Interior light bulbs: operational features

Interior light bulbs are important elements of car design. Their function is to improve the driver’s and passengers’ comfort at night-time. Often, they serve as decorations for the passenger compartment thus improving the appearance of the vehicle. They are usually mounted onto the ceiling, door handles, dashboard, glove box and other places.

Tips on how to choose, use and replace them

• If you want to buy the interior light bulbs you like, make sure their wattage, type of base and size correspond to the parameters of your vehicle’s original equipment. Otherwise, it will be impossible to install the bulb or using it will be dangerous.
• If you want to install brighter light sources, opt for halogen or LED lamps. They have higher luminous efficiency. Their light is comfortable for eyes and similar to daylight. Colour temperature of halogen bulbs reaches 4500 K, LED ones – 6000 K.
• The service life of the bulbs depends on their wattage and luminous efficiency. As lamps mounted in the passenger compartment have different wattage values, their lifespan might differ significantly. For example, there are standard bulbs which might last up to 1800–2000 hours, while the halogen ones work for about 450 hours. LED ones are the most durable and can serve for up to 12 years.
• If you want to remodel the passenger compartment, you can use colourful LED lamps. They can be red, blue, yellow, green, violet, etc.
• Do not install too powerful light sources in your car. They might cause lamp cover melting.

Malfunctions of interior light bulbs, their causes and symptoms

• Filament or diode failure. Tungsten filaments are vulnerable to vibration and voltage spikes while diodes – to overheating and high currents. As a rule, the filament burns out at once, usually as soon as the lamp is switched on. Diodes fail gradually and can flicker or become dimmer.
• Bulb blackening. In filament bulbs, this malfunction is caused by the evaporation of tungsten. In LED bulbs, that happens due to the gradual degradation of crystals.
• No contact. This might happen, for example, as a result of contact oxidation in the base. The symptom is an unstable operation of lights.
• Mechanical damage. It happens because of an impact or faulty installation.

Buycarparts.co.uk is an ideal place for buying automotive components

In the catalogue of our online shop, there is a vast choice of lighting equipment for cars of all makes and models. We do our best so that you could make the best choice: our assistants are always online and ready to answer all your questions very quickly.