Don’t most (all?) modern cars turn off lights with the ignition these days anyway? Why not just switch them on and leave them on permanently? Job jobbed.

I think everything I’ve driven in the last decade has had an “auto” setting too. The only time I touch the light switch is when it’s been in the garage and for some inexplicable reason they’d switched them off.

Aye, that’s what we do with both our cars. Both have an ‘auto’ setting but they’re permanently in the ‘on’ position year round. You only get a beep/warning when turning off ignition when you leave them in sidelight mode.

Frank Conway said:

Frankly a campaign to check you have a least one working Brain cell…

Fixed

I also like the way that when the dip beam bulb fails, very often the side light bulb does as well and the remaining light goes out of adjustment.

Don’t most (all?) modern cars turn off lights with the ignition these days anyway? Why not just switch them on and leave them on permanently? Job jobbed.

I think everything I’ve driven in the last decade has had an “auto” setting too. The only time I touch the light switch is when it’s been in the garage and for some inexplicable reason they’d switched them off.

my car has the auto position, its generally good in fog but I can easily check by pointing it at the wall as I pull away in the morning. Leave the lights in “on” and turn off the ignition and the warning tone is so painfully insistent that you turn the lights off you worry the car is screaming in pain.

bizarrely by better half’s car, same brand, same year; different “better” model but poverty spec has no “auto” setting. You can leave the lights on no issue and they shut off with the ignition.

I’ve had Vespas on one off since before I was old enough to drive them. One of the best things about them was how repairable they were: If you had a screwdriver, an adjustable spanner and a mallet you could fix just about anything. With the modern Vespas I have no idea how to do anything – it’s special tools and weird access points all round.

I don’t really like daytime lights. I get all the arguments about making cars more visible, but it seems to me that if cars grab more attention by being lit everything else – people, bikes, pushchairs, dogs – is duller by comparison. If your attention is grabbed by the lights on a vehicle coming towards you, you might not notice the cyclist just ahead of you.

Just changes both dipped bulbs on my wifes 2006 Smart ForFour.
Access via a panel in the wheel arch liner – excessively grim at this time of year.
And then, you can see a thing so have to do it all blind and just by feel of what is there. Got there in the end but it was flipping awkward and guesswork half the time.

Was changing them both because they seemed a bit rubbish. Put some fancy Philips things in. They’re still pretty pants. Need to de-haze the covers really.

bsims – thanks but wrongly attributed.

It was P-Jay, saw the word frankly and thought of you😉

I don’t understand the whole fog light thing, both our Mondeo and C8 automatically turn them off and reset them when you turn the ignition off, the last car I had a hard switch in was my old Civic which would be 16 now.

Off aim lights are probably idiots ordering replacement units from the continent to save money.

With an ageing population and increased uptake of quiet electric cars, a focus on pedestrian safety has become paramount.

I think it’s time that cars are also fitted with some kind of front light that flashes, according to the speed of the car.

We’ve got flashing led’s on bikes, so why not on cars?

Cue the ‘knight rider’ jokes…

I **** hate the bright white LED lights some cars have now. Had to drive home squinting tonight because the car behind me had them. Thought it was an alien abduction attempt at first. There’s being seen and there’s taking the piss.

A question about fog lights, if you don’t mind.

Mine and The Wife’s last two cars each, Golf, Passat, Polo, and an Up! (Yes, there’s a pattern) all have the fog light switch incorporated in to the headlight switch. Off, sides, main beam, then pull one click for front and two clicks for front and rear fogs. You can’t turn the lights off if the fogs have been pulled on, you have to push the fogs in to turn off. Are other makes of modern* car similar or are the fog lights on a separate switch.

* Modern as in less than 5 years old.

To change a headlight/sidelight/indicator bulb on my Puma took 3/4 of an hour, and needed a large Torx wrench, which of course every motorist carries, or has kicking around in *that* drawer in the kitchen, to remove the grill, undo headlamp unit retaining straps, a drainpipe, wiggle the entire unit out of the car, take it apart, replace the bulb, reverse process.
The instructions came under the heading ‘roadside repairs’! 🤣🤬

Bigblackshed – my 2015 1 series is a button next to the dial, not a toggle/rocker type but a push-button type. Once you turn ignition off and on again it’ll reset and fogs will be off next time you drive (you can still leave headlights in the ‘auto’ or ‘on’ position for next time without any warnings).

I’m just waiting for the cost of a failure on the complete LED set on my car. It doesn’t have front fogs though.
Cycling home from work at 7:45 on Monday I met a Prius murdered out on a back road. He didn’t like it when he got the sweary audible warning I gave him.

What kind of mentalist has a murdered-out Prius? I don’t even know where to begin with that, it’s like owning a gimp Furby.

Honda Civic 2009 – need to remove the coolant reservoir and washer fluid filler to change the offside bulb. Its not actually that bad once you’ve done it a few times, but the bottle doesn’t really come out of the gap properly, and of course you can’t do it when the coolant is hot.

Dashboard is lit up like a Christmas tree all the time, the only clue your lights are off is the sidelight lamp is off and generally the display is too bright in the dark as it hasn’t dimmed. I’m pretty sure there isn’t a lamp for dipped beam at all, its sidelights for both side and dipped, and a full beam lamp!

For all the construction and use requirements churned out of the EU I cannot for the life of me understand why someone has not put in the following…

——-

Bulbs

The following critical vehicle bulbs must be capable of roadside replacement without tools.

– head beam
– dipped headlight
– rear tail light
– brake light (sides)
– rear fog light
– reversing light
– front and rear indicators
– side indicators

———

The idea that you need a £300 garage bill to replace a bulb is a threat to vehicle roadworthiness and public safety.

And yes whoever posted it above the Mégane has a special place in the museum of diseased imaginings for its wheel arch bulb access. The early manuals cheerfully suggested you could just turn the front wheels.

I cannot for the life of me understand why someone has not put in the following…

Because that assumes traditional incandescent bulbs. I’d have to carry about 200 LEDs and don’t fancy my chances of replacing them at the roadside.

Full beam on the motorway anyone?

When did that become a thing.

I’ve seen it a couple of times recently, no points for guessing what lane they were in at them time.

Are other makes of modern* car similar or are the fog lights on a separate switch

2003 CR-V, headlights off/side/on by twisting the end of the indicator. Loud warning buzzer if side or headlights left on, with ignition off. Fogs, twist a band on the same stalk, spring loaded, so twist (and spring back) they go on, twist again and they’re off, and are reset with ignition off. Incidentally, the underbonnet area is large and has empty space in it – all bulbs are a cinch to replace. Access to a lot of stuff is pretty simple, as it goes – quite a decent bus to do home repairs on.

Other car, Passat, twist control, have to have normal main beams before you can pull it out for fog lights, you can’t leave it on ‘auto’ and have fogs. Same scheme as the 2006 Focus I had, the 1994 mondeo sometime before that and the 2005 A4.

One of my cars had a good feature where you could only have the front fog lights on once the rears were on, stopped you driving around with the front ones on for the sake of it.

My other half learnt to drive about 10 years ago, at least twice in the last few years she’s come home from work. Can you look at my car its got a warning light come on…ok, once was her fog lights on, the second was her lights on main beam…. I shit you not. She rarely drives at night on unlit roads so its slightly understandable, but **** me it worries me.she almost pathologically refuses to listen to anything I tell her about driving, as her driving instructor never told her to change down gears, just jab your foot on the clutch and roll to a stop. I had an auto car for a while, she wouldnt drive it as it felt unsafe, even though she is almost always in the wrong gear.

She’s the same on her bike too but luckily has ridden for the last few years with a club that obviously has some women to tell her what to do!!!!