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Headlight Wiring and DRL

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9.1K views 5 replies 2 participants last post by  Mihogan  
#1 ·
Hi guys. I bought two strips of LED wiring for under my headlights that claimed to simply wire to your headlights (and a ground of course) and they'd light. A friend bought the same set, and we had his done in 10 minutes. With mine, however, they didn't work! I had them wired to the headlights, but they didn't come on.

I then realized that I disabled my daytime running lights by unplugging a switch under the dash (not a fan of DRLs). So i plugged it back in, and the lights worked - but only when the headlights are off and the DRL's are running. As soon as I turn my headlights on, the LED's turn off!

I ended up wiring them to the fog lights instead, and disabling the DRL's again, which works just fine. However, I have a few questions. Why didn't this work? I had it grounded fine, and wired to the red wire going into the low beam.

Also, I want to possibly get HID's or something brighter, but I don't want this same problem to happen. Also, do you knows how of a good, cheap kit to do this with? There are so many different types, and so many generic fit-all types on eBay and such. I don't want to get the crappy, blinding lights like the idiots I see all around this college town, haha...

Thanks guys!
 
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#2 ·
What exactly do you want your led lights to do? Do you want them to come on when your low beams turn on? Could you tell us exactly how you wired them up? Our subaru's and probably most japanese cars have a common positive and switched negative headlight system. In my 2000, I have three wires to my headlights. A red, a light green and a greyish one. The greyish one is the common positive that goes to both low and high beam. The red one is the switched negative for the low beam. The light green one is the switched negative for the high beam. The switched means that it turns on by the light switch.
 
#3 ·
I somewhat understand. I have the same colors. I wanted my LED's to come on with the low beams I suppose, high beams too would be cool. I ran them to the red wire and nothing happened - should I have done grey?
 
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#4 ·
If you want your led's to turn on with the low beam, then connect the led's red positve to the headlight's grey wire. Connect the led's black negative to the headlight's red wire (low beam). The colors of the headlight wires are opposite to wiring system for the rest of the car. If you want your led's to turn on with high beam also, I would suggest getting an led control module like this. LED Daytime Running Light DRL Relay Harness Auto Control On/Off Switch SmartMini | eBay
 
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