Philips LED Tail Bulbs: Ultinon vs Vision

First of all, can we please stay on topic here. This thread is about Philips LED tail bulbs only. Not interested in comments from any frequently posting LED bulb vendors.

A fellow member mentioned these newer Philips Ultinon bulbs so I decided to give them a try. I paid about $15 CAD per bulb, plus a few bucks for shipping. About what I also paid for the Philips Vision bulbs.

The Ultinon bulbs have 3 banks x 6 diodes (red). Whereas the Vision bulbs have 2 banks x 4 diodes (red). Each bulb is designed quite differently. Ultinon on the left, Vision on the right.



These pictures are not great. Clearly I am no photographer. Vision (left) vs Ultinon (right). Coded to brightness 10, then 28 (default running brightness), then to 100.







It’s not super easy to tell in these pics but the Ultinon bulbs are slightly brighter and slightly more red.

You can’t go wrong with either of these bulbs. But I’d recommend the Ultinons over the Vision if you are still running incandescent bulbs. However, I wouldn’t bother with the hassle / cost of swapping out Visions for Ultinons.

Hope you guys find this useful. Cheers!

Oh and BTW, as I learned from others on here, it’s highly recommended that you dim the running brightness from 28 to 10 if you’re running LED tail bulbs. It makes for a much more noticeable difference when applying the brakes / turns signals, when the running lights are on.

I'd be interested to know how they perform with sunlight hitting the tail lights as well.

An older Tiguan (similar tail light design as the MK7 halogen tails) was signaling to get in my lane earlier this week when the sun was setting behind us. I didn't notice them signaling immediately due to the redness of the LED bulbs they installed and how closely it matched the redness of their tail light housing. It might be that the less red Vision turns out to be safer during daylight.

*Their headlights/running lights were off btw, so contrast between running lights and brake/signal wasn't an issue*

Sent from my SM-G930T using Tapatalk

I will give it a look tomorrow in full daylight. Pics may not be worthwhile taking though.

NeedSleep said:

I'd be interested to know how they perform with sunlight hitting the tail lights as well.

An older Tiguan (similar tail light design as the MK7 halogen tails) was signaling to get in my lane earlier this week when the sun was setting behind us. I didn't notice them signaling immediately due to the redness of the LED bulbs they installed and how closely it matched the redness of their tail light housing. It might be that the less red Vision turns out to be safer during daylight.

*Their headlights/running lights were off btw, so contrast between running lights and brake/signal wasn't an issue*

Sent from my SM-G930T using Tapatalk

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Agreed, the contrast is very important in sunlight when your running red on red turn signals and taillights. I have the deautokey brake and turn tail lights.

I ended up ordering a set of Facelift euro led tails, with dynamic amber signal. Pricey but much better looking than the mk7 led tails. I would really like to see VW get back to amber blinkers on their later models. They just seem safer to me.

Cptnjosh said:

Agreed, this seems to be a common issue withe LED bulbs in nA housings. I have the Deautokey LED rear brake and turn bulbs. I coded the brightness down to 15 so the contrast is better between braking/turn signal, but it is still difficult to see in bright sun. Maybe these other brand bulbs would be more effective but I am skeptical. I have had 3 different c0-workers mention my rear blinkers, dont seem to be working. They were in fact working fine but they just did not notice them. For this reason if I were to stick with the OEM NA tails I would revert back to the incandescent bulbs.

I ended up ordering a set of Facelift euro led tails, with dynamic amber signal. Pricey but much better looking than the mk7 led tails. I would really like to see VW get back to amber blinkers on their later models. They just seem safer to me.

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Hi, do you have our new model or old model, our new model have a lot more contrast and there is NO CODING required to achieve the bright contrast between brakes/tails. From what we saw and feedback these can easily be seen in direct sun light, we sent a PM for your info to see if you might have an older 2014 model vs the new model we have out now, we can send our new model for you to test this also.

Thank you

He ordered a set of FL tails. So not an issue for him anymore.

Weather here has been mostly cloudy. Daytime brightness seems fine to me. But will keep an eye out if/when we get some more sunshine here.

Gee it took all of 48 hours to get this thread off topic. This is about the Philips bulbs ONLY. @nype, thanks for your review. I think they look great. I dig the color difference. I have my Vision LEDs coded down to a value of "5" as running lights, might be slightly too dim. I played around with values from "15" down and settled on "5". It's kinda cool because it gives the illusion that the tail light housings are tinted slightly. I will probably bump it back up, but they are still plenty visible even just as running lights at night.

deAutoLED.com said:

Hi, do you have our new model or old model, our new model have a lot more contrast and there is NO CODING required to achieve the bright contrast between brakes/tails. From what we saw and feedback these can easily be seen in direct sun light, we sent a PM for your info to see if you might have an older 2014 model vs the new model we have out now, we can send our new model for you to test this also.

Thank you

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You look like an ass when someone specifically asks you to not show up with your usual dog and pony show.

seanmcd said:

You look like an ass when someone specifically asks you to not show up with your usual dog and pony show.

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Someone mentioned their product in the thread so that’s pretty fair game.

Gawernator said:

Someone mentioned their product in the thread so that’s pretty fair game.

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See first sentence of first post.

Philips LED bulbs...please stay on topic guys...

Nype, just out of curiosity...
I assume you haven't had any 'bulb-out' warning/errors with these?

Mk5Dom said:

Nype, just out of curiosity...
I assume you haven't had any 'bulb-out' warning/errors with these?

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I know your question was directed to him but I’ll go ahead and answer, no. I have the Vision series (the first ones nype had) and no errors and no coding necessary although I’d recommend changing the dimming value for the running lights so there is a greater delta between running/brake lights. Hey for under $50 it’s really a no brainer. I’m sure he will agree...

100% agree. [emoji1303]

No errors, no coding required.

thanks for sharing!!!