bballernva

Can the daytime running lights be turned off?

Chas2

No, see the owners manual, page 123. Some sort of headlight is on, whether the HID or the halogen high beams working at low voltages as DRL

photoguy

Pull the DRL fuse under the hood release in the cabin. And yes the high beams work fine after the pull.

No more DRL's

XIS

WHY would you not want daytime running lights??

Please tell.

Animagix

pretty wasteful to have them on all the time. not sure how this affects fuel mileage but i read somewhere that you burn 3% more fuel from having these on all the time.

porsherules911

Are you serious? you burn more fuel with those on?

GreezWop

I read that you can save 3.25% in gas if you stop at the top of a steep hill, turn off the engine and coast to the bottom. This will offset the fuel consumption wasted on the DTL's.

Animagix

http://auto.howstuffworks.com/question424.htm

CGTSX2004

iTrader: (1)

Their assumptions are a little off. The average DRL runs at approximately 50%-60% of the full wattage of the bulb, so the numbers they are using would be reduced a bit.

Plus, 3%+ of the fuel consumption could easily be recovered by having people turn off their A/C when it's not needed.

bialkoni

Leave them on,
They keep using this 3% extra gas used, if you average 20 miles a gallon would be about a 5/10th of a mile less, if you avg 12,000 miles a year, that would be 600 gallon of gas take in to account the 5/10 of a mile less that would be 300 extra miles that you would have been driven divide that by 20 miles would be 15 gallons used to run your day time running lights, and they said only an extra gallon or 2 in the article, so it is more like 3/10th of a percent the 3% extra fule used which is less than .005 of mile.
I drove my previous vehicle with the lights on (NO DTL) and ran the air condition almost all the time and still average the estimated 23 mpg.

mav238

This istrue only in an ideal situation. But in reality, you wouldn't even feel the difference in gas consumption.

My SAAB 9-3 sports sedan runs constantly with the HIDs as DRLs. and I never saw any difference in gas consumption.

I am not saying there is not an impact, but it is going to be insignificant.

If one is so worried about this, then drive with the heater off in the winter, A/C off in the summer, lights off at night, no radio... etc...

Really, the amount of gas "wasted" with DRLs is astronomically insignificant as compared with the stop/go driving in the city.

Don't sweat it...

RDX REX

Nice, I'm gonna try that--does it not give any error messages?

davidndenver

Cool link Animagix. It is pretty sad when we have to talk about coasting, driving downhill, turning off our DRL's, and not using the turbo for better fuel milage.

Does anyone remember the Saturn comercial back in the early 90's marketing the first DRL's? The Saturn was driving around town and everyone was yelling, "your lights are on." What a nice safety feature from Acura.

photoguy

Well I dont exactly not have DRL's either. I switched my DRL to the inner amber turn signals. That is a true DRL that serve a purpose. Daniel Sterm makes an adaptor that will allow the DRL to utilize our turn signals much like the Cadillac line does. To do this you have to disable the Acura DRL's unless you want to look like a MAC truck


I have also turned all my bulbs to LED except for the front. Looks better and is brighter too!

PR RDX

DRL's make you more suceptible to Ladar.

William

photoguy

No CELS been that way for 3 weeks now.

06WDP-TL

i'd say find the DRL module and make a switch out of it somewhere in the cabin. say make the switch from the fuse itself. not sure if ya'll see the picture, but i'll see if i can make a DIY off gf's RDX.

sbradley

I'm sure all of you have heard the saying... "Don't believe everything you read". This is especially true for the Internet! And I hate to say this... But I think I would trust the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety before the guy who wrote this article.

See the attached link.

http://www.iihs.org/research/qanda/drl.html

In summary, you will save yourself $3.00 a year in gas, in return for a 7% greater chance of getting in an accident...

There are always 2 sides to every storey... And somewhere in the middle you will find the truth!

Fishbulb

But they make you more visibile to the average cell-phone distracted moron making that left turn in front of you.

I'd say the trade off is good, even if one existed.

Animagix

I remember when xenons were new around the year 2000, people were flashing me to turn off my high beems. haha noobs.

neo1738

yea people still flash me

m28matrix

This is a little off topic, but will the HID light color change over time (yellowish)?

I overheard someone complaining at the Acura dealer that one of the head light appeared more yellowish after his TL was serviced. The person thought their HID bulb was switched. The service rep said that it's normal for the color to change over time, and the only way to get the color to match again is to replace both bulbs.

I usually just leave the HID on all the time for the RDX, because I end up forgetting to put the headlights on at night and just drive with the DRLs. I was spoiled, my '00 Celica & '03 Matrix (cost $10k+ less than the RDX) both have daylight sensors which triggers the DRLs to go off and turn on the head light when it gets too dark. I hope the aftermarket add-on parts start picking up to address some the current RDX limitations (i.e. Seat memory, brake kit upgrades, automatically opening & closing of the trunk).

flar

The color temp does slowly migrate over time, but the life of these bulbs is so long that no RDX should be noticing this yet (unless the headlights have been on 24/7 since the introduction). It was well over 6 years and 100-120k miles of a high percentage of night-time driving when I replaced the HID bulbs in my last car because they were growing dimmer and yellower.

[Edit: Sorry, I just reread the previous post and noticed that it was a TL, not an RDX that was being discussed - so the answer is "yes it can happen, but it is a very gradual process that shouldn't be obvious from before/after you get service..."]