Daytime Running Lights Finally Installed

I've been rather annoyed we didn't have the option to have DRL on our cars. I hate having my headlights on because of the cost of the bulbs. The less I can run the HIDs the better, but the running indicator lights don't do much at all for allowing people to see you on a cloudy day or early mornings where lights aren't needed but should be on anyways for visibility.
I ended up pulling the indicator lights and running a voltmeter on them. I was looking for even a 10V circuit, to my delight I was running at 11.5 with the car off and a 12.5 with the car on. I went for these lights because they come on with the first click of the headlight switch. The second click is obviously what brings on the headlights. I ended up buying some COB LED strips.. Let me tell you, those things are BRIGHT. I couldn't look directly at them when they were on. I tapped right into the indicator light wires with a tapping bit (I don't know the actual name so see pics for what they are). It was extremely easy to mount and wire them in. The problem with them is that they need a flat surface to mount on.. Our cars are round almost everywhere, I couldn't find anywhere decent to mount them.. That's when I had a genius break through. I mounted them facing down above the chrome grille insert just below the hood. This allowed for almost no wire routing and super easy placement. I cleaned the are with industrial glass cleaner and peeled the 3M sticky tape that came on the lights and placed them. Then I took some tiny C clamps and put them on for about 5 mins each side just for that extra grip. The light bounces off the chrome and can be seen at all angles. Once the chrome was cleaned with the same glass cleaner it was extremely bright. This is an excellent solution to our DRL problem without having to wire additional switches into the car or creating circuits elsewhere.

 

Actually, they are quite bright during the day. These COB LED's are awesome, I'll grab a picture next time I see the sun out there! Definitely bright enough to see them during the day. I actually prefer to keep my parking lights on at all times. I installed these for visibility and I prefer my tail lights to be on too. I switched out the original tail light for LED's as well and they are brighter and more of a deep red than the originals. Thanks for the thought though.

Thank you! The best part is, you can hardly tell they are there when they are not on. Except you can see the yellow COB strip in the reflection of that chrome grille.. But to someone who doesn't know about cars it's not that noticeable.