Well I had to change one of the map lights in my truck last night. After I got it down I went to turn the bulb holders and the first one came out relatively easy. The second one not so much. After I finally got the second out I noticed that the plastic housing was melted on both sides with the bulbs apparently have been heating up. Has anyone else experienced this? I plan on replacing the entire assembly and then go with some LED bulbs. I am thinking the LED bulbs will not get hot like the conventional bulbs. Am I right in my line of thinking?

 

Led produces virtually zero heat. Incandescent, the exact opposite.
Though melting is a little strange, never seen that before.

 

Usually over the course of 8-10 years, automotive incandescent bulbs sockets will start to get dark, some burn out -- especially in housings that don't get much air circulation to cool them down. Brake/parking lights are notorious for burning out.

Replace with LED, and think on it no more!

 

All LEDs produce heat, it's a waste byproduct of converting electricity into light from the diode.

They won't be as hot as incans depending on which type you get. Some LEDs have in-built heatsinks, others do not because they do not require them as they're not so bright as to cause them die if they have high ambient temps around them.

IN any case, the incan should not have melted the assembly, it was made to handle the heat they throw off from the filament. Either someone did something horribly wrong and put some kind of weird incandescent bulb in there that runs at a much higher wattage than it can handle, or it's been shorting somehow.

Just run some standard non-heatsinked 921s, or the JDM astar 921s with the heatsink around the diode, and it should be fine. It will generate a bit of heat but only about half as much as the incandescents did.

 

dont think i ever had my map lights on long enough to heat the buld up to where it would melt.. glad i swapped to LEDs

 

I will remove them this weekend and take pics to post on here so you all can physically see what they did to the area around the bulb.

 

What part# are the map lights? Are they 921, or 912

 

194 per Sylvania.