack of a feedback signal from the bulb. Things are way more complicated on modern cars than they used to be.

That’s always a challenge when retro fitting LEDs - I figured that if they weren’t compatible I’d just swap them back thinking it was a simple job. Poor deluded fool.

One of my neighbours is a designer for Ford.....I bet he drew that component.

my volvo v50, computer is showing faulty offside foglamp bulb. So we removed cover etc, to replace. It does not exist. There is only a nearside one, which is perfect. Offside, not wired, no bulb in holder. Popped one in, so have a handy spare. Interesting though. john

Dont worry Steve, the LEDs will come in for dodgy dapol diesels

On a 15 mile run today my car showed 72.3mpg when I finished the trip.
The official figures say 75mpg average is possible but not had that yet. Usually get no where near... More like 48mpg on local trips.

brian1951 wrote: ↑Tue Aug 27, 2019 6:47 pm Dont worry Steve, the LEDs will come in for dodgy dapol diesels

If I use one to illuminate a building it may resemble a small thermonuclear explosion.

The saga continues......it turns out that what I thought were the DTRLs are in fact parking lights!
In fact the DTRLs are integral with the high beam bulb for which there is currently no upgrade available. C’est la vie.

However I have fitted LED replacements to the fog lights which work well and best of all don’t trigger any strange warning messages on the dashboard.