The heat from a resistor would cause it to fail almost instantly. It would simply be too big and be too hot. The issue is with the amount of resistance that would be needed for it to match a filament bulb. However some vehicles can be particularly fussy and they still throw up an error. In 95% of cases, this will be enough to overcome the issue. This brings them closer to the parameters that your car is looking for.Īs these are a direct replacement for your existing bulbs, these would always be our first recommendation of what to try. The first and most simple solution is to fit a CANbus compatible bulb.īulbs like the Twenty20 Cree LEDs and some of the Ring Premium range have additional resistors built into them to adjust the characteristics of the bulb. There are 2 main ways to overcome this problem and I’m going to run through both of these below: CANbus Compatible LED Bulbs In some cases it will even cut power to that circuit, meaning your perfectly good LED bulb fails to illuminate. Your vehicle CANbus system is therefore going to see something it’s not expecting and flag up the error message. I won’t bore you with the physics here, but less power means there is more resistance (P=V²/R).

Who doesn’t want an extra bit of fuel saving! Especially with the likes of caravans and motor-homes. One of the core selling points of an LED bulb is the lower power draw. But they are checking for the characteristics of a normal filament bulb. Some vehicles measure the total circuit resistance, others check individual bulbs. The most common way a canbus system will check if a bulb is working or not is to measure the resistance on the circuit. The problem is with false positives created with aftermarket products such as LED bulbs. Of course these error messages are very useful and a great addition to modern vehicles, so what’s the problem? Aftermarket LED Bulbs causing Error Codes This checking/reporting is commonly referred to as a CANbus system.

In the case of bulbs, your car will let you know when one of the exterior applications has failed. Your car is full of these sensors and they will monitor many many systems throughout your vehicle from fuel injection to brake pads to seat belts. This could be a simple warning light illuminating, or an actual written message. When something goes wrong on your car, you’ll often get some sort of notification of this on your dash. Well more modern vehicles are all about sensors, warnings and messages. So what do I mean with CANbus Error Codes? Today we are tackling the murky waters of LED bulbs, more specifically the hassles of the dreaded CANbus error codes. In this post, we’re bringing you an episode of ABD TV where we aim to answer all of those burning questions, clear up the confusions and leave you brimming with knowledge.

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