Cool feature of the daytime running lights!
 

While the car is on the DLR will be on naturally, but if you are stopped with the parking brake pulled up, they will fade to off. Once you release and start going again, they will fade back to normal! I noticed it this afternoon while stopped at an intersection behind someone with a shiny bumper, thought it was kind of cool, especially how they fade in/out instead of just a hard on/off.

I have the nagging habit of stopping in neutral and pulling the parking brake if I know I'm going to be stopped for more than about 5-10 seconds.

Interesting little fact! Thanks Erik! Just don't pull the e-brake too hard, you'll just strech out the cable.

I try not to but I feel like this one isn't cable driven for how 'light' it feels. I feel like there is no mechanical resistance at all behind it (unlike the one that I am used to on the Si). Is it possible for it to be completely electronic?

Sometimes I'm still rolling back a little and pull up a bit more.. and more.. until I don't. Somewhat worries me at times, especially on the steeper grades.

How long does it take for them to fade off? I'm thinking of a little fade action during hand-brake turns. :thumbup:

I never use the parking brake in any of my cars. Old habit from tracking Hondas because they use the caliper to engage the e-brake, not sure if this car is the same or not. When you do have a caliper vs drum style e-brake and you use it after the brakes are well heated, wherever the pad is engaging the rotor it will cool at a different rate then the exposed rotor portion. When this happens it will warp your brake rotor. Easy enough just to park in gear all the time.

I would say maybe a second? It's not slow.. but not very very fast. It may not be a fade as much as how the bulbs dim when power is cut to them, though that DLR resistor is pretty big!

The Prius and many Lexus models have an electronic e-brake. I highly doubt this car does though. It could just be the newness. :thumbup: Would be pretty hard to use the e-brake for drifting, etc. if it was servo actuated.

I like this feature! I think this one might have been something borrowed from Subaru... the light fading seems to behave exactly like my '11 WRX and '11 STi. :thumbup:

+1

My 06 Fozzy does that, minus the fading, just turns on and off, if you pull up the e-brake.

So its like volkswagen's DRLs?

Brakes are much, much cheaper than syncros, gears and a trans rebuild.

Does anyone know mechanically what the parking brake engages on this car?

E-brake is good old fashioned cable operated and uses a shoe inside rotor style system so no warped rotors after a track day.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with parking a manual transmission vehicle in gear. This is a very normal thing to do with a race car (due to not even having an e-brake) or a street car.

This.

On my street cars I do both, but after an autocross/de and on the race car it just sits in gear.

I always park in gear, even still I use the parking brake as an added precaution.

I would say that balancing the car uphill using the clutch/feather throttle is bad compared to simply using the brakes, which is perhaps what Sastexan was referring to.

Pretty sure he understood the context. Ironically the cable actuated e-brake would have harder time of immobilizing the car then loading first or reverse gear with the vehicle. But doing both would not hurt anything in normal road use daily parking. :thumbup:

very nice posts mines13 lol... but that is a cool functiono nthe DRL tho for real.

Huh that's interesting! Cool info!

yeah good stuff. I only just found out what daytime running lights really are and how they work as I looked it up on wiki yesterday

According to the factory service manual, there is a drum rotor inside the caliper of the rear brake.

I've never driven a car that doesn't shut off the DRL's when the park brake is engaged. :iono:

Most Toyotas do not turn the DRL's on until you release the e-brake, but after they are on, they stay on even if the handle is pulled again. Until you turn the car off and back on.

Jeff

I should have put in context; you are correct. I'm thinking less in your driveway / garage and more in a parking lot or on the street, where the car is likely to get bumped. Or on a hill. Transmissions can be fragile (had to replace syncros in my old car) and brakes are relatively cheap. Just being over cautious.

Any way to cancel this out? Seems kinda pointless. Or maybe I just don't understand the benefit

It just looks better. Someone told me bmw has a feature when the lights light up they do it in a circular motion, instead of plain on and off. I haven't seen in action though

I felt so stupid because I couldn't figure out why the DRLs where on sometimes and not I parked to look t them. I recently did the diy blacked out reflectors, and was curious how bright they where with the black gloss. When I found out what was causing them to not turn on I started looking for a way to cancel that out and just leave them on with the break engaged. Mainly because I got the multicolored led running lights from diode dynamic and I wanted to be able to show them off at car meets ( with the poring break on)

I had the dealer turn the DRL's off as soon as I got mine. Can't stand them.