So I came upon an idea...

I was following behind a Mercury Mountaineer today on the highway and
finally realized that it is using new LED brake and tail lamp
technology. With a little research, I found out that "the Joule LED
lighting system, first unveiled in December 2003 by Osram Sylvania, is
to be used for the first time on the 2006 Mercury Mountaineer"

Does anyone have a Mountaineer...and would be willing to take a peak
at their brake lamp? I would be interested in buying the replacement
LED assembly from Mercury and toying around with it in the
Escape...however I have no idea what the replacement cost of it would
be!

The Part Number for the replacement is:L1224R according to the 06 Mercury Mountaineer Manual. However I can't seem to find a replacement online...anyone have an idea on a price?

I seriously doubt that it would fit on an Escape or Mariner without MAJOR Modifications. You'd probably be better off getting something off eBay. There are a number of threads in the Modifications section of escape-central ( http://www.escape-central.com/1forum...p?s=&forumid=9 ) regarding replacement tail lights.

-Tim

2006 Mercury Mariner Hybrid AWD
Black with Pebble interior
Premium Package with Nav & Moonroof



Current ODO: 22,909
Typical Drive: 20 min crosstown in heavy traffic (3.5mi there and back twice a day)


457 Gallons of gas saved
That's 9,150 lbs less CO2

I'm not looking to replace the entire assembly...just the LED diode itself...

I finally got a part number today: 6L9Z13B765AA

Found it for $31.80...so a drop in the bucket compared to the amount I may spend trying to recreate something...or I just threw $31.80 away in the trash...

Either way I will post some pictures of my endevors :-)

Interesting...yes, please do post your results. I know that the Lexus 400h hybrid has leds for brake lights...not sure if it has other lights (parking, backup, etc) as led as well.

I put LED taillamps and turn signal lamps in my FEH about 1 year ago.
Have had no problems whatsoever... except due to the very low power draw ( my goal ) the FEH constantly thinks the turn signal lamps are burnt out... but not the brake lamps! They work fine, I just get a "check turn lamps" message once each key cycle.

Red or Amber were about $7 each at superbrightleds.com

-John

I have never been a fan of the drop in replacement bulbs...simply because normally they are not bright as normal lamps.

As far as the light out warning...you could try putting in a load equalizer which may eliminate the problem.

The reason for me putting in LED is to have less electrical demand and extended EV driving and increased MPG. Thus I do not desire to put in resistors, as this would draw a similar current to the original bulb, and defeat the purpose. My LED's that fit the original bulb socket are LED arrarys with either 24 or 32 super-bright LED's that are at least 80% as bright as the original part, and much brighter than cars of the 60's and 70's still on the road, so appear "street legal" although there is no such claim on the package.

Seems a bit hard to accept that a tail light would have much of an effect on EV mode or MPG. The low beam headlamp is 55W..... the electric motor is 95kW at full power... There are several orders of magnitude difference in power consumption there. Even a low beam headlamp is likely to be pretty insignificant and a taillight is going to be less than 55W.

Your HV battery only has 400 watt hours of usable power.
Battery power is the issue here.

Tail-lamps / brake lamps / turn lamps are about 25w each.

Tail lamps are always on, and brake lamps would depend on if you are in stop & go or Highway.

So you have a 50 w constant draw for tail lamps, and 100w intermittant every time you hit the brake. Let's assume an average of 60w draw over an hour.

60 watt hours is 15% of your HV battery, so not insignificant, especially added up over years. Electrical draw at night = about 2 MPG loss. I am reducing that by 15%.

-John

Your analysis is valid but only if you are on EV all the time... Its a percentage thing... the motor is going to drain your battery in a few minutes not hours and then the engine will kick on and recharge the battery anyway.... the VAST majority of the energy lost during that discharge cycle will be from the motor draw not the lights. And when the engine is ON (which most of the time it will be) it doesn't matter how big the battery is, it only matters how much 60W is compared to the total energy being produced by the ICE both to drive the vehicle and to recharge the battery.

ULTIMATELY since all the energy is developed from the ICE, the real measure of the MPG savings doesn't involve the battery. Its how much energy does the engine produce and how much is used to propel the vehicle vs how much the lamp consumes... My guess is you won't even notice the difference... you might be able to measure the tiny loss from the headlamps on high beam but the energy used to drive ~3700lbs through the air at speed must dwarf 60W.