I HATE LED LIGHTS...designers, please stop the insanity!!

[TrackAire]

Ok, so the Audi R8 come out with what at the time looked like cool LED trim lights around the headlight bucket. New, fresh, different. But, just because it was the rage 2 or 3 years ago, I don't think every car should have these array's of LED's flanking the damn headlight buckets.

I just drove down to Palm Springs a week ago for vacation. About 9 hours each way. Saw so many cars with LED lights on the hiway and while there for the week. LED's in the shape of J's, C's, G's, U's, inverted J's, horizontal arrays, vertical arrays, etc, etc. Even cheap GM econo boxes and VW's have them. They look stupid and detract from the vehicles lines during daylight hours since most are used as daylight running lights and make it hard to look at the car, even in broad daylight.

Looking at the Gen V and even the new Vette, those LED's do nothing to help the lines of the car. The LED's wavelength is irritating to the human eye so it makes it hard to look directly at a car with LED's on. When stuck in some SoCal traffic, there were so many cars with LED's that it was really irrating to look at. LED's cause a lot of glare....like a mini welding arc.

Please car designers, if you're going to add lighting to a car, please make it actually light up the road. If it is only to be "seen", then a single pair of LED lights tucked inside the grill or some other hidden spot would be much more stylish.

I wonder what the new GEN V would like like with a different type of headlight altogther.....maybe something that popped up like the old Porsche 928 had . I think both the Gen V and the Vette would look so much cleaner and more stylish with a different type of headlight system....the current lights totally screw up the outer fender lines and flow of the car.

Ok, I'm done ranting.

Cheers,
George

 

[VENOM V]

LED lights are a polarizing subject- it seems people either like them or hate them. In general I like them. I really like them on the Viper, I think the shape flows with the lines of the car. Different strokes.

I don't like that they are so damn common, I agree with you there.

 

[Ev1E9]

I believe Ralph said the LEDs can be turned off.

 

[eucharistos]

they save gas, so they say

 

[BigDawg]

Agreed but no point in beating a dead horse. The friends I have that like LEDs are also the friends that follow every other fad...silver wheels...then deep dish wheels polished wheels...then pin striped and/or black wheels....then concave wheels.....Same goes for fashion, etc. Whatever is popular at the time, they have and they like. But don't bother pointing that out to them because they will deny it to the end. That's because they truly don't realize they are followers, and that's ok. The internet has magnified this 100000000000000x fold. Everyone sees what one person does and then exponential copying happens. Eventually everything looks the same and originality is lost. Adding LED light strips was a cop out to attract some buyers from the yuppie crowd. I'm sure it will work. Fortunately they can be turned off. No biggie.

 

[ACRucrazy]

LED is the future. There are many advantages to LED. I wish people would quit complaining about them.

 

[BlknBlu]

Can i get LED's on my 68 Coronet R/T?.......lol

I like them, even though now they seem trendy.

Bruce

 

[georgethedog]

Overall, I like them. I think they look real good on the Chrysler 300. Maybe not so much on the Viper. I have not noticed any problems with glare or anything else.

 

[ViperSmith]

They will be in every vehicle soon. So, you are fighting windmills in the end.

 

[DaDood]

LED is the future. There are many advantages to LED. I wish people would quit complaining about them.

Agreed. They use less power, shine brighter, last longer. What's not to like? This is like a rant against flat screen computer monitors.

"People have 2 monitors on their desk now. AAGGGGHHHH!!!!"

 

[Makara]

The LED's wavelength is irritating to the human eye so it makes it hard to look directly at a car with LED's on.

How does a LED's wavelength differ from that of a light from another source? LEDs can be made and are available in lots of wavelengths.

 

[BlackSnake99]

Can i get LED's on my 68 Coronet R/T?

Yes.

http://www.jcwhitney.com/jcwhitney/textsearch_result.jcw?sku=led+lights&shopid=100001

http://www.pepboys.com/search/?term=led+lights&omniEvars=led+lights&omniEvent=event1

 

[emericr]

I like your idea of pop up lights. It would be quite cool to resurrect them. I am sure the designers can come up with something radical.
Make a fog light like the previous gen in the lower facia with LEDs of course for DLR.

 

[VYPR BYT 94]

Headlights...
Designers shouldn't try to draw attention to the nasty buggers... we need 'em but that's it.
Make them as invisible as possible and be done.

 

[ninjakris]

In general, I don't like the LED lights either. It used to be a distinction between "high end" cars and everything else. Almost like HID lights are. On the other hand, they use barely any energy and there is nothing wrong with a little more light output if it helps with vision and getting noticed by other cars.

 

[KNG SNKE]

Using barely any energy in a car is irrelevant. Alternators have not been changed due to the reduced demands of lights. They are obnoxious and over done.

 

[Zentenk]

I agree, the LED stripping looks straight up ugly and cheap as hell. Even tail lights look ugly as hell, like an fn lite brite board was shoved in there.

 

[kdaviper]

You know what I really hate? Those damn pneumatic tires! So a guy started using them in 1887 for some bicycle tire and look what happened: Every car these days has them. Can't we think of some better way, like switching back to iron bands on wooden-spoked wheels?

 

[kdaviper]

Using barely any energy in a car is irrelevant. Alternators have not been changed due to the reduced demands of lights. They are obnoxious and over done.

What about to compensate for the incresed demand of in-car infotainment/nav centers, 900w stock sound systems etc?

 

[VENOM V]

Like I said, a polarizing subject, LOL. Be thankful we are not debating the entire ass-end of the car, like the Corvette guys. Lots of fists flying in Corvette nation.

 

[ViperSmith]

Like I said, a polarizing subject, LOL. Be thankful we are not debating the entire ass-end of the car, like the Corvette guys. Lots of fists flying in Corvette nation.

I wonder what was more controversial, this or ditching the popup headlights, lol

Viper has the same problem Corvette has. People "expect" a certain thing from its heritage and it doesn't allow for something radically new to be introduced, which vary well may be better.

 

[Makara]

I wonder what was more controversial, this or ditching the popup headlights, lol

Viper has the same problem Corvette has. People "expect" a certain thing from its heritage and it doesn't allow for something radically new to be introduced, which vary well may be better.

Make it the same as the old one!

...but better and faster than everything else on the road that uses cutting edge technology, but don't use technology, I want it like the old one, just faster than everything else. Also, make it look like the old one, but make sure it is up to date, but don't change it from the old one! ...and not more expensive either.

Ralph does not have an easy job to make even most of this group happy...

 

[TrackAire]

How does a LED's wavelength differ from that of a light from another source? LEDs can be made and are available in lots of wavelengths.

Most of the LED's that are used (current and past generations) have a very short wavelength. Old fashion halogen lights have a longer wavelength, the yellower the light, the longer the wavelength. The more blue the light emits, the shorter the wavelength. LED engineers may be able to change this in the future, I don't know. Having said that, the shorter the wavelength, the more prone the light beam is to scatter against rain, fog, snow or particulate matter in the air. The end result is glare. Even HID lights have this effect (although they are superior to todays LED's for lighting up the road). A lighting engineered explained it to me this way, if you shoot an arrow into heavy brush, it will continue pretty much in the direction you aimed for. If you shoot a b.b. gun into heavy brush, the b.b. will deflect much more and scatter in different directions. In lighting terms, our eye sees this as glare.

The LED's used as "style" or accent lighting I do not believe have much beam throw to them to light up the road ahead of you. They are just there for looks and to allow you to be seen. There are some LED experts on this forum, maybe they will add some info to my thoughts (I'm not an LED engineer, but have a lot of experience with lighting and optics). Technology is moving very fast so I may stand corrected about new LED's coming out that are create less glare. Imagine walking through the woods at night and using a hand held laser pointer to light your way. It is very bright, would hurt anybodies eyes looking into it but it would not give you very much lighting to be able to see. LED's are great for being seen, but are not too great at this time for throwing the light forward so you can see where you're going. That is why when you look at a lot of aftermarket LED lights for lighting up the road, they often have 20 or more LEDs to give you the beam pattern to allow you to see.

Also, people think that LED's don't use much energy and they are right if they are just marker lights with no energy getting thrown foward to light up the road. But, if you really want to light up the road it takes amps and for the amount of candle power and usable light you get, I think it's hard to beat an HID for that purpose. Once we see the majority of $750k baja race trucks and multi million dollar FIA rally cars using LED's as night time lighting, then I'll know they've progressed in the right direction.

My biggest problem is not the actual light output (since only a couple cars use true LED lighting for the headlights) but the ugly style they create. The BMW's "angle eye" look is not too bad, but these long strips of LEDs, funky shapes, etc are all a very weak marketing ploy to look exotic and expensive. When you look at the new Gen 5 headlight assembly, it appears to take up about 80% of the fender foward of the wheels centerline. I just don't think 18" long (just guessing on the length) headlamps really add style to the cars lines and in reality, break up the flow of the body. I understand that this is personal taste and would never disagree with someone that likes the looks of LED's, but really, they've gone overboard on the useage of them IMO.

Cheers,
George

 

[FrgMstr]

Rice rice baby....

 

[KNG SNKE]

What about to compensate for the incresed demand of in-car infotainment/nav centers, 900w stock sound systems etc?

More legitimate strides have been made to reduce energy consumption by in car entertainment to include but not limited to amplifiers, navigation and such than what has been done by using 30 leds to replace 1 blinker. Amplifiers use a lot less power then the amplifiers of old days.

To comment on the extended led post yes there are cars that use them as headlight decoration but I will tell you that the high end Audis could use them as headlights.
In regards to power requirements the power required to produce the light output of hids is significantly higher than what would be required from an led. The issue with leds as headlight bulbs is heat. They are very susceptable to heat damage however they are starting to release led headlight in the standard bulb configurations.
And final note the wavelength means nothing. That is just the color the manufacturer's choose to use. You are able to swap leds out for multiple different colors, or wavelengths. White is what gets approved for on road use.

 

[VENOM V]

Rice rice baby....

Sorry, got to call you on this. You just said in the other thread that you are favoring a C7 over a Viper. To each his own, that's valid.

If you think the LEDs are ricer, the C7 has them too. To me, the C7 has some nice features but I also see GT-R influence and other ricer styling cues. You don't?

 

[elanderholm]

You guys are old. LED's look good and are here to stay. How about we go back to CRT TVs too and not oled tvs...

 

[Simms]

I actually like them on the Gen V. Turn them off if you don't.

 

[viper GTS-R]

Difficult topic to grasp.

I'm not a 'fan' of LEDs. As said in others posts, It was cool at first and then it got played out now that everything and anything with wheels can get them. From the very cheap to the very professional quality ones made for the housings themselves.

I mean remember HALO's? BMW came up with those and like the fads of yesterday they either evolve or die. Those have somewhat evolved, there are kits out there for headlights that don't look to bad and some that look goofy. If you ever seen the CCFL versions, to me they just look like fancy glowsticks and then they eventually die out and need to be replaced. It's a PITA to be taking off your lights, cracking them open and replacing them. For $200 I could think of a multitude of different things to buy that are functional.

As for the Viper (and most modern cars these days) I think it'll come down to a matter of preference and maybe someday, manufactures can **** out what's good and what isn't.

The gen V is finicky to photograph and get the right 'emotions' to portray how it looks in person. When I was photographing the quartet of cars we had at VOI12 from a distance I could help but notice that they look like devil horns and aren't really that bad looking. Are they functional? Eh, probably not. But it's ok...for now.

--RS

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[Makara]

Most of the LED's that are used (current and past generations) have a very short wavelength. Old fashion halogen lights have a longer wavelength, the yellower the light, the longer the wavelength. The more blue the light emits, the shorter the wavelength. LED engineers may be able to change this in the future, I don't know.

LEDs are not limited to a certain wavelength that is ******* the human eye. They can have the same wavelength as a halogen light, actinic, incandescent, daylight, red, green, what ever is asked for, LEDs can just about do it. Bluer lights are used more frequently now because they make it easier to see details as they are in a bit more of a natural color temperature that we are used to, This has nothing to do with LED technology, it is a conscious decision by engineers.