No dashboard warning for blown tail light?

Yeah, you'd think there would be something like that, but I had my 12V die this morning and there was no warning. A red triangle had been appearing for a couple of days but my Toyota service man said it was for an open door! A fellow poster on this forum knew what the red triangle meant - a possibly low 12V battery.

 

Howard,

Thats a red triangle with a Red exclamation point inside it. And no dash warning for blown lamps.

 

Out of habit I always touch my brakes as I pull away from my drive and check in the rear view mirror that I see a surface (garage/house etc) behind light up. Warning or no warning through a dash light, a visual check can save the above or a fine.

 

Makes you wonder how we survived so many decades without onboard diagnostics and multi-function displays in our cars... forget about tail lights, how would we know when we ran out of oil, or our radiator was about to explode... besides the big puff of smoke?

I had a warning lights for my first car, a 60s MBZ, for when a tail light went out.

They were red and blue and the local sheriff carried them on top of his car.

 

I can't think of any car that I've ever owned that warns of burned out tail lights.

 

Yeah... those cars usually belong to the 1%, and even then there isn't a warning light. Instead, there's an automated call to the factory, and a service worker arrives at the owner's estate carrying a new bulb in white gloves, installs it, and gets back home before anyone's the wiser.

 

If they are honest how many people check there lights weekly or even monthly, the same goes with engine oil level going by past post on this forum.

How hard is it to walk round the car when filling with fuel to check the lights are working and there is the correct level of oil in the engine. While your there check tyre pressure to.

Surely this is all part of owning and driving a vehicle. Tail lights rarely blow in pairs "unless there is some other fault (over charging or bad contact)" The chances are one light has been out for weeks/months and gone unnoticed.

Sorry for the rant but this is down to bad driving as these points are the responsibility of a driver and are all part of driving a car. Blaming the car for not telling you the lights are out does not hold water If someone had driven into the back of you in the dark you would have blamed them even though on a wet night you could have been almost invisible.

 

In my college days a friend's parents had a car that had a tiny box with 2 lights that sat on the rear shelf. The lights indicated that the taillights were on and the box could be seen in the rear view mirror. Whatever it was, it was a big-a$$ car from the mid 70's.

Turn signals use the brake lights.

 

Camry's and Solara's had indicators for burned out bulbs...at least mine did!

 

My 77 celica had an ESP panel that monitored everything from washer fluid level to brake pad thickness and more. It actually lit up the words saying what was wrong. But I finally pulled the bulbs in the panel because sensors failed one by one.

 

Looking at my long list, I had a 1981 Mazda 626 that warned of a brake light failure with a front panel light.

On a somewhat related note, is it possible to "upgrade" the wattage of the rear running lights? I think I read that they are 5W bulbs and seem a little dim unless you are directly behind them. Maybe designed that way?

 

You mean there wasn't a warning light for when the other warning light failed?

 

You could make your own warning light system to check the rear tail/brake lights for under $20. Sometimes the cheapest solution is the best one, which Wimble has indicated. While it can't be done in the daytime where I live, I always have a habit to check my rear lights at night no matter where I am.

 

Yes, some older Toyotas had an indicator for this. Money talks, and someone who gets paid much more than I at some point decided that it was no longer needed and I'm sure much money was made by many people. As a result, poor folk like myself are forced to put down our big gulps and walk around the car and check the lights every so often.