... on my '05 AWD FEH. They just don't come on when the conditions are appropriate (car on, in D, parking brake off, lights turned off). Anyone else have this problem? I'm thinking it might be a switch or sensor of some sort, since they are BOTH out, and the headlights work fine when they are turned on.

I'm taking it to the dealer tomorrow to check it out; will report back.

 

I guess they aren't working in either of mine either....

Do the FEH's have DRL? I know my lights are off unless I turn them on and I have never seen anything in the manual indicating that the U.S. vehicles have them. Is it something that can be enabled maybe? Did you have them added when you got the vehicle?

AFIAK, your lights seem to be working as intended.....

 

Oh, thank you so much. At least you kept me from appearing as a TOTAL moron... I just called the dealer and cancelled my appointment (after checking the manual and my car's 'sticker', and discovering that I DON'T have DRL! Duh! ). I would have felt SO stupid if I'd taken it in only to be told this by the service tech...

Turns out I'd missed the little "(if equipped)" in the manual, and had just assumed that the FEH had them, because the '02 Escape has them; I'd figured that they were standard, actually I thought they were mandated in new cars for safety reasons after about 2003 or so. It's weird, as soon as my hubby said (after we started driving home from Baltimore in separate cars) "your DRL aren't working", I *thought* I'd remembered seeing them on previously. But I guess I was just confusing the new car with my memories of the old one, which had been "my" car before. Or I'd been hallucinating.

This site saves my sorry butt once again.

 

 

LOL

You know what? I don't think the flying mechanism is working real well on mine! I keep rolling the tires on the ground! Maybe I should get that looked at!

Should the vehicle be equipped with them (Which it's not), then there'd be an additional setting on the lights: the DRL setting, off, parking, on. At least that's what the manual says.

 

Rumor has it that the DRL is something that can be turned on in the firmware of the vehicle by the dealer's special computer. So it may actually be good to go to the dealer and just ask nicely if they can turn it on for you.

I've thought about it since I really like the safety aspect of it, but someone else said that it may decrease that **** green and black number that I stare at all the time instead of watching the road since you're using more power.

 

In Canada they are required, and have been since at least 1991 since my Colt has the headlights hardwired to come on when the engine is on. My 1988 Colt didn't have the daytime running lights, but the cars were otherwise identical.

What I find really annoying about the newer daytime running light configuration is that they stay off until the parking brake is released, but once released they stay on, even if you apply the parking brake again, forcing you to cycle the car off and on if you just want the lights off. I wish there was a hack that could change that behaviour.

Since they probably make pretty much the same FEH for Canada, then it's quite likely there's a soft option to activate or de-activate the feature.