Aftermarket February 2023

FEBRUARY 2023 AFTERMARKET 37 In addition to the printed version, the catalogue is available as a free download: www.denso-technic.com/e- catalogue Retrofit Defective lighting remains one of the most prevalent causes of MOT failure. However, a vehicle could have perfectly working lights, properly aligned and yet still fail its MOT, if the vehicle in question has been retrofitted with LED lights. Explaining the conundrum, Lumileds UK and Ireland Country Manager Richard Armstrong said: “The legality – or otherwise - of Retrofit LEDs is possibly a unique situation across Europe. LED retrofit car lights do not comply with the regulations because everything is drawn up around car bulbs requiring a filament – Halogen and HID Xenon being the prime examples of filament bulbs. However, the growing adoption of LED solutions as original equipment means that they will increasingly become the standard. The fact that LED bulbs don’t have a filament means that they cannot, per se, conform with the existing regulations for the aftermarket. It is a case of the rules, which were drawn up in 1986, not having moved with the times to address the advancement in technology. That said, for car-owners who would like to upgrade their current halogen lights for a better, safer and brighter LED light, with an aftermarket bulb, the TUV in Germany and their equivalents in France, Croatia and Austria have now homologated specific Philips Retrofit LED car bulbs as being road-legal for specific, tested and approved models of cars – on an individual basis. “It has meant that the global leading lighting companies such as Lumileds - manufacturers of Philips car lighting - have had to undertake testing to demonstrate that each individual model of bulb conforms to the light emission, and in the case of headlamps, beam regulations for each individual model of car. It is a long and expensive business; However it does mean that specific retrofit bulbs are legally in circulation in these countries, performing just as they should. These approved LED retrofit bulbs can be sold and purchased in the countries concerned, for legal road use. In other countries, such as the UK, the bulbs are available for off-road and competition purposes. At the local Philips landing pages online the procedure is explained and all relevant documents can be downloaded. This all means that after many years of discussion and lobbying, there is, at last, some positive change in EUR for the legalisation of LED Retrofit bulbs, although these are just the first small steps to have been taken before markets open up completely. In some EUR countries Osram is also offering homologated Retrofit LED solutions for the aftermarket based on a more-or-less similar approach.” In the meanwhile, people are importing and installing all kinds of Retrofit car LEDs in the UK from unknown and The benefits of seamless data recording, calculation and transmission can reduce the administration activities involved in processing MOT tests ”