License Plate LED Upgrades

To be honest, I was getting sick of the standard warm white bulbs that lighted up my rear license plate. As I prefer a cooler shade, I decided to embark on LED upgrades.

If you were to take a walk into places like Autobacs today, you will find yourself paying through your nose for a pair of license plate LEDs. Last I checked, they were being sold for about an absolutely unbelievable price of S$30 to S$40/pair!

Of course, we all understand that labour cost is expensive and that the installers will have to take a cut because they are running a business and not a charity blah blah blah... But more than often, their profits are beyond comprehension.

Because it's really tough to earn a dollar these days and unless you have really deep pockets or have extremely no idea how to replace a bulb, you would be better off financially if you did it yourself.

Now, the brutal truth is that 90% of all these little LEDs are all made in China. So regardless of brand, fancy packaging and all, just remember, the 'shit' is likely the produce of "The Red Dragon". 

Just to give you a feel of money well spent, I bought a packet (Quantity 10) of W5W 6000k cool white LEDs off AliExpress for S$2.50 (inclusive of shipping). I kid you not and there is no typo error here. It costs me only 25 cents an LED in my currency, with shipping!

I must admit my parcel only arrived after 5 weeks as a consequence of economical shipping but I could not care less for that price. End state, it all worked out very well despite the long wait. The LEDs were beautifully white as specified with no contact issues with the pins. Basically, it was a 50 cent plug and play kind of deal.

Moral of the story? With the power of the internet and phone apps these days, online shopping is cheaper and is giving installers the run for their money. My take is so long as these products are non-critical components and do not compromise safety, it's certainly worth a DIY project.

Who says one can't be stylish with a small budget?