Well, LED's have a very different directional lighting characteristic than incandescent bulbs. I think the incandescent bulbs which are the issue here are used to "flood" or backlight the HVAC panel at night. I do not think LED's would diffuse and flood light in the rear of the assembly the same way.

 

LED will be the best one to use but it's hard to find a 12v led. most of the small led use a 12v resistor.

 

For those in the UK, try this
http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=35782

 

I understand this is an old thread...but thought I could save someone some agony here.

I went ahead and replaced and soldered in new lamps into the climate control, but in the process I must have shorted a connection to one of the lamps. This triggered an "illuminaiton short" fault in the BCM and I was NOT able to reset this fault by removing the IOD fuse or removing the terminals to the battery and shorting them together. I even tried leaving the battery disconnected for hours, but the fault remained in the BCM.

The dealer wanted $100 to erase this...what a joke for a 5 minute job. If you have a good mechanic that has a scanner tool that can read/reset codes from any specific make/model they can do this too. My local mechanic didn't even charge me to erase the "illumination short" fault that was stored in the BCM. the mechanic told me the scanner costs around $5,000 and I noticed it was a Snap-on scanner tool...hope this helps someone.

 

From memory all bulbs are on the board. Its a fiddly job getting the solder out the holes for the new bulb pins to go into and holding them in place but I did a reasonable job and i'm no soldering whizzkid

 

The basic strike voltage for a LED is around 2.5volt., the exact voltage depends on the color. If you have a 12volt supply, a resistor must be used in series. The brightness of the LED is then governed by the resistor value. The LED IS a diode and will only work in the conducting direction, unlike a filament lamp. White LEDs aren't actually white. The LED part is a blue-ultraviolet one, and the light comes from a fluorescent powder converting this, just like a fluorescent lamp from the mercury vapor UV discharge.

Converting filament to LED will be fiddly and need experimentation to get the series resistor the right value. I'd just fit the original filament lamps if you can get them. If it's a case of difficult soldering, dip your wire solder in Fluxite first.

Leedsman.

 

The only light that works is the driver heated seat button. I have had the entire panel off of the dash and there are several wires connected to the panel. I was hoping to find a loose connection, but no dice. So far I am usinf a small flashlight to see what I need but it is frustrating. zski

 

Which Heating system do you have manual or Auto Temp Control(digital temp reading)? What year and trim model is this also?