Bailey Unicorn series 3 LED rear light problem

[Tonyex]

Recently received a letter from my dealer, prior to delivery of my new Valencia in January.

Depending on your towcar, and its light monitoring system, Bailey is aware of the rear LED's not working properly on the van. My dealer plugged my car into a test board from Bailey, and am glad to say my car showed no issues. Had it, they would need to fit a special Bailey supplied electronic box to the van, for about £100 plus labour !

My car is a Oct 2013 Ford Kuga.

 

[PhilGrace]

Had same issue when taking delivery of new Swift back in the Spring. Car is a Peugeot.

Issue seems to be that ECM module on car is not able to operate with LED lighting on trailers/caravans since they take such a low voltage. Swift did supply a module but that failed to cure the problem and my dealer then worked on car to sort it out - needs some sort of additional relay.

I would suggest that it is not down to purchaser to have to pay to have van modified to enable it to be "street legal"...! How can van be "fit for purpose" if lighting will not work. It is accepted feature of contract between seller and purchaser that product will be fit for purpose which in this case is attaching to car and you being able to drive away with working lights.
I would suggest a "deep and meaningful" chat with dealer regarding who is going to pay the £100 - them or Bailey!
Good luck
Phil

 

[RogerL]

Caravan manufacturers have no way of knowing what sort of car or type of car circuitry will be used - it should be up to the towbar installer, factory or 3rd party to ensure that the wiring works with the chosen trailer.

It's no different to the fact that car "factory-fit" towing electrics normally excludes fridge and battery charging circuits as they're not needed for goods/commercial trailers - so has to be specified to the car-maker or 3rd party installer that you're towing a caravan and need the extra circuits.

 

[MichaelE]

I would have to disagree, the running lights on a caravan are a requirement by law ,
Canbus wiring continually sends a pulse to the lights which isnt strong enough to light a normal filament but again its down to the caravan suppliers to sort this.As it seems to me the rear lights are not Canbus compliant which are a lot more expensive.
For years lights have never been a problem now the use of led road lights in caravans are causing problems! , why blame the towbar electrics at fault?
The use of Led lights should be thoroughly tested

 

[ProfJohnL]

I would have to disagree, the running lights on a caravan are a requirement by law , the towbars electrics are standard why should you have to alter it when its obvious its the caravan electrics are the issue ?
All the towbar electrics do is give a 12v supply to which ever light circuit needs it.
I would say not fit for purpose as if you tow away the caravan its not roadworthy?
If you have to add a box into the caravan doesn't this indicate its the caravan at fault when your lights worked fine on the previous caravan?
I would stand my ground and not pay!

Hello Michael,
I understand your point, and I agree to some extent. You would expect to be able to connect a caravan to any properly wired up car and the road light should work.

In all probability If the caravan's lighting circuits were connected to a normal 12v supply they will light up correctly. So the caravan manufacture will have met their construction and use obligation.

But here's the rub: In UK it's neither the car or the caravan manufactures responsibility to ensure their products work with each of the others its up to the customer to ensure the goods they buy are fit for the purpose they wish to put them to. That is the legal situation.

Morally there is an alternative point of view which is the one you have expressed.

 

[woodsieboy]

For me the question is why are manufacturers fitting led lights anyway, the previously fitted lights worked without any major problems so why change what isn't broken? I can understand the case for lower power use when lights are run inside the caravan without hook up but not when running from tow car.Perhaps the onus is on each purchaser to specify,at the time the order is placed , that the caravan when supplied will work with the existing tow car, and make it a condition of sale.

 

[PaulT]

For me the question is why are manufacturers fitting led lights anyway, the previously fitted lights worked without any major problems so why change what isn't broken? I can understand the case for lower power use when lights are run inside the caravan without hook up but not when running from tow car.

LED lights last longer and are brighter also their use does contribute, albeit in a small way, to reduced fuel consumption by the towing vehicle.

 

[MichaelE]

They also react quicker than filament bulbs, i wouldn't get excited about saving fuel though it would be next to nothing if anything at all as they are not replacing high wattage bulbs.
Its when led's fail its the whole unit that has to be replaced.
Just a thought? If you have to have one of these boxes fitted would you have an issue if you towed a trailer or caravan with normal filament lights?

 

[Damian]

There has been lots of reported issues with LED caravan lights and some, not all, cars and their monitoring systems and the magic "Box" is a dummy load to imitate the filament loading and is fitted to the van, NOT the car, so towing anything else with filament bulbs is not affected.

 

[MichaelE]

Some people are saying that the towbar wiring has had to be altered?

 

[ProfJohnL]

Some people are saying that the towbar wiring has had to be altered?

Which people?

 

[MichaelE]

Just google search lots of people on caravan forums saying they have had the box fitted and still not working , caravan manufactures saying its not them now and they are having relays and wiring altered ie choc block to the back of the lights in the car to make it work.

 

[DeliDave_]

Really cant see the progress,followed an Audi with part of the LED failed and out of interest looked on the bay,£180 instead of a pound for a bulb.
Tried to post link but cant its 301303204894 if anyone cares to check

 

[MichaelE]

Totally agree DeliDave, friends ML indicator section failed flagging bulb failure on the dash , a whole new light fitting £350 just for the part !!!
On my BMW the led brake lights flash when you brake hard, i had a guy flag me down saying they werent working properly as the were distracting!

 

[Gafferbill]

........the main problem that occurs with LED lights fitted to caravans is that the direction indicators will not function unless the towing vehicle already has the correct direction indicator relay fitted.
Such a relay will have the ability to sense the very low current consumption of LED direction indicators on the caravan and will work normally.

Towing vehicles fitted with a direction indicator relay that works with it's incandescent bulbs will not operated LED direction indicators fitted to a caravan unless a ballast resistor is fitted in circuit.
This ballast resistor mimics the amount of current used by a incandescent bulb allowing the LED direction indicators fitted to the caravan to work correctly and legally.

 

[woodsieboy]

As I said previously I do not see that led road lights are a major improvement, if they were we would be retrofitting them to cars and caravans,I suspect some manufacturers both car and caravan, are fitting them to establish a difference between ranges in the same way that ATC and Alde heating systems are fitted to some ranges and not others. The cost of replacing led units is significantly higher than filament bulbs. when we travel abroad we carry a spare set of bulbs for car and caravan, would we need to take spare led units if we had a van with led lights,mind you I have not had to replace a filament bulb in any of our caravans in the last 20 years. I remain sceptical as to the benefit of led road lights.

 

[RogerL]

A single LED failure within a cluster doesn't require replacement - the failure rate at which a LED does need replacing is way lower than a single filament bulb, by a factor of about 30 - even lower than that if you accept the principle that electronics either fail early in their life, ie under warranty, or go on for an exceedingly long time.

The fact is that filament bulbs will become like dinosaur droppings soon.

 

[woodsieboy]

Hi Roger
Would led road lights be covered under warranty? Even though you say that a failure of one light would leave the unit working, surely it would be classed as faulty and need to be replaced? As for filament bulbs I suspect there are too many vehicles on the road that are fitted with them for them to be obsolete any time soon, not all new cars and caravans have led lights so filaments will still be needed.

 

[MichaelE]

Sometimes the led pcb fails which would result in all the led's failing

 

[ProfJohnL]

Hi Roger
Would led road lights be covered under warranty? Even though you say that a failure of one light would leave the unit working, surely it would be classed as faulty and need to be replaced? ...............

HI

I think you have raised an interesting question. Most LED bulbs are quoted as having expected life spans in excess of 10,000 hours (That's about 1.2 years of continuous illumination), and as brake lights and indicators are not likely to be used for more than 5% of the time (and thats a lot) life time expectancies of 20 years is not unreasonable. So I think there could be a case for failed LEDS in a cluster to be replaced under SoGA for up to 6 years from point of purchase.

However, Whilst I have known LEDS to fail on electronic appliances, It's quite common for the apparent failure to be the result of poor quality printed circuit boards or circuit design, whose life expectancy in the working environment may be less than the LED soldered to it.

 

[RogerL]

A single LED failure in a cluster probably isn't enough to warrant replacement - even LCD/LED televisions have that provision when new - but I don't know what the threshold limit is.

The life expectancy figures I've seen are 30,000 hours for a single LED - obviously much longer for the whole cluster as it'll still work nearly as well with a single LED failure - compared to a filament bulb of 1,000 hours. 30,000 hours is 1.2 million miles at 40mph which is a "lifetime" for any car or caravan.

But obviously, if the PCB fails the whole cluster is likely to go prematurely and be covered by warranty, but subject to exclusions for "wear/tear" which would include the effect of vibration.

 

[WoodlandsCamper]

The specifications quoted are for x hours continuous rating. However, like many bulbs/LEDs, they are not used continuously but switched on and off at regular intervals. The thermal stress of the power-on surge will shorten the life, so don't get excited about long life figures.

 

[Gafferbill]

..........LED vehicle lighting is not new.
It has been used in HGV lighting for several years and the experience there is that the lighting will last virtually for the lifetime of the vehicle.
Physical damage has been found to be by far the major cause of any failure of a lighting unit.

 

[ProfJohnL]

Hello Roger,
Vehicle lights vs TV's - Your not really comparing apples to apples:-

Technically they are very different. Apart from the very new OLED technology, LED tvs do not use LEDs to directly display the picture. The picture is still and Liquid Crystal matrix which is back lit by LEDs. When a tv manufacturer declares a a failed pixel tolerance, they are referring to the LCD mask not the LED back lighting. As a percentage of the total mask it is minute.

In practice if a tv's LED did fail, there would be a very noticeable dark area on the picture, which would definitely be claimable failure.

There are construction and use requirements for vehicle lighting, which set out size and illumination. Most LED lighting sets will exceed these allowing for some redundancy or failure. But in an LED light fitting there are perhaps a few tens of diodes, which if one fails is quite obvious. Under SoGA you are entitled to expect a new product to have a perfect appearance, and a failed LED in a cluster would definitely affect its appearance. So full replacement within 6 months is a reasonable expectation and possibly beyond given the claims of long service life of LED's and the cost of replacement compared to filament bulbs.

 

[Raywood]

Given the now known problems with LED wiring then when selling a caravan with this the dealer should check if you are aware of the possible problem and make you aware of the cost of dealing with it as it would need to be sorted before you left the dealers with the caravan and the dealer would need to have the bits in stock. You need it done at the dealers as you also need to be legal to tow the old caravan to them.
I see no legal obligation on the dealer to do more though as it is simply a question of the tow car needing changes to deal with the new electrical system.