Disabling Daytime Running Lights on 2010 TDI

bdisco said:

As far as I can tell the purpose of DRLs is to make you more visible to other motorist ...so they can see you sooner, and still pull out in front of you, cutting you off and forcing you to slam on the brakes. There is still no cure for stupid.

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True Lights help especially in light challenged areas,
but Xenon Bulbs are over $100 each, and are running at full power anytime the car is on.
I bought some high bright LED bulbs($15 ea) and installed them in the fog lights, and use them for DRL's because with Xenon headlights the fogs were almost useless!

Sadly enough neither option works for my 2011 JSW. The owners manual says to use the turns signal option, no luck. And there is no option in the display.

Ok, I'm going to throw my $0.02 on the fire here:

I have a 2011 JSW. At first I was planning to disable the DRLs out of concern of the bulb failure issue (PWM dimming causes the bulbs to fail quickly). Since on the 2011 JSW the DRLs appear to be the highbeams, I did not want to have my highbeams going out on me simply because I'm driving around with them on during the day.

Before looking into actually disabling the DRLs, I wanted to make sure that the DRLs are in fact the high beams and not the parking lights. I quickly established that they are NOT the parking lights, but I also established that they are also NOT THE HIGH BEAMS!

I haven't actually pulled the high beam bulb, but it appears that there are 2 filaments in the bulb. One comes on for the DRLs, the other comes on for the high beams. The DRL filament looks to be ahead of the Highbeam filament, this causes it to be slightly outside of the reflector's focal point, which reduces the glare and brightness. I'm guessing its also a lower wattage filament too.

Having satisfied my top concern of not having my highbeams PWM dimmed to act as DRLs, I no longer care if the DRLs are on or not.

So there.

OK, I volunteer to be the test dummy for DRL's on a xenon equipped car. I'll post when they burn out. I'd like to turn them off, but my wife says why bother, it won't make any diff. in bulb life. We'll see.
My car has been in service since 12-8-10.
However, if someone in the Phoenix area has a VAG-COM and wants to help, I'll buy you a beer
2011 Golf TDi

Cavetroll said:

Sadly enough neither option works for my 2011 JSW. The owners manual says to use the turns signal option, no luck. And there is no option in the display.

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I concur. Been driving a 2011 JSW TDI loaner and tried to turn off DRL's using the stalk method and also went thru options on the MFD but no luck.

I should be getting mine within the next few days and I'm looking forward to it.

I have noticed that the MFI panel options change depending on how long the car has been on,

Mine the option for footwell lighting disappears at times, sometimes I wonder if the car needs to be running 3-5 minutes before all the options appear.

how pointless....extend your bulb life on your new 30,000 car?? you are kidding right?....not be as visible in hazy,foggy,dusky conditions....boy...lots of value there.

I have to [respectfully] disagree with you. To me it is pointless to have mandatory daytime running forward lights only....

The worst part of driving in overcast, hazy, inclement weather is the people IN FRONT of me with no lights whatsoever on. If anything, it should be law to have the city lights as DRL's. Whenever its daytime but overcast or hazy, i always drive with my city lights (euro switch). This way, everyone both behind and in front of me can see me.

IMO, if its too bright for your headlights (lowbeams) to illuminate the road, they are not needed.

Headlights are for YOU to see...

City lights are for OTHERS to see you...

tdi90hp said:

how pointless....extend your bulb life on your new 30,000 car?? you are kidding right?

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For me, its not an issue of the cost of the bulb, it a question of which bulb is going to be burning out, and if that burned out bulb affects my ability to see clearly at night. Not pointless if seeing at night is important to you.

Pulse Width Modulation is used frequently to get high-beam bulbs to function as DRLs. This flashes the bulb so fast that the bulb appears to be dimmer. This also causes the bulb to fail much quicker. Many car manufacturers no longer rely on PWM'ing the high beams because of this.

If the DRL was a PWM high-beam bulb, I was going to disable the DRL so as to reduce the chance of ending up on a dark, Oregon highway at night, in the rain without reflective road markings with a burned out high-beam.

StaceyS said:

For me, its not an issue of the cost of the bulb, it a question of which bulb is going to be burning out, and if that burned out bulb affects my ability to see clearly at night. Not pointless if seeing at night is important to you.

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I have a healthy night life too, most of my driving is in or near dark, and being able to see the furry woodland creatures is very important.

StaceyS said:

Pulse Width Modulation is used frequently to get high-beam bulbs to function as DRLs. This flashes the bulb so fast that the bulb appears to be dimmer. This also causes the bulb to fail much quicker. Many car manufacturers no longer rely on PWM'ing the high beams because of this.

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Most manufacurers moved away from using the high beam bulbs because of the glare they caused in the eyes of the oncoming drivers. (this was true back when DRL's became common, but they quickly migrated away from it)
Which is why most cars have dedicated DRL fixtures on them.

DRL's account for a 5.7% reduction(2008 study) in front and side impacts. so a 6% chance someone will not pull out in front of me, I will rely on my brakes and save the $200 in Xenon bulbs.
http://www.regulations.gov/fdmspubl...70b5b6&disposition=attachment&contentType=pdf

woofie2 said:

DRL's account for a 5.7% reduction(2008 study) in front and side impacts. so a 6% chance someone will not pull out in front of me, I will rely on my brakes and save the $200 in Xenon bulbs.

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Interesting how different people play the odds. If using my Xenons reduces the odds of someone pulling in front of me by 6%, then that sounds like a good use of the Xenons. $200 is cheap insurance policy. Keep them lit during the day, that's my vote.

I'm a big fan of the safety benefits of lights during daytime even in clear weather conditions. But if the safety benefit is what you're after then it's much better to have your regular headlights on with tail lights and other illumination. That increases visibility and also reduces the chances that you will forget to turn on your headlights.

Both Subaru's that I've owned (an 87 and a 96) had the feature where you could leave the headlight switch on all the time and they would go off when you removed the key.

I prefer that feature to DRL's, because you just leave the switch on all of the time but you can opt for parking lights only or turn them off entirely if there were some specific need such as approaching a military gate or approaching a gathering of astronomy nuts at a star-gazing party... both of which I've needed to do.

Cavetroll said:

Sadly enough neither option works for my 2011 JSW. The owners manual says to use the turns signal option, no luck. And there is no option in the display.

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Picked up my 2011 JSW today and no luck to disable the DRL's using the left turn signal/high beam stalk method listed on the owners manual.

Noticed that the DRL's stay on even if the engine isn't as long as the e-brake isn't engaged and I am hating it. Need to find someone that has access to VCDS soon.

I know this is an old post but for anyone who reads this, this is how I disabled my DRL. I followed the procedure mentioned here, push stalk down, then hold back, but instead of cycling the ignition, you just leave the ignition in the on position (without starting) until the car stops chiming (wait 6 chimes if you have a door open). I have a 2010 Jetta TDI, DSG built in 08/10. I hope this clarifies things for some people.

Hrmm... Just tried it on mine to no avail.

I am dumbstruck by anyone wanting to disable their DRL's .

billyz said:

I am dumbstruck by anyone wanting to disable their DRL's .

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Yep. That's been covered.

Messing with safety items.....bad idea. They do help being seen. And since they have been the rom north of the border for a long time, once you get used to them, the cars that do not have them in certain light conditions are much harder to spot.

But then, some people still don't like wearing safety belts.....go figure....

Why would you want to disable your daytime running lights? It is one of the best safety advances since the seat belt.

Woospoint said:

Why would you want to disable your daytime running lights? It is one of the best safety advances since the seat belt.

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Whether or not it is a big safety advance is debatable. Recent US government research shows very little value. Other research does show some value. However, comparing it to seat belts is surely a bit of a stretch.

As to why, there are many reasons, and these have been thoroughly covered in many other threads. In my opinion, I would not disable DRLs in new VWs because they use a separate bulb than the headlight bulb. In the older Mk5s they used the low beam headlight bulb an about 90% brightness. This can shorten the life of the headlight bulb and it makes it impossible to flash your headlights off and on to remind other drivers to turn on their headlights when they forget. Since DRLs are not required in the US, this is an individual decision. Everyone can choose and everyone can consider the pluses and minuses involved in that choice. It's a little concept we like to call freedom.

Have Fun!

Don

I can't believe this thread is still kicking.....might as well keep adding.....

Running City Lights during the day is safer IMHO as people can see your position from front AND back! DRL only illuminate the front of the car......this helps me very little when I'm approaching a car from behind and its cloudy/dawn/dusk/rainy. Very hard to see them without their tails lit up. How hard is it to turn a switch to parking/city lights?(provided your switch has that setting)

Resurrecting an old thread, but I noticed something interesting after doing this mod.

woofie2 said:

To change DRL state:

Left = DRL OFF

1) Headlight switch to OFF,
2) Select Turn signal Left indicator while
3) Simultaneously holding the stalk hard back towards you to flash the bright lights while
4) Simultaneously cycling IGN on for a couple seconds - until you hear the DING.

DRLs are now OFF.

Right = DRL ON

1) Headlight switch to OFF,
2) Select turn signal Right indicator while
3) Simultaneously holding the stalk hard back towards you to flash the lights while
4) Simultaneously cycling IGN on for a couple seconds - until you hear the DING.

DRLs are now ON

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I used the above mod on my 2010 Sedan. I noticed recently that the DRL's had come back on. I dismissed it until I noticed that they were back off. The only difference was they key. I had picked up the second key instead of the key I normally use. It appears that this mod somehow applies to the key that is used. Has anyone else noticed this?