Anyone have an idea how to remove the dimming effect of the high beams? I'd rather have the DRLs going full blast.




So I want to swap the bulbs in the DRLs from the stock amberish bulbs to white LEDs. I got the new LEDs, but when I plug them into the socket, they won't light up. The most I've gotten is the faintest flicker when the switch is flipped, then nothing.

I'm not new to lighting, and I've tried flipping the LED around (no flicker), testing the LED directly to the battery (works great), soldering little bits of metal at the contact points to make a better connection (no results), even taking apart the LED to take a closer look.

The way I see it, there are two possibilities:
1) The DRLs do not receive the full 12V (unlikely?)
2) The bulb is still not making contact with the socket properly

I can't do much about #1, although I would like some assurance that the sockets are indeed 12V (I don't see why they wouldn't be). However, for #2, I have 2 options. The first is to add more and more metal and hope for solid contact, and the second is to swap the actual lighting sections of the stock and the LED bulbs. I'm wondering if anyone else has tried taking apart the stock bulb, as it looks like they did some fancy metal bending to keep it stable. Any information or advice would be much appreciated

 

The DRL system fires those bulbs at 50% power, does that mean 6 volts ?, I can't say for sure but I think that is likely the source of your problem. Do the bulbs fire up when used in highbeam mode ? (parking brake on, lights turned on and switch to highbeam). If they work in highbeam mode but not DRL mode then I would say the 50% power situation is the cause of the issue.

 

I totally forgot that the S utilizes a dimming circuit for the DRLS...

Thanks for solving my problem for me.

Anyone have an idea how to remove the dimming? I'd rather have the LEDs going all the time.