Last night I replaced the instrument cluster light bulbs with LEDs. I went with the 194 Cool white LEDs for the main bulbs, and incandescents for the type 37. It looks good. Now I want to do all the center console bulbs including climate control, the radio headunit, and the center strip that has the hazards, the seat warms, traction control etc.

Does anyone know the total number of T3 and T4 LED bulbs I need? The OE bulbs are sleeved to produce the color if I understand correctly. So, that would mean there's at least 3 LEDs that will have a different color from the rest: reduce temperature button (blue), increase temperature button (red), and the hazards button (red). I'm hoping the white LEDs in the center console will match the ones I've got in the dashboard.

 

I found this posting very useful: https://www.jaguarforums.com/forum/xk8-xkr-x100-17/working-thru-issues-my-newly-acquired-04-xk8-99805/page9/#post1993508

quoting from there:


I originally purchased colored LEDs for the blue and red applications, but they didn’t look right, so I ended up using all white, and transferring the colored sleeves from the old bulbs

 

Perfect, this is the information I needed. Could you post a picture of how the console looks with the all-white LEDs?

 

Happy to post, but note that the 2 leds in the middle (temp up and down) have since stopped working. Also, the hazard switch used to glow, and that has stopped too (although it flashes when in operation). Never a dull moment with these cars 😜

 

Thabk you!

The color seems a perfect match with my dashboard. How long did those LEDs last?

Why didn't you also replace the ones on the radio headunit? That color and brightness mismatch would absolutely drive me crazy.

I plan on changing mine but haven't found information on what type of bulb the headunit used, although I assume it must be the same T3 and T4.

I think that I will have to accept the ones on the door switch pack being mismatched because of the possibility of not being able to reassemble it.

 

> How long did those LEDs last?

i did them in 2021, so not very long. It’s possible they could not be seated properly.

I don’t believe the lights in the radio are the same type- I’m pretty sure they’re direct soldered onto the pcb

 

Yeah the radio is a different challenge to replace a dead light. I think you would have to pull the radio apart. It is possible but not trivial.

 

Oh, that's not too encouraging given that the big appeal to LEDs is that they should last much longer than the incandescents, which already lasted quite a long time.

The fact that they're soldered does not scare me off in the least. I already opened up the radio head-unit once to replace the rotary encoder for the volume knob. I could do it again to swap the bulbs. I just need to know what size bulbs to buy.

Pulling it apart is not complicated. I've done it before. However, I have not replaced those bulbs. Are those T3s that are soldered in? I'm only counting 4 bulbs there.

 

There will be bulbs behind the lcd as well, don't forget.