LED reverse bulb causes cvt to malfunction

[Fit]

Hi guys,

Stumbled upon an interesting discovery.
Made me worry when it happened.
I thought I had to send it to the dealer to get it sorted. It's a far fetched idea but it did happen and it stumped me as to how a led bulb change could have caused the cvt transmission to go nuts.
Am wondering if anyone has experienced this before. I do know of threads with similar cvt displays that's due to the obd device.. but none like this one I experienced.


I drove to the bulb shop just fine. Bought Led replacements for the reverse bulbs to make it brighter.
Got the bulbs installed and Tested it.
Worked fine.

Drove off and as I tried to move off from the first junction, felt the car jerking as if the clutch was engaging and disengaging. Looked at the instrument cluster and the "D" indication was flashing on and off intermittently.
As I come to a stop at the lights the "D" changed to a flashing "A" of that's constant every 2s.
Just before it came to a stop the transmission made a violent clanking sound along with a strong jerk/ shudder.

I started praying that the car didn't break down on me and that I would be able to nurse it back home.
Drove slowly and it continued to exhibit the same display symptoms and at times the indicator went blank.
Reached home and I checked the cvt fluid level and found it more than enough. I plugged in my obd 2 and read a P0705 code Transmission range sensor circuit malfunction (PRNDL input). I cleared it and the engine check light went off. Restarted the car and tried again. Still the transmission display is flashing. At times "P" stayed on I was able to shift out of Park. When the P went away and replaced by an "A" the transmission locked it in P.

I shut off the engine and put it on to ignition. I pressed the brake pedal and I heard the P shift lock solenoid clicking away like crazy. I got a gut feeling this is an electrical issue. It only started after I changed the bulbs. I find it a far fetched idea at first but that was the only thing that changed. Right away I swapped back the filament bulbs. Low and Behold the Problem went away and everything was normal again apart from the engine check light causing a P1590 code which have no details.

A sigh of relief. Will continue to monitor the car. $20 bulbs were a waste..

UPDATED!! with video links on the malfunction:

Video 1: https://youtu.be/LGKpQPYxHOg

Video 2: https://youtu.be/AC6UQbVwVwg

[Machiblue]

I've been using led reverse bulbs in my mirage for about 6 months now. I haven't experienced any issues at all. I bought them on eBay.

[Top_Fuel]

When electricity is involved...anything is possible. Disturb the wrong ground wire on your car some time and you might be amazed what happens when you go to turn on an electrical accessory.

A quick web search turned up a few people with similar situations with replacement LED bulbs affecting other systems.

Here is an interesting thing I didn't know about LED bulbs in cars... CAN Bus LED Bulbs

[Fummins]

Thanks for posting, that's good to know! So changing the just the reverse lights to LED's gave you all those problems or did you change the tail/brake lights too?

[Fit]

Thanks for posting, that's good to know! So changing the just the reverse lights to LED's gave you all those problems or did you change the tail/brake lights too?

I changed just the reverse lights. Nothing else.
Surprised me when this happened.

[R01k]

That's very interesting.

[Car Nut]

Wow, that's really crazy. Thanks for mentioning it.

[Fit]

When electricity is involved...anything is possible. Disturb the wrong ground wire on your car some time and you might be amazed what happens when you go to turn on an electrical accessory.

A quick web search turned up a few people with similar situations with replacement LED bulbs affecting other systems.

Here is an interesting thing I didn't know about LED bulbs in cars... CAN Bus LED Bulbs

I think you hit the nail on the head.
Didn't know there were such bulbs for CAN bus vehicles.
I thought I bought a cheap basic car. Turns out to be as high tech as a continental car LoL!

[Fit]

I added video links to my first post. Check it out!

[namco]

The mirage is indeed a canbus system. In order to properly use LED bulbs, you need the resistors to ensure proper function. Not doing so, can literally cause anything to happen, in this case, the cvt going crazy. Its just a crazy wild side effect of using a low power bulb in a car with canbus.