I ordered the LED interior light set for the Fit - and the cargo light too. I only needed one dome light for my base Fit but I used the other two for my '08 Sport and my wife's 07 Accord rear dome.

The instructions online at college hills make a point of telling you that you should add electrical tape or other insulation to the backside of the LED unit if there was inadequate clearance behind the unit and it would get too close to a metal part. It could short out otherwise.

Well, it looked to me like there was plenty of clearance in each car. The cargo area in particular was all plastic behind the unit.

Has anyone done this mod and felt that such a bit of tape or other insulation was necessary?

Thanks.

BTW, I ordered the special tool to help pry off the covers (KTC Trim Tool), and boy is that a help. I remember when I had a Camry and had an interior dome light go out. I took it to one well-known non-dealer shop chain and they said they could not get it off! The dealer eventually did, but that car went through bulbs about once a year. I ended up using a flat head screwdriver and inevitably gouged the housing. This tool would have really helped!

 

Why are you being stingy about some tape? The problem with electrical components and exposed metal is their ability to arc across. Like some have said... "it's cheap insurance."

Plastic... while it doesn't conduct electricity like metal, does have a habit of holding static charges. I won't assume how "sensitive" the LED parts are, but I'd use tape anyway.

 

I used brush on insulation. It didn't look like contact was likely, but it can hurt and is fairly cheap.

 

Don't assume stinginess as a motivation for not going back in there.

It looked like there was tons of room in there, and it didn't seem necessary since the need for it was premised on there being clearance on the backside of the bulb. I'm also worried about damaging the LED unit by popping it out to get at the backside, but maybe for the domes I can rotate the unit in place without removing it.

 

i have the college hill map, dome, and trunk led lights and in my '12 fit sport, and all of them looked like they had plenty of space but i added a little piece of electrical tape anyway.

 

Seriously? Were you able to magically transplant a bulb in there without popping anything out?

The instructions are not: install new bulb first, then pop it out to put tape. You should've put tape WHILE you had the old bulb out and before installing new bulb.

If you really don't want to put... then don't. I'm not forcing you.

Fine, it's not stinginess... it's just plain laziness then.

 

Goobers, I do not know how you keep misunderstanding me, but however you do it, you're good at it.

I had already installed the LED unit and put the cover back on. I thought that, to go back and put tape on the backside of it (even though clearance looked fine), I might have to pop out the LED thing and I wasn't sure if it would hold up as well as the regular bulb. Maybe it would, maybe it wouldn't - I don't know. All I knew is that they're different and maybe the LED was more fragile b/c of the circuitry on the backside.

However, I didn't have to pop them out to apply the tape. I simply rotated it position so that the backside faced me, applied the tape, then rotated it back so the LEDs faced outward.

That's all. No need to call me lazy or stingy.

 

You happen to have a link to the LED's? My dome light went out, and I'll need a replacement.

Thanks

 

Honda Fit Accessories - Genuine 2009-2012 Honda Fit Accessories Shipped at Discount Prices

Scroll down to "High Power White LED Festoon"

- there's a video there too showing you the best spots to pry open the plastic light covers depending on which type of light you're working on (e.g., dome, map light, trunk light, etc). As I mentioned, I found the special tool does a great job of enabling you to do this without gouging the housing.

Note, if you choose "add to cart" it may default to adding 3 dome light LED units to your cart. This is right for the GE Fit Sport, since you have 2 map lights plus one dome light. However, if you have the base model, you'll need to manually change this to 1 unit.

I have the base model and didn't notice this until my order had already gone in. However, as I mentioned in the OP, I used the extra two on our other two Honda cars.

They definitely seem brighter when you look right at them - my original dome bulb seemed remarkably dim - but the first thing I notice when getting in the car is the light's color is a much cooler white than a warm yellow.

 

I ordered mine through superbrightleds.com and suspect that's where college hills honda got theirs from based on assigned product numbers. But if you order from superbright, you can choose bulb color and temperature (ie warm white vs cool white)

 

Special Tool = Credit Card. I only use mine to take off plastic bits. Also a cheap $1 or less plastic paint scraper will work on larger bits.

 

Thank you, sir.