306maxi said:

why in countries like Finland your headlights have to be on all the time

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Correct, and not just Finland. "Scandinavian light" laws are over 20 years old while proper LED DRL are only 3-5 years on the market. They simply didn't have any other options at that time.

In 5-10 years time all cars will use DRL.

From wiki:
"As a result of European Union Directive 2008/89/EC coming into force on the 7 of February 2011 all new passenger cars and small delivery vans throughout the EU will have to come equipped with daytime running lights"

Geddes said:

Something Hyundai do on the i20 and the 1.0L i10 is where possible the alternator only provides power on engine overrun. This must go some way towards the i20's 119g/km C02 which is pretty impressive for a Punto sized car without start&stop.

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Not sure if it's a similar thing but most modern car I think have smart charging features so that the alternator is only charging when needed rather than all the time thus not placing the engine under a constant load for it.

lesnick said:

Correct, and not just Finland. "Scandinavian light" laws are over 20 years old while proper LED DRL are only 3-5 years on the market. They simply didn't have any other options at that time.

In 5-10 years time all cars will use DRL.

From wiki:
"As a result of European Union Directive 2008/89/EC coming into force on the 7 of February 2011 all new passenger cars and small delivery vans throughout the EU will have to come equipped with daytime running lights"

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and this proves?

lesnick said:

In 5-10 years time all cars will use DRL.

From wiki:
"As a result of European Union Directive 2008/89/EC coming into force on the 7 of February 2011 all new passenger cars and small delivery vans throughout the EU will have to come equipped with daytime running lights"

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Fortunately those of us with older cars won't have to bother.

/pats removing rear fog light the other week.

jrkitching said:

135W is the additional electrical load you'll see if you turn the lights on. remember you also need to add in the power consumed by the side repeaters, rear lights & numberplate light.

I've taken careful measurements on both 500 and Panda & stand by my mpg reduction figure.

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I hope you don't mind if I jump in here. Interesting discussion. I hadn't realised the load on the system with the DRL lights on. I leave the DRLs set to ON all the time even though the car is pearly white. I used to stupidly turn the DRLs off & on a previous Black 500 which I think as a colour can be hard to see.
On the little accident where a guy cut across me when I was in a bus lane (thankfully it was a Sunday) - I thought - did I do anything wrong here ? Well the DRLs were on - it was a drizzly dark Summer's morning 3 weeks ago - so with the lights on and the car a bright white - your man needs some decent glasses.

I was glad that I paid a penalty of 5% on fuel efficiency to keep me in the clear and they still haven't agreed to pay out.

jrkitching said:

Think I've mentioned this before but that's a simple and effective way of squeezing a bit more efficiency out of the car - a sort of 'poor man's hybrid'. Fitting a heavy duty battery and permitting it to discharge to 50% of capacity, combined with smart generator control software is IMHO the way to go.

Drifting off topic but another thing I feel carmakers could do is to improve performance during warmup in colder climates - thermostatically controlled radiator shutters being one example. In a typical UK winter, a small commuting car probably only spends a small percentage of its time running at an optimal temperature.

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Personally I don't see it making a 5% discount but that's just my personal opinion Only problem with thermostatically controlled shutters would be if they stayed shut through failure or just through freezing shut.

lesnick said:

Correct, and not just Finland. "Scandinavian light" laws are over 20 years old while proper LED DRL are only 3-5 years on the market. They simply didn't have any other options at that time.

In 5-10 years time all cars will use DRL.

From wiki:
"As a result of European Union Directive 2008/89/EC coming into force on the 7 of February 2011 all new passenger cars and small delivery vans throughout the EU will have to come equipped with daytime running lights"

Click to expand...

Danish law states that all cars must have the low beam on at all times. In daylight, the front fogs or DRLs can be used instead of the low beam, but not in conjunction with it, it's one or the other.

At night, obviously you use the low beam and switch to high beams as much as possible without blinding oncoming traffic.

I think the latest revision was in 2008, so the laws are beginning to take DRLs into account.

loveshandbags said:

...your man needs some decent glasses...

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306maxi said:

Personally I don't see it making a 5% discount but that's just my personal opinion

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It's only 5% if you're driving like an ecomaniac. The faster you drive, the smaller the percentage, for two reasons - you'll burn more fuel on your journey (so the percentage used by the lights is less), and you'll get there faster (so the lights won't be on for as long). Drive down the motorway at 80mph & I'll bet the difference will be too small to measure.

306maxi said:

Only problem with thermostatically controlled shutters would be if they stayed shut through failure or just through freezing shut.

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Nasty if it happens on a light aircraft .

loveshandbags said:

I was glad that I paid a penalty of 5% on fuel efficiency to keep me in the clear and they still haven't agreed to pay out.

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Couldn't agree more - It's much better to keep squeaky clean in today's litigious society than to save 5% in fuel. Also it won't be anywhere near as much as 5% for your 1.4 for the reasons I posted above.

Finally got round to fitting mine on my Stilo. I agree with MEP... DRLs are a good idea and do increase safety. If someone doesn't like them, that's their prerogative, but to say they're a waste of time is taking it a bit too far. Who of us hasn't heard the 'sorry mate, didn't see you there' explanation for some kind of incident?

Anyway, here's how mine looks. I stuck a pair of Hella auxiliary driving lights on as well, while I was under there. Both worked by cutting into the feed behind the passenger side headlight (LHD car) - the full/high beam feed for the signal to the relay for the Hellas, and the dipped/low beam to turn off the DRLs. So although according to the instructions the DRLs 'off' signal was supposed to come from the sidelights, in my case the DRLs come on with the ignition and remain on with sidelights, but go off with head lights.

Next up: can anyone recommend a good can-bus sidelight bulb for the front sidelights? It can have a slight blue tint to it, but I don't want ones that are really bright, I want ones that look like normal bulbs!