Parking Light Bulbs
 

I just noticed that I have a parking light bulb out on the passenger front side. Where is a good site to purchase a replacement bulb and is it easy to swap out? Do they have a super white replacement bulb? All comments are welcome. Thanks in advance.

just pull on the side closees to the wheel, its cliped in

as far as bulbs go , u can put some leds, local hardware store, or radio/custom shop

Thanks, I'll give that a try.

i used these LEDs from http://spectrumled.com/194.htm

You might want to check your local laws. I know in California the side marker lights have to be yellow, so you can't use a super white bulb if you've got the clear lenses. I installed a clear multi-LED bulb that glows yellow and is thus legal. I picked it up at my local auto parts store.

I have the clear side markers with a white bulb and haven't had any problems with it. Although I think legally it has to be yellow in MA. I'm talking about the bulb on the front that is on when the parking lights are on. I don't think they have to be yellow.

Thanks I'll check that site out.

I think I may not have explained which bulb is out. Its not the bulb in the side marker. Its the parking light that turns on in the head lights right under the xenon lights. Is that hard to replace? I opened up the carpet liner in the trunk and it doesn't seem to be able to access the head lamps from there.

You have to remove the headlight assmblies to get to them. A 194 LED in white would work great there.

jorge

When you said front "side" I thought you were talking about the side markers. The light you're talking about indeed should be white, not yellow. The 194 bulb won't work if you have Litronics. I believe the Litronics take a H6W bulb, at least they do on my 986 Boxster and 996 C4S. I just ordered some white LED bulbs to replace mine. There are more details in this thread, if you look under my username "Kirk":

http://986forum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=20611

yep, kirk you are right. Litronics take the 6W bulb. Sorry about the misinfo.

jorge

Thanks for the part info guys. Kirk I don't have a user account on that site. Any chance you can copy and paste that post in here?

Sorry, didn't realize you need an account over there. Here ya go, this is mostly info on LED replacement lights. I ordered some but have not received them yet:

Okay, I'm going to get a little technical here... I need one of these H6W bulbs because the 996 I just bought has one burnt out. Of course you can't get them anywhere locally. Well no worries, I've got Litronic/Xenon lights on both my 986 and 996 and both use the H6W bulb as the "parking light" or "city light". So now it's time to upgrade to a white LED to better match the whiter light of my litronics. The normal halogen H6W bulbs give a bit of a yellowish glow - not cool.

So I did some more digging on eBay and was happy to find that Chinese imports have brought the price down from about $25/pair for LEDs a year ago to just $10/pair now. Here are some eBay auctions of LED replacement lights that I found:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/2X-1...%7C240%3A131 8

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/2X-1...%7C240%3A131 8

I don't think that the single LED bulbs will be adequate. I've got a 4 LED bulb for my side markers and they're definitely not as bright as the regular bulbs. They look a lot like these:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/2x-1...%7C240%3A131 8

So I'm going to go with the 5 LED version of the H6W bulb, it uses a different kind of LED that's not as pretty but hopefully brighter:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/2pcs...%7C240%3A131 8

What I like about this one is that it's cheap, looks bright, and I like the fact that the seller has the dimensions pictured. I have two regular halogen bulbs to compare to - Osram and Phillips. I measure a base diameter on these of about 9.2 mm, base height of 13.5 - 14 mm and overall length of 29 - 30 mm. These numbers are very comparable to the 5 LED bulb except that bulb is about 2 - 3 mm longer, but that's not a fit issue.

My biggest concern with fit is the actual LED portion of the bulb that is 11 mm in diameter. The standard bulbs are less than 9 mm in diameter. But not worries... look at the second picture in this thread:

http://www.ppbb.com/scgi-bin/boards...pl?read=1505667

The plastic base that the bulb locks into is about 12.5 mm in diameter on both the turbo-style 996 light and 97-04 986 light. So the 11 mm bulb should fit through the hole fine.

We'll see how it works out...

Kirk

Thanks Kirk, this is exactly the info I was looking for. When you get them and put them in, let me know how it works out.

I wouldn't worry too much about having the side marker lights meet the letter of the law. I doubt anyone would get ticketed for the wrong color side marker lights unless they are bright blue or purple.