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Daytime running lights (DRL)

99K views 188 replies 69 participants last post by  ALJ1993 
#1 ·
I would like to purchase a 2012 Focus with DRL. The dealer says this option is not available. How can this be when Fleet vehicles and Canadian Cars have this feature? There must be some way to activate this feature!!! Anyone
know how?
 
#38 ·
The final answer on this (from Ford) is that the module for DRLs was not put into my car. Apparently, it is put into other cars (such as the Focus SE - mine is the Focus SEL). I was told the module may become available in 9 months or so.

I was able to purchase an aftermarket device. This particular module had instructions to connect into the low-beam lamp wire, high-beam lamp wire, and parking light lamp wire on one side of the car. I took the lamp assembly off and could see that this was not going to be so simple as the unit was designed for lamps that are combination high/low beam units.

I decided I did not want to touch the high-beam lamp on this car at all: so, I wired the low beam into the low beam on the left side, the parking lamp wire I extended to the low beam on the right, tested it, and it works. In terms of power, I ran a power and ground wire as described and used a piggy-back fuse link wire off the fuel-relay fuse for the accessory power feed. This meant there was no splicing required.

Now, this was enough to get me past the government inspection and I received the RIV sticker which says my car is up to Canadian standards (i.e. DRLs required by law).

This is a brief description of the fix - if anyone wants more detail, I'd be happy to provide that.
 
#40 ·
There is a company called Echo Master that just released an LED DRL kit for the 2012 Focus. I went to their website and it says that they're already shipping. I sent them an email to find out where to purchase them. They also have step by step instructions with pictures on how to install. Look pretty easy but I do not know how much the kit costs.
 
#43 ·
This is insanity. I bought a 2012 Titanium in NJ in December. Knowing that it had to have DRLs in Canada, I went to the Ford dealer (Steve Baldo) in Niagara Falls, NY on the way home. Long story short - the car's computer (ECU) has the ability to have Daytime Running Lights. They took about a half hour to turn them on. When I took the car out of the dealership, the dash lights were on. It alarmed me at first, but then I noticed they had taken the lights out of Automatic and turned them on. As soon as I turned them back to Auto, everything was normal - DRLs on and dash lights off.
 
#44 ·
when I take delivery of my car in a couple months time (canadian car), I will hook up the IDS and verify whether or not I can turn my DRLs on and off.

My friends have imported vehicles to canada in the past, and with some of them, they installed small fog lights that work as DRLs. They passed inspection, and the fog lights mysteriously fell off while driving shortly after.
 
#46 ·
I drive to work in the wee hours of the dawn, and it's astonishing to me how many cars are on the road with no headlights on, not to mention that most of them are talking on cell phones!

As my car is grey, which I love, but which doesn't blend well with early morning or evening lighting. Having DRL's is really important to me, and makes way too much sense to be ignored. Wish all of the US required it, to save me from the idiots! Can't imagine why anyone would not want them!

End of rant!
 
#49 ·
Are there any services shops out there that have a clue?

I've asked two different Ford service shops on the Eastside near Seattle (Ford of Kirkland and Ford of Bellevue) about enabling DRL on my '12 Titanium. Their responses have been similar to some of what others have reported. Ford of Kirkland had hooked up their tool to the OBD port and they weren't able to find any kind of toggle which would enable the DRL on my Focus. The service rep told me that they had tried but weren't able to do it. He said that they would put in a request to Ford and ask for any guidance or instructions on about this. This was about 2 weeks ago and today I went back to follow up, and was told that they "might" know more about it when I come back for my next oil change. That's several months away! I also went over to Ford of Bellevue and asked somebody about DRL on the '12 Focus, and he echoed the guy over at the other shop for the most part.

I still have a few unanswered questions about what's going on exactly. I know that in order for DRL to even work, there has to be a particular module which would have to be installed before it can be toggled on via software. A question I have would be what exactly is this module, and is there a part number associated with it? There's another generic question that I have, and that's why are so many Ford service centers clueless about the workings of DRL in the '12 Focus? I know that it's a fleet option which is enabled at the factory, but these service shops which most definitely work on fleet vehicles still are befuddled about this. It's weird.

Anyways to wrap this up, here's my question to y'all out there - are there ANY Ford service centers in the Seattle area who not only have the knowledge necessary to enable DRL on a '12 Focus, but have in fact done it on one? It's not that big of a deal for me really - the MFT issues are much more important to me than having DRL on my car, but I like the idea of making use of it.
 
#50 ·
When I was building the ranger truck, the Canadian trucks would get that module you talk about. I would bolt it to the GOR, which is near the radiator support. It was silver with cooling fins on it. So I don't know if you can just turn this option on and off? But maybe that has all changed.
 
#52 ·
I bought a Focus Titanium in New Jersey. It didn't have DRLs. Since they're mandatory in Canada, I stopped at a Ford dealer in Niagara Falls, NY and had them turned on. I'm sure they have everything they need for DRLs, it just has to be turned on in the ECU. A decent dealership should know this.
 
#55 ·
I saw a blaze yellow with aftermarket LED DRLs, TOO BRIGHT, they overpowerd the whole front of the car. The blazing DRL's halo of light even blocked the view of the side "grills" in the bumper, and it was just rediculously bright...I like the subdued look on the other Fords...
 
#57 ·
Yes we have had Daytime running lamps in Canada form many great accident prevention tool the only complaints we have are we must remember to turn on the park and tail lamps in low light conditions to protect the rear of vehicle, as the DRL only turns on the headlamps on low beam at half brillance
and if you want the fog lamps alone we cannot because the D.R.L. automatically keeps the low beam on ( factory oversight)
 
#73 ·
If anyone is willing to wait 5 years or so after I move they'll find my canadian focus available in the jacksonville florida area for purchase - complete with factory installed drls ;)

Sent from my Telus Samsung Galaxy S Fascinate
 
#79 ·
I'm at the dealer right now to have an alignment issue looked at, but I've also asked them to take another crack at trying to activate the DRL. The service rep seemed to be very skeptical about even trying it again. Saying things like, "a lot of those car sites have a lot of disinformation and people who aren't exactly truthful..." I don't know, I wonder if it's some sort of liability issue or something like that or some directive from Ford which causes this resistance towards activating them in the first place. We'll see, but I'm not too optimistic that they'll go the extra mile to investigate this. :rolleyes:


Sent from my DROID BIONIC using Tapatalk
 
#83 ·
Tell them to call a canadian dealer. They import us cars all the time and by law must activate drls on the car.

Sent from my Telus Samsung Galaxy S Fascinate
 
#81 ·
I just heard back from the dealer about the work that was done on my car. Turns out the the alignment issue was actually related to that TSB which involves the steering. I didn't see that coming! I'll comment more on that on another thread...

As for the dealer's second attempt at activating the DRL - negative. It sounded like they can't because if they were to reprogram the component to make it possible, it could adversely affect the rest of the car's programming and causing unintended harm. OK...

03rubicon - While you're working on those screen shots of the IDS sequence which you had gone through, can you answer something for us? Did you have to do anything special with the IDS, some sort of hidden menu or something that wasn't recommended, in order to enable DRL? Basically, did you have to ignore any messages that IDS had spit out informing you that you can be in big trouble if you change certain options in the BCM? The reason why I'm asking is because I'm wondering if there's a fear of some sort of liability that's involved with changing certain features or options on a vehicle, specifically when done by a Ford service center. I'm probably way off base wondering about those things, but I thought I would ask anyways.
 
#82 ·
The only thing that may make them hesitant about doing that is in the shop manual it says you should only change a few of the parameters in there. DRL is not one of those the shop manual says you should change. I'm guessing they either read this and decided against changing it for you or they didn't put muh effort into it. But there was no warnings or messages on IDS when inchanged mine. Another thing I think may be throwing them off is the fact that the procedure to change the parameters in this is a lot different then anything before. It took me a few minutes to figure it out, but once I figured it out it took all of 10 minutes to change it. I have changed mine without any issues as of now, I am going to do a friend of mine's car when I get a few minutes. His is an earlier build so i want to see if it works on his before I go into depth about how to change it.
 
#92 ·
Hi everyone, I saw this thread and had to comment on it. I am a Ford tech in NC. I have a new ST customer that would like the DRLs enabled. I was asked if it could be done, and from past experiences, I said I am pretty sure its not a problem. However, that is not the case. In recent past, enabling DRLs has been easy, just enable the feature in programmable parameters with IDS. When I attempted to do so for this 2013 ST, there is not an option. As a matter of fact, Ford has completely changed the programmable parameters section. I contacted Ford hotline and was told the standard, "it can not be done". Also, if enabled, it may violate a FSS law. Total BS, but the fact is your dealers are not pulling your chain. Ford has locked this option out with IDS. Now I am not sure if previous versions of IDS allowed it, thus some people getting it done last year.

Ford module programming is programmed with a hexadecimal code. In the past, if you wanted to enable something, you could clone this code from a vehicle that has the options you want. This too has been tightened up. If I find a way to enable this for you guys, I will let you know.
 
#94 ·
Why are car companies making everything so [:)][:)][:)][:)][:)][:)]g difficult?

We need Google/Android cars... like nowSAP.
 
#97 ·
i was messing around with my car i reprogrammed the remote start to keep engine on even when you open the doors and my headlights will not shut off now this happened 3 days ago also my airbag light stays on so i took it to the dealer aside from this all i did was disconnect a clip from something that seemed like a ballast underneath the steering wheel that was zip tied to the frame of the gauge cluster i reconnected it this all happened while i was searching for the remote start box it was behind the glove box
 
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