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I finally broke down and ordered some of these. I had several issues, though, and it was getting late, so I pulled the resistors and put the old bulb back in for the night. Now, with no resistor or taps I get hyperflash on the mirror and tail, and the old front signal light doesn't do anything. This has me a bit baffled as the wiring with the resistor removed is essentially unchanged. Any ideas?

Also, when installing the LED's, they didn't seem to fit right. No matter what position they were in, you could pull on them and they'd slide out of the socket. I couldn't get them to fully function correctly, which I'm thinking is a connection issue or maybe the T-tap didn't bite into the thick black wire well enough. Not really sure. Any suggestions would be great. I basically have no turn signal on one side right now.
 
Make sure you have the bulbs installed correctly. If you look at the nipples on the sides of the bulbs you'll notice one is higher then the others. Make sure when installing it it locks when you turn it clockwise otherwise if it doesn't try turning the bulb 180 and try again. You should be able to push down on the bulb in the socket, turn it clockwise and it should "lock" into place
 
I fiddled with bulb position quite a bit but will give it another shot today. I guess my bigger question is why it isn't working now with the regular bulbs? I get hyper flash even though the LED isn't installed and the resistors have been removed. That makes no sense to me.
 
You get hyperflash when the car doesn't "see" the right resistance for the bulb. This is so that you know to change the bulb when it burns out. Other things can also cause this such as a short in a wire or a loose connection. The first things I would check would be:

1. If the bulb is still good.
2. If the little tabs on the plastic bulb holder are making good connection.
3. If the headlight connector is making good connection.
4. If the taps damaged the wires at all.

Hope you get it fixed.
 
Well, I fixed the one side so at least the regular bulbs works correctly. For some reason now the passenger side hyper flashes on the mirror and in back and does nothing up front. I didn't do anything to that one. I am now at the WTF stage.

The LED bulbs just won't seat right and tight. Maybe I got the wrong size, but I thought 1157 was what I needed. So now my passenger front signal doesn't work. I do not understand. Would the bulb being in backward or 180 off cause hyper flash? That's the only possible thing I can think of.

---------- Post added at 01:43 PM ---------- Previous post was at 12:09 PM ----------

The one black wire you have to tap into has thick and hard insulation. I wouldn't be surprised if that's the issue there. I should have stripped it before tapping. Actually, I shouldn't have short-cutted at all and gone with soldering, but that still doesn't fix the bulbs not seating correctly or explain why the normal bulb in the side I did nothing to is now not working and the rest on that side hyper flashing. I'm so ridiculously confused and frustrated about this right now.... :unamused:
 
Discussion starter · #666 ·
This sounds like you might have made a mistake on the bulb size and attempted to install the 1157 bulbs on a 2013 Optima SX-L that uses an 1156 bulb instead. Now I'm only guessing here but that is the only thing I could imagine as these are a perfect fit for the 2011-2015 Kia Optima non SX-L models.
 
It's just an SX, non-limited addition. I have a feeling the tap screwed something up. I still can't figure out how installing resistors on only the driver's side messed up the passengers side, causing it to hyper blink and the front signal doesn't blink at all its just stuck on all the time. The bulbs fit, but even in the locked position you can pull them out. They aren't loose and just falling out but not locked in super tight, either. I'll figure it out eventually. Just out of tinkering time right now. I have a friend who's an automotive electrical whiz so I may have to recruit him.
 
Discussion starter · #668 ·
It's just an SX, non-limited addition. I have a feeling the tap screwed something up. I still can't figure out how installing resistors on only the driver's side messed up the passengers side, causing it to hyper blink and the front signal doesn't blink at all its just stuck on all the time. The bulbs fit, but even in the locked position you can pull them out. They aren't loose and just falling out but not locked in super tight, either. I'll figure it out eventually. Just out of tinkering time right now. I have a friend who's an automotive electrical whiz so I may have to recruit him.
Hmm ok then that is very strange. The only other thing that I can think of is that you can put the bulbs in the wrong way if you push with a little force and twist. Although they are not supposed to go in that way, if you end up putting them in, you can pull them out without being locked in place. However if installed correctly, they definitely should not be easy to be pulled out in the locked position. I am very curious as to what this could be now, so please keep us updated.
 
Potentially stupid follow-up question, but how many resistors per side should I be instaliing? I thought one, with an end in each tap, but just want to eliminate possibilities.

I'm going to spend some more time messing with it tomorrow. I'm going to bend the contacts out a bit and see if that helps. The one constant is that every time I tried it I got a different result, which would suggest to me that there is a bad connection somewhere. If all else fails I'll have my guy take a look at it next week when the car is in the shop getting a 30" LED light bar installed. I can't wait for that one....long and dark winters here in Alaska....LOL.

K5, do you have any DRL options other than the stock ones for non-limited vehicles? And how do you wire DRL's on a car that didn't come equipped with them?

Thanks for your help.
 
Discussion starter · #673 ·
Potentially stupid follow-up question, but how many resistors per side should I be instaliing? I thought one, with an end in each tap, but just want to eliminate possibilities.

I'm going to spend some more time messing with it tomorrow. I'm going to bend the contacts out a bit and see if that helps. The one constant is that every time I tried it I got a different result, which would suggest to me that there is a bad connection somewhere. If all else fails I'll have my guy take a look at it next week when the car is in the shop getting a 30" LED light bar installed. I can't wait for that one....long and dark winters here in Alaska....LOL.

K5, do you have any DRL options other than the stock ones for non-limited vehicles? And how do you wire DRL's on a car that didn't come equipped with them?

Thanks for your help.
No question is a stupid question and that's we are here to do is help answer any questions you may have.

Every corner of the vehicle that uses an LED bulb will need a load resistor installed. So if you have LED switchbacks in the front you would need a pair of load resistors. If you have those and want to install rear turn signal bulbs, then you would need a set for each of the rear bulbs as well. Please keep in mind that the t-taps that are included with this set are universal and are not specifically designed for the gauge of wiring on the Optima. Therefore in many cases, a customer may think that they've punctured through the wiring using the supplied t-taps, when in fact they did not at all. This is one of the reasons why we always recommend soldering the connections instead of using any sort of t-taps.

No we only sell the OEM style Daytime Running Lights for the 2011-2013 Kia Optima. They can be wired up anyway you'd like them to. Some customers tie them into the ignition so that they come on whenever the vehicles ignition comes on. Other customers may hook them up to a switch so that they can manually turn them on whenever they want, the possibilities are endless and really the only limitations are that of the installer that hooks them up.

Also, do you carry the ones that flash white-amber-white?
Yes we do, just not as bright as the ones you ordered and they are not listed on our site. So just shoot us an email if you are interested in those.
 
First of all, confession time. I didn't order the bulbs from you. I got them locally from an ad, but have followed this thread for a long time. That was probably a mistake. I think I figured out the issue, though. One bulb seems to be broken inside. It rattles when you shake it. I bent out the connectors inside the socket, crimped the T-clamps tighter, put the other bulb in, and voila....it all works as it's supposed to and the hyper flashing on the other side went away. Except now I need another set of bulbs because now my car is half white and half yellow when the lights are on. This is where you'll come in....I will order from you the next set as soon as I get paid.

Thanks for the help! It really isn't a hard mod, it just helps when the parts aren't broken....lol.
 
Discussion starter · #675 ·
First of all, confession time. I didn't order the bulbs from you. I got them locally from an ad, but have followed this thread for a long time. That was probably a mistake. I think I figured out the issue, though. One bulb seems to be broken inside. It rattles when you shake it. I bent out the connectors inside the socket, crimped the T-clamps tighter, put the other bulb in, and voila....it all works as it's supposed to and the hyper flashing on the other side went away. Except now I need another set of bulbs because now my car is half white and half yellow when the lights are on. This is where you'll come in....I will order from you the next set as soon as I get paid.

Thanks for the help! It really isn't a hard mod, it just helps when the parts aren't broken....lol.
Oooh busted!!! haha just playing. :poke:

Well thank you for the confession, that does make sense as I was wondering how one would run into so many issues with our bulbs and load resistors. Happy to hear that you were able to get it working and get it figured out. Sounds like a plan, let me know when you're ready to order and I'll get you a small discount off of a new set of bulbs.
 
Sounds good. I'm not looking forward to doing the passengers side. Not much room to work in there. I may have my electronics guy put the resistor in for me with a proper solder anyway to avoid the hassle and have it prepped so I can just pop the new bulbs in when I get them.

If I have him wire it to the ignition to use the white LEDs as DRL's would that totally screw up the signalling?
 
Sounds good. I'm not looking forward to doing the passengers side. Not much room to work in there. I may have my electronics guy put the resistor in for me with a proper solder anyway to avoid the hassle and have it prepped so I can just pop the new bulbs in when I get them.

If I have him wire it to the ignition to use the white LEDs as DRL's would that totally screw up the signalling?
You're looking the have them running all the time without having to purposefully turn them on? I'm pretty sure that can be done! I've seen others wire their actual DRLs to function as switchbacks so I don't see why this wouldn't work.
 
That is exactly my thought. Since I have the SX there are no DRL's. I thought that might be an easy solution. I'll see what he comes up with. I'm leaving him my car for five days while I go out of town. He prefers the LED's inside the headlight look, so we'll see what he comes up with.
 
Discussion starter · #679 ·
That is exactly my thought. Since I have the SX there are no DRL's. I thought that might be an easy solution. I'll see what he comes up with. I'm leaving him my car for five days while I go out of town. He prefers the LED's inside the headlight look, so we'll see what he comes up with.
Are you referring to the fog lights or??
 
Are you referring to the fog lights or??
No, not referring to fog lights at all. I have those. SX vs. SX-L the SX has no DRL's. That's what I'm trying to rectify, and thought the switchbacks in the turn signals might be able to be wired to be on all the time. My electronics guy wants to take apart the headlights and add some LED strips internally to use as DRL's. I have a limited budget, so the idea of him taking the extra time to bake apart my lights kind of worries me. On the other hand, I have some clear lenses I've been wanting to put in the HID projectors, so might kill two birds with one stone there. I dunno. Just a matter of decided what to do at this point.
 
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