A godforsaken retrofit

We all know that even though Alfa Romeo Giulia is a modern car, it still has some things that feel like they belong to the last century. One of these are yellow bulbs in the puddle lights. I prefer LED white light everywhere, and have already replaced the bulbs in the trunk and glove box, though I didn't make a post about it. However, there are other places where that "old-ish" yellow light still exist. The first such place is the sunshades.

I'm a fan of Philips and always use their bulbs wherever possible. However, they don't produce the sunshades' specific types of bulbs. It is a very small 28mm SMF format. You can find plenty of them on AliExpress, with 3, 4, 5, even 6 diodes soldered. To be honest, the lifespan of that many diodes in such a small factor is not very long. Plus, do you really need that many? So, I started to look for bulbs with just 1 or 2 diodes soldered.

And to be honest, it's a rare find. There is nothing like it on AliExpress. They always try to sell you bulbs with 4, 5 or 6 diodes. However, I've found a single-LED diode bulb on Amazon from a local US company called Diode Dynamics. Local should mean better warranty and quality. The price is just $6 for a pack of 2.

The installation is a piece of cake. Just used my pry tools to remove the lamp cover and swapped out the bulb.

The result is awesome. Mild white light, instead of overly bright. The last place where we can still see yellow light are the doors puddle lights. I'm sure you've all heard about the OEM set of 2 puddle lamps kit for a ridiculous $230. Part number:

• 50903631

And, unsurprisingly, if you search for real photos of this kit on Google, you'll find nothing. I'm also not ready to spend that much for just 2 lamps. Especially when I can get 4 of them on AliExpress for only $21.

I installed the same lamps on my previous Giulia and had no issues with them. Removing the old lamps with pry tools isn't the easiest task since the wires leading to the lamps are quite short. You'll need thin fingers to replace the lamps without removing the entire door panel.

The lamps are identical, but they require a small enhancement. I glued the diode plate to the plastic to prevent it from falling when disassembling the lamp.

Before installing them into the door panel, I recommend to connect lamp to the wires and check the position of the logo. The lens inside the lamp assembly can be rotated clockwise, so make sure the logo is aligned parallel to the door.

Looks good. But, do you remember I purchased 4 lamps? And did you ever question why only front puddle lights with the Alfa Romeo logo available in the OEM catalog? And what if the front are white, does that mean the rear ones are still yellow?

The answer to this question is in the photo. The problem is that the front and rear doors open at different angles, causing the logo look different. It is bigger on the rear doors because the height between the door and the ground is higher. So, if you're a car manufacturer and want the logos to be the same size, you have two options:

• Make front and rear doors open at the same angle when you design a car (Hi, Audi A4!)
• Create separate front and rear puddle lights with different lenses, introducing different part numbers for each

As you understand, Alfa Romeo simply didn't go with either of these options. That's why there are no real photos of these logos on the internet. It seems this retrofit is orphaned by the manufacturer, as I've never seen it installed from the factory anywhere.

That's why I decided to purchase Philips W5W bulbs for the rear doors, so the light color from the rear puddle lights matches that of the front doors. Now the result is awesome. Additionally, I have 2 spare lamps with logos just in case.

That's all for today. Thanks to everyone for reading this. Stay safe and love your cars!

Total:

• Sunshade bulbs: $5.95
• Puddle light kit: $20.62
• Rear door bulbs: $14.96