The 2003-2005 do not have the easily replaceable festoon bulbs. They have a board(or known as Substrate) with a wired bulb that is soldered on. The factory replacement is the new substrate with bulb:


So I ordered the same bulbs that people purchase for the 06 from here:
Mid page Vanity Mini 3 LED SMT Festoon http://autolumination.com/festoon.htm

You can't just solder the LED bulb in because it is too large.

1. So I took a solder gun to the caps and the metal caps came off. (The surrounding of the bulb is plastic not glass like other fuses and stuff I have worked with.)
2. I used a razor to slice down the middle of the plastic tube covering, then peeled it away. I now had the board with the LED's.
3. I took wire snips and cut the stock bulb off the substrate and left as much wire possible.
4. I laid the LED board on the substrate (I believe with the LED it has to be in a certain way or it won't light up. If you look on the LED board, there is some writing, the writing faced towards the metal bars on the substrate.) I used masking tape to keep it in place, and soldered the wire from the stock bulb to the wire/solder point on the LED board. I did the same for the other side.

The soldered in bulb stayed, I didnt super glue it down. This way if the bulb ever burns out I can simply desolder and solder new one in.

This simply replaces your yellow bulb with a 3-LED pure white bulb while still allowing clearance for all covers etc.

All I had is camera phone, so sorry about the pics.







I'm sure you can get fancier with it running more board inline etc. But this was cheap easy way rather than paying $300 for LED Vanity Mirror Replacment. Thanks

 

looks great. i dont even have that light in my car though. (?)

 

What year do you have? Coupe or Sedan? This is on my 04 G35 Coupe

 

Let me recap here. I had all LED interior, and I noticed whenever I had a girl in the car and they used the vanity it was that dull yellow. I wanted to upgrade, so I searched on here and found what I thought were the right replacement bulbs everyone one using. I purchased, took off the cover, and found them to be different from the 06.
I felt that I was stuck on these bulbs that I just purchased for an over inflated price. But then I thought I could just solder the bulbs in but saw that they were too thick. Later in the day I thought I can just take that board out and solder it in. I then went searching on the forums for anyone who may have done this and came across your forum. You said that you did it, and I asked which way they were soldered in. You said that you would take pictures the next day. You didn't, and I continued with my original plan, and would just solder each way until I had it right. So I got it finished, you still hadn't posted anything, so I just posted this for other people that were wondering.

At no point did I ever steal your idea, and you never supplied with the info I needed.

I'm sure your DIY will be a lot more detailed and have better pictures and the community would love to have it. I didn't purposely do this thing trying to beat you to it, or act like Im a genius for this idea. I think everyone who pulled off the cover had the same idea at that very moment to solder in the bulb. When you're done with your post, I'll be more than happy to delete mine off the forum if that makes you feel better.

 

nice work, i will probably try this eventually when i figure out how to replace the ashtray bulb with led. then i will be a lvl 2 LED god

 

Sweet, I'm going to try this mod out

 

i didnt even know i had a mirror there.. woah!! lol

 

Old thread, but maybe someone has an idea. Did this same mod with the vanity bulbs from V-LEDs but have an odd issue. Since these have polarity I did have to mount the passenger side bulb the opposite way to get it to light (makes sense). However, my passenger side vanity light is much yellower than the driver side. Any possibility that the polarity orientation of this side can cause it to have less voltage perhaps? Or could it be that possibly the bulb is from a different batch? Any clues anyone?

 

it's likely and issue with the bulb.

 

I know this is an older thread.. but it looks as if you have a 6000k bulb (cool white) and a 5000k bulb (warm white)... they are both an option as far as color temp when you order.. but it looks as if they sent you one of each?!

 

Since there's no such thing as a white LED, they use that yellow tint to make a blue LED white.

But if you pay attention to the LEDs while you're soldering, the yellow caps can melt like candles and you probably lost a little on one, making it bluer.

 

finished mines looks great!

 

Have any pics?

 

i tried this with my map lights ..herd a weird noise when i was putting in the white light bulb and then they never turned back on...those lights my door lights and my vanity mirror lights ...i just learned to deal with it ....but i wnna fix it ne one have any ideas?i checked all the fuses ??

 

you heard a noise coming from the led?