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991.1 high beam upgrade to LED, staying on even after car is turned off!
Hello all, so I decided I wanted to upgrade the high beams on my 991.1 because they are pretty weak and the roads around my house are dark and filled with deer at night. I went with the Fahren LEDs on Amazon, they have about 55k reviews and almost a 5 star rating. I got the newest version of the bulbs. Anyways I started with the driver side, installed the bulb (which was kind of a pain in the ***) and replaced the headlight housing. I turn the high beams on everything looks great then I turn them off and very very faintly the high beam light is still on. Even after I turn the car off completely it is still very very faintly on (which is totally unacceptable to me). Anyone have this happened to them when upgrading their high beams to LED? Looks like I will be taking this bulb out and placing the h7 halogen back in. I even waited the 30 minutes for the battery to go into its sleep mode where it kills the power to the cigarette lighters hoping at that point it would turn off and no go they are still on. Please see pictures of the install below… This is what came in the box. It even came with gloves which I thought was awesome! This is the housing before I opened it up to get the halogen out. This was a pain. This is with the LED in on the drivers side vs the standard halogen on passenger side. Looks great to me, way brighter and color is great! At this point I’m very happy! Front end color comparison with high beams on. Again it looks great here on the driver side! This is what it looks like with the car off. I am now getting very disappointed. This is what it looks like inside the driver side headlight housing when the car is off. The LED high beam stays on, it is very very faint.
Last edited by mikescayenne; 03-19-2023 at 07:36 PM.
The other thing im wondering is why would there be power running to the high beam when the stalk isnt pushed in?? I thought for sure it would turn off when the car went in its "sleep" mode.
Edit: I have put the halogen back in. I'm sure that since the LED is so faint it probably wouldn't drain the battery, but i did not want to risk it, and knew this would bother me and I would never be ok with this long term (even if it could be on 24/7 and not hurt the battery). I know that LED's need very little power, im almost thinking this faint light being on all the time is from the normal power running through the car from the battery, and since LED's need such little power to operate, that little bit of power from the connector is lighting it ever so slightly.
What i am more shocked about is that i havent found anything about this on Rennlist or anywhere online. I find it hard to believe that noone has tried to upgrade their high beams to LED's except for myself. It looked so much better and matched the low beams perfectly. There was one thread started by @Schorsch but no helpful replies, I wonder what ended up happening with his car?
Last edited by mikescayenne; 03-19-2023 at 07:49 PM.
One thing I will say is that of those 55k reviews, 54.5k of them are fake
My best guess is that those LED bulbs are not CANBUS compatible. From my understanding, a faint glow when the power is off can be caused by this incompatibility. I'm sure there can be other causes, too, and hopefully someone else can chime in on that.
I installed led high beams and thought the same thing. They never completely turn off. But I’ve let my car sit work over a week and the battery hasn’t drained. I’m guessing that even the halogen bulbs constantly have power leaking through them but don’t light up cause it isn’t enough power to make the element glow. Kinda looks like it’s sleeping when they glow haha.
… on Amazon, they have about 55k reviews and almost a 5 star rating…
Best just assume 99% of reviews are fake on Amazon, especially for some Chinese made electronic stuff (double so if the name is all caps random nonsense, e.g. AONYXL, CITEON, RABDO, etc.). These products are almost exclusively manufactured by facilities that specialize in making knock-off stuff from stolen IP. When they get “in trouble” with some regulatory body they will “shutdown” but really just change company name to some other random nonsense and keep selling.
I installed led high beams and thought the same thing. They never completely turn off. But I’ve let my car sit work over a week and the battery hasn’t drained. I’m guessing that even the halogen bulbs constantly have power leaking through them but don’t light up cause it isn’t enough power to make the element glow. Kinda looks like it’s sleeping when they glow haha.
These are how they are with parking lights on.
yes that is exactly what i was thinking for the reason why they are always on. So you have been ok with them being on 24/7 hu? I am so OCD, even if they do no harm, i dont think i can get used to that. It was so devastating because when i put the driver side one in, it was EXACTLY what i wanted.
Yea, I’ve had them since January. After the car sits for a while the led is so faint you have to look real close to see it.
ok thats good to know, i hope some more people chime in and say they have done the same with no issues. I wonder if the ones on amazon with the adapter dont do that. I got the newer style "plug and play" kind, but i think the older ones all had adapters. Does yours have an adapter or does it have the same connector as the H7 bulb? This is what i purchased for reference...
oh wow you updated the HID's too... how is that? is it brighter? is the shape of the beam proper? any issues with the low beam staying on or anything like the high beam?
ok so i have been looking for Philips or OSRAM options that are sold from amazon.com (all other sellers are fakes), and i couldnt find any OSRAM options, but i found these phillips LED replacements for h7 bulbs...
I will try to just install the phillips LED's by themselves first. If they stay on like the chinese ones i will try the Phillips CANBUS adapter to see if that fixes it...
Final post! The Phillips h7 bulbs and CANBUS adapters came today from Amazon. First of all the Phillips bulbs ofcourse looked much more substantial, and better built than the Chinese ones and they had a cooling fan attached to the back of them (like the older style Chinese ones on Amazon) I figured this might be an old design or just Phillips has them on for better cooling so the bulbs last longer. Anyhow I bring this up because it was an absolute pain to fit them in because of that cooling fan attached to the back. I finally get them in, run outside to install it and the Phillips bulb is WORSE than the Chinese bulb it’s flickering. So I’m still thinking to myself this might be ok because the Phillips CANBUS adapters I ordered with them say they are specifically designed to fix flickering or error lights on the dash. So I go to install the CANBUS adapter and this thing was massive I barely fit it all in the headlight housing, and the bulb then didn’t work at all. Not with the car started, not with the stalk in/out, nothing it just didn’t work. So I took all the Phillips stuff out and you guys are going to think I’m crazy but I ended up putting the Chinese ones in. The light was just too perfect when I tested it the other day, and I’m sure that little power that is lighting them is going to the halogens as well so it will not hurt the battery. Here is the end result, super bright and color matches the Xenon low beams perfectly!!!
The low beam leds are good, they are brighter and the pattern stays the same. No problems and they don’t stay on like the high beams.
Do you mind sharing a picture of your low beams? And with the high beams on as well. Im thinking of getting the same bulbs you have for the low beams as well. The high beams have been amazing at night.
03-19-2023, 06:29 PM
991.1 high beam upgrade to LED, staying on even after car is turned off!
