How long can you leave your neons on?

My friend got a set of neons on her car and since she usually works at night her car sits out in the parking lot and I told her she should just leave them on because that would look pretty sweet. Anyways she thought that would be cool but how long could she leave them on in general? Such as over night or a few days? Its a 4 piece set, one on each side of the car and she has a regular battery.. cheap 3yr limited warranty nothing special. So approximately how long could they stay on? Obviously its very inspecific since I Dont know how much power the neons consume otherwise I would do the math myself. Thanks in advance

well think about headlights, i dont know if they draw the same amount of energy, but i wouldnt leave them on longer then like an hour or two, you can always test it out at home before you try it at work... cuz that would be really bad if she left them on and the battery died tryin to be cool.

you cant compare headlights to neons... neon lights use tons less energy... Thats like comparing how long your car can run on a tank of gas compared to how long your lawn mower can go on a tank of gas.

Anyone know a kwh figure on any 4 set of ground effects bulbs?

i meant to say corners, it still is more power, but still...

alright so I think i figured it out

I found that neons typically use 2.5 - 6 amps in a set of 4. And a typical battery is over 1000amp/h max output so I just used 1000 to make it an easy round number.. plus im going for a low ball guess since im not factoring in other variables such as parasitic load.. and her battery isn't brand new and in perfect condition.

A * V = W

A = amps
V = voltage
W = watts

With that formula
2.5 * 12 = 30
6 * 12 = 72

So the least they use is 30a/h or at most 72a/h. Therefore a 1000a battery can push them from 33.3 hours to as much as 13.8 hours.

Now back to my orginal question thats just how long till the battery is theoretically dead.. and since you need enough power to start your car as well as the fact your battery wouldnt last long being drained so low then recharged so much.. at 6 amps its not a good plan but if she has the 2.5 amp version then leaving them on all night or just for the 5 hours shes at work it shouldn't be a problem. Unless I'm missing something. Anyone?

why bother, if you ask me it all sounds a bit silly. why would you want to take the risk of coming back and your car won't start, plus it would draw a lot of unwanted attention to her car. some jealous f*cker might come along and break into the car or break thhe neons or do something to it, there are some real shit heads out there,.,.,.

dude we leave in northern florida... crime isn't really a large problem here. Specially at her work in a large shopping center where cops like to sit and tag people.

oh and she drives a malibu, i cant imagine anyone being jealous of it... shes not trying to rice it out or anything she just likes pink so her parents got her a gift card to get them installed at our friends dads shop.

pink neons on a chevy malibu...yah

Anyhow, I agree with riccimangan, why draw so much unwanted attention by doing that?

why would you want to put a body kit on your car then.. or turbo your car.. or do anything to it? "it would draw a lot of unwanted attention to her car"

Why do any of us mod anything on our cars. We want the attention, some of us rather have the speed over the looks but anything we do is for attention from other people.

Yeah but leaving neons on when you're not around the car is far different than having a body kit or turbo. Neons are screaming "look over here at me". And whether cops are in the parking lot or not doesn't mean anything. People escape maximum security prisons, that are filled with cops and security; a car is nothing to steal. You can steal a car in under 2 minutes, if even that long. I'm not going to knock neons in general, but leaving them on for a few hours while you're at work is a bad idea. Theives don't care if it's a Malibu or not, if it's a car and clearly has power they'll take it if they "need" a car. But hey it's not my car that's going to get stolen so oh well, tell her to do what she wants.

why would you want to put a body kit on your car then.. or turbo your car.. or do anything to it? "it would draw a lot of unwanted attention to her car"

Why do any of us mod anything on our cars. We want the attention, some of us rather have the speed over the looks but anything we do is for attention from other people.
Nope sorry but I'm not that superficial. I do shit to my car cause that is what I like to do and I am doing it for myself. Everything I will do to this car and have done to my last car was not to draw attention and to showoff, but to achieve certain goals that I set.

There is this one term in the general modding community, it's sleeper. You should familiarize yourself with it.

Yeah but leaving neons on when you're not around the car is far different than having a body kit or turbo. Neons are screaming "look over here at me". And whether cops are in the parking lot or not doesn't mean anything. People escape maximum security prisons, that are filled with cops and security; a car is nothing to steal. You can steal a car in under 2 minutes, if even that long. I'm not going to knock neons in general, but leaving them on for a few hours while you're at work is a bad idea. Theives don't care if it's a Malibu or not, if it's a car and clearly has power they'll take it if they "need" a car. But hey it's not my car that's going to get stolen so oh well, tell her to do what she wants.


right, so body kits and rims dont scream attention like neons??

well....All I gotta say is I dont think Body Kits LIGHT up.....and rims either....if you look at a row of cars the first thing your gonna notice is that one car somewhere in the middle with neon lights on, even though all those other cars have rims and such, neons are just more NOTICABLE

ok i agree with everyone but tencent.

If a car has a turbo and its sitting in a parking lot. Will you notice? NO

If a car has rims sitting in a parking lot will you notice? MORE THEN USUAL

If a car has neons sitting in a parking lit will you notice? FUCK YES YOU WILL

At night lights will be more attractive for anyone, then any other aspect on a vehicle.

it is pointless to show, when you are not there to take the compliments, or not there to protect your ride.

And plus neons period is dumb, neons on a malibu? I will let you fill in the rest.

i think tencent is the one with the malibu/pink neons with how defensive he's getting. it sounds like a really stupid idea to me. but there's no way to estimate when the battery dies, there're too many variables... tell "her" to do it at home and test it out a few times, thats the only way to figure it out.

take her down to the store and have her buy an optima deep cycle battery, I have one in every one of my cars and I have left my headlights on all day long and came out and started my car up. That battery would run gay neon lights for probably a couple months straight.

Nope sorry but I'm not that superficial. I do shit to my car cause that is what I like to do and I am doing it for myself. Everything I will do to this car and have done to my last car was not to draw attention and to showoff, but to achieve certain goals that I set.

Like he said. Tell her to do whatever she wants. If SHE wants to do it, that's her prerogative (yes that's right). it's her car and it's her life. no one else here can tell her what's going to happen. crime happens everywhere and there's nothing you can do to stop it. Let her do it for herself if that's what she wants, not to impress anyone else. as far as the battery stuff, i've seen a dodge ram with all kinds of neons on it. the guy left them on for at least three hours at night. it looked good but it did draw attention. but then again, lots of car draw attention. everyone on here needs to chill out and mess with their own car and let everyone else do the same. it's your car and not anyone else's.

The first thing I'm gonna think if I see a car with its neons on is, "look at the dumbass who forgot to turn off their neons, are they stupid or something?" instead of "holy crap, that's awesome man, YEEEEEEEEEEEEAH!" but if you think it's really necessary for her to leave the neons on, you might wanna get a new battery for the neons specifically just like a sound system and hook it up to the alternator so it recharges when the car is actually on. Even though I don't believe neons take a lot of energy to run them for a long time, she may have to get a beefed up alternator after long-term use.