Daytime Running Lights - high or low beams?

[ffhseattle]

I just had the dealer enable my DRLs, following advice given by others on this forum (thanks!).

 

QUESTION: for those who have had their DRLs enabled, do they use the low or high beams?

 

Mine use low beams and I found that a bit surprising, but perhaps that's how it's supposed to work...

 

Thanks

[dennisw]

Mine are low beams. Why is it surprising that they use low beams?

[ffhseattle]

Perhaps it shouldn't be surprising. I seem to recall that others had mentioned that FFH DRLs usually use high beams, and I've definitely noticed that on other cars like Camry hybrid.

[dennisw]

I have never noticed or seen them being used as high beams including the Camry Hybrid. Maybe the ones you have seen had their headlights on? Does not make sense that they would be high beams, and in most states this would be breaking the law. You are not suppose to use high beams with on coming traffic and if they were high beams you would be blinding on coming drivers. It is not legal in most places to use high beams with on coming traffic approaching. Some people would be driving at dusk and early darkness with their day time lights on and blinding drivers. Thankfully my DRL's are on low beams.

[Fusion Hybrid Guide]

I'm a big advocate of daytime running lights. Being on the border with Canada, I've learned how valuable they are.

[FusionDiffusion]

DRLs use the low beam on the Fusion. There is a FET inside the SJB that uses PWM to lower the brightness of the low beams for DRL use. Actually all Fusions have this dimming circuitry because it's used to control normal headlight brightness when the car is on, so you should be able to enable DRL by just changing a software setting.

 

Fords usually use the low beams for DRLs, but I know other makes that use the high beams to even out the wear on the bulbs.

[hybridbear]

_{I thought the 2013 came with DRLs but our car doesn't have them, is there a way to have them turned on like mentioned above? Thanks}

[milleron]

It's true that other manufacturers use high beams for DRLs. That does make sense because these are DAYtime running lights, and there's no worry of blinding other drivers in broad daylight. When they use high beams, they're illuminated at reduced voltage so that even at dusk they're not bright enough to cause vision problems for oncoming drivers.

[jcg1005]

Agreed with Milleron. Many manufacturers, including GM, use the high beam setting at reduced output for DRL.

[Warren Cook]

I am told by my dealer that my DRL cannot be activated because I have automatic light controls, so it is not available...Seems silly to me.

[corncobs]

We should start a thread to collect all silly excuses dealers have that don't wanna turn on DRLs.

 

I believe that's a new one.

[hermans]

I am told by my dealer that my DRL cannot be activated because I have automatic light controls, so it is not available...Seems silly to me.

It is silly.

[Waldo]

It is silly.

 

And incorrect.

[IraF]

I have automatic light controls, and usually leave it on A , low beams when cars come at you and when on a road at night with no light coming towards you, it goes to high beams, turns on/off low beams night/day. If this is what you mean by automatic light controls. I could also set parking lights and high/low beams manually if desired.

Last year when we had the update to allow the Hybrid portion of the car to increase and run from 62mph to 80 I asked the dealer to activate the DRL's and they were DONE using the directions given many threads ago in this forum and in fact I really think they didn't need the directions.

Your dealer is lazy/ignorant of the facts. I have noticed some say the dealer cannot do this, my FFH is not a corporate car and just a car off the lot and the service department where my car is serviced wonders why they just don't activate these at the factory.

 

Someone needs to get out a communication to the dealers on how to activate DRL's

Edited April 1, 2014 by IraF

[Waldo]

 

Someone needs to get out a communication to the dealers on how to activate DRL's

 

It's called a shop manual. Every dealer has one already. Section 418-01.

[corncobs]

 

It's called a shop manual. Every dealer has one already. Section 418-01.

Sounds like a lot dealers haven't opened this package from Ford or have ever reached section 418-01 ;)

[vett93]

It seems that Ford does not want dealers to turn on DRLs. See another thread in this sub-forum. There is a Ford employee commenting that Ford does not want dealers to turn on DRLs.

[acdii]

Ford doesn't want to PAY dealers to turn them on, that's what I get from it, not that Ford doesn't want them enabled. As CC knows, my dealer has no problem enabling them, for a small fee.

[corncobs]

And it's well worth every penny for me at least! The auto head lights turn on very late too late for my taste in order to be seen by all night blind drivers out there.

 

It's not just the time during sunset. While driving to the KSC those long straight and flat roads where you can see for miles in FL there is always one without lights between two with lights on that you would miss when trying to pass another car. Most times these cars where carrying a blue oval on their nose.

 

I think because there are so many cars with DRL is becoming more dangerous to drive without.

Edited April 7, 2014 by corncobs

[vett93]

Ford doesn't want to PAY dealers to turn them on, that's what I get from it, not that Ford doesn't want them enabled. As CC knows, my dealer has no problem enabling them, for a small fee.

 

See message #140 from a Ford rep in the Daytime Running Lights thread. A snippet of it is as follows:

 

"I'm unable to get involved in the DRL issue because they are only supposed to be activated for those who have ordered cars through fleet sales. Technically, your dealers aren't supposed to be activating them for you. I definitely can't stop you from telling one another where to go or how to do it, but I'm not able to facilitate any of it. "

 

My Ford dealer even told me that it is illegal for them to turn on the DRLs for me in California. Go figure....

[Waldo]

Ford doesn't want to PAY dealers to turn them on, that's what I get from it, not that Ford doesn't want them enabled. As CC knows, my dealer has no problem enabling them, for a small fee.

 

Ford doesn't want the legal liability of officially offering a safety feature enabled by dealers that may or may not do it correctly. For example, what if Ford found a defect in the DRL system that required a recall. Ford knows exactly which vehicles have the feature from the factory, so it's easy to recall just those. But Ford has no way of knowing which vehicles have had it turned on by dealers, so they would either have to recall every vehicle or none of them.

 

There are also trails through second owners. What if the first owner had the dealer enable DRL but they did it incorrectly, say enabling the foglights as DRL instead of the 40% high beams. The second owner thinks they have factory DRL but in fact they don't. The foglights may not meet the legal requirements for DRL (light output and such), so they sue Ford when they've been in a crash saying the DRLs weren't working correctly.

 

This may sound crazy, but there have been some really crazy lawsuits in the past against Ford such that they now protect themselves as much as possible.

Edited April 7, 2014 by Waldo

[billford]

Since I never use my foglights, I bought 2 fog light connectors and made my own DRL wiring harness and relay. I wired up the fog lights in a series circuit to reduce the intensity and allow the bulbs last longer, similar to the GM vehicles that used the high beams in series for reduced intensity. Even at 1/2 intensity, they are still very noticeable. I plan to get some LED H11 fog light bulbs, they are brighter and have a lower current draw than what I have now.