NA - daytime running lights

Has anyone fitted drl’s to a mk1. Any suggestions?

Personally I wouldn’t bother. In my opinion possibly the most pointless and possibly dangerous feature on a motor vehicle. Just got home from a 60 mile motorway journey in atrocious weather conditions and passed countless vehicles with no rear lights,but instrument lights on and running lights on at the front. Your car,your choice though

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Appreciate the comment, but what others do with their lights is not my concern. I would like to be as visible as possible.

You could simply put your lights on, then you would be visible from front and rear

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I’ve considered wiring the front fog lamps on my NA as DRLs. They are the Mazda accessory ones.

Thanks Robbie, I’ll look at that.
David

My car has the Mazda front driving lamps, the white ones. I leave these switched on so when the side lights are on they are on as well. I always drive during the day with my side lights on so there is always four lights on the front of the car, I think this helps on a small dark blue car at least I hope it does.

Dave

Thanks Dave. Do you have a photo?

David

Hi David, sorry been out all day.

Hope this helps.

Dave

Hi Dave, that looks great! I was wondering about fitting them somewhere on the grill but wasn’t sure. Think I know the way to go know. Is that a special grill or is it made up?

David

Hi David and thank you.
The lamps were made by Mazda but would doubt that they are still made, mine came off eBay where they sometimes appear at a price, as driving lights they are of little use but then I use them to be seen not see.
You may find that the wiring is already present in the car and there is more information on here some where as to where to find it and the switch you need. If you go this route pm me and I will explain in detail.
The grill came with the car so I know little of its history, how ever the lamps attachment points were already on the car so I had to cut the grill to fit around them, not the easiest of jobs!
Works fine but bit of a pain if you need to replace a bulb as the grill has to come of first.

I’ve got my sidelights set up as DRLs. They come on with the ignition. I got an electrician to do it, with a little switch in the fuse box which puts it back to standard. All works well and I don’t tend to think about it. I think it involves a relay, but I can’t remember to be honest. I also swapped to LEDs and upped the lumens a bit.

The reason I did it was simply because as cars have got bigger and are lit up like Christmas trees, my little green mk1 seemed to be invisible to a lot of other drivers. I just feel a little more confident that people can see me with lights on.

I think it cost me about £100 for the work.

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I fitted these Stealth Sequential Indicators by Jass Performance using the side light switch for the daylights, they are extremely bright and work well in the daytime unlike a lot of claimed bolt on daylights and I absolutley love the LED seqential indicators, my MX is also featured in the Ad

https://vimeo.com/374705075

Hello Dave,

Yellow or white I believe that they are fog lights, and therefore illegal to use unless in fog or inclement weather where you can’t see the lights of the vehicle in front.

Jeff

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They look great, thanks for the heads up.

David

Hi Jeff,

An interesting point, you may well remember that in the dim and distant past when cars just had side and not very efficient headlamps we fitted auxiliary lights. Driving lights, which were white ie normal or halogen bulbs were often more powerful that the factory fitted headlights and had a more focused beam. In fog, which in those days was very thick the headlights reflected back and caused glare, so yellow tinted fog lamps were fitted low on the car so as not to reflect. Driving lamps above the front bumper fogs below.

Volvo introduced the idea of day running lights which used a combined 5w / 21w bulb the 5w as a side light and the 21w as the DRL, initially if I remember correctly the switch over was manual and one had to remember to switch to side lights as darkness fell to prevent glare.

The Mk1 lamps appear to have been available either as clear driving lamps or yellow for fog, mine are clear and even with a halogen bulb they are feeble compared to the Lucas or Cibie lamps we fitted in the 70s,

The family VW Tiguan has LED DRLs, cornering lamps and driving lights all of which are many times brighter that the two on the Roadster.

At the end of the day the definition of fog and driving lamps appears to have blurred and if you add in some very bright DRLs the situation is confusing. In my case I would rather be seen and don’t believe my two lamps will cause anything like the dazzle effect that the VW DRLs do, plus the experience of having some muppet turn across the front of me causing an accident because he claimed not to have seen me on a bright January morning means that I will continue to use my lamps as DRLs.

Dave

Hi Dave,

I agree completely with your first paragraph, and would have mentioned that if I had gone into further detail. Unfortunately, your third paragraph contradicts this. The fact that they are below the bumper and have bottle-bottom lenses that do not have a focused beam means they cannot be driving lights.

I’m not here to argue with you… my comments stem from those drivers who drive all the time on modern bright fog lights and are sadly unaware that this is illegal. The police seem to have much more important things to do than to address this - probably a good thing.

I don’t think the definitions have blurred… fog lights are operated by fog light switches.

Were you aware that some MK1s had factory fitted DRLs; the headlights come on at reduced power automatically with sidelight operation?

Continue with your lights, I’m sure they’re fine :slight_smile:

Jeff

Thanks Jeff, will do.
If I remember correctly all Manchester Police cars were fitted with a reduced power headlight system that came on with the ignition in the 1970s, dimmed headlights was I think the name of the system.
My car of the time also had them fitted from new.

Take care
Dave