I have a 2009 XF, the rear lamp has some LED burnt out on the right hand side. I tried to open it up see if it can be fixed. If it work, I will save some money. If not, I will just go and buy a new one, it is not that expensive. Below pictures showed what I did. It work, the color of the light match another side. It is fun and not difficult.

 

More pictures.

 

Nice instructions and photos. Here's my question: if you didn't want to do surgery as you did, do you need to replace the entire lamp unit? I can only imagine what that would cost.

 

Great write up and photos
As you may know there was an issue with the rear lights on the early 2009/10 cars where the leds failed prematurely. Something to do with lack of cooling. There was a tsb to address if they failed early on but only some did. So I expect others will see this issue over time. Very helpful!

Can you post spec of the leds you used too?

 

Nice work and it was great of you to type up the instructions for those that may have this problem in the future.

Only a Jag owner would work on their car in a dress shirt.

 

Impressive work and great details!

 

Long Islander, if you only want to change one or two LEDs only, you do not need to replace the whole set of LED. you can just solder out the non-working LED and replace it with a new one. As LED has slightly different working conditions and 8 of the LED will be connected in parallel. If you do not replace the whole 8 LEDs in the parallel group, they may not work well unless you added resister to make them balance. The original Surface mount LED has 4 soldering legs, only 2 of the legs are for the diode poles, another 2 are just for mounting. Color matching will be another difficult part to handle if you only replace one or two, because the new LED may not have exactly same color to the existing one. Since the original LED do not have the round shape plastic at tip for focus, I selected the flat head LED for the replacement. If you use the standard LED, you may see a red color light spot at the finished rear lamp unit. If you cannot find the flat head LED, you can just use a wire cutter to cut away the round head, it will work the same.

 

BritCars, I do not have any spec of the replacement LED, I just purchase them from a local electronic component shop, I choose the 5mm red color super bright LED with Flat head.

 

I think i found the original LED seller for the early models at a $1.26 for 100 and free shipping.

100pcs 3528 SMD SMT LED Red Green Blue White Mult Colours Light Diodes Emitting | eBay