:help2: i was in a local town yesterday night and i pulled in a gas station and parked, and to keep from blinding people i flipped the switch cuttin off my headlights, leaving my hundred other lights on which i always do at night, anyways i pulled out and drove around town for a few mins and pulled up to a red light and while i was waitin a cop pulled up and just set their even though the light was green, i didnt think nothin bout it till i saw him make a u turn in the middle of the intersection and turn his blue lights on, so he walked up to the truck and asked if my headlights were workin, i said yes i think so, and then i realized what i got pulled over for. apparently im not the only one thats been pulled over for this because the second thing he asked me is if us young boys had some kinda bet goin on or somthin, but i explained to him what happened and he let me off with a warnin but told me to spread the word that they were gonna start writing $150 tickets for no headlights,luckily he was a pretty nice guy. My question is, is there some way to fix the lights where their always on like on my dads '97 2500,they dont go off unless the parking brake is on, this wasnt the first time iv did this and probably wont be the last. (and i really dont need a ticket:badidea: )

with mine om auto they come on when Its dark out or I can turn them on manually,did I miss what you were asking if so soory in advance-???

Check out some of the later model trucks with day time running light option, might be able to incorporate this into your truck, lights on always unless parking brake is on, bad part about them is you fergit to turn on the rest of the lights at nite not a problem at dusk but when it gets dark hard to see the speedo & gauges.

If wanting to do some homecrafting try powering the headlight circuit off a relay controlled by an electronic eye similar to what they use in security lights, should be able to find one with tunable sensitivity in an real electronics shop or somewhere on the net, staffed by tron techs, Radio Shack ain't one of those generally. sometimes known as a CDS cell

Lights on all the time will use more fuel and probably shorten alternator life. Not by much but it will. Even the cruise control pulls a good current. Best turn it off when not in use.

DP good point Looks like I'll be disabling my DTRL hadn't given it much thought, but for nite drive if you are forgetful the relay/sensor might work out

like i said though in his 97' they stay on unless the P brake is on

On my 98 they're on anytime the engine's running(don't know about the parking brake deal, have to try it)...

I hate it. I've taken off at night before with the light switch in the parking light position- head and tails work but dimmer switch has no effect and it drove me nuts until I figured out what the deal was!

Also it would be nice to be able to turn the headlights off, even momentarily, if a guy wanted to(p-brake won't work since alot of times this need comes up while driving).

On your 94, the best thing to do, if you can't remember to turn them on, is to get into a habit of turning the dimmer on your dash lights clear down if you're gonna leave it with the park lights on.....but then again, I'd bet after your chat with the nice officer you probably won't forget anytime soon!

DP,

I would disagree a little on your statement...

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Lights on all the time will use more fuel and probably shorten alternator life. Not by much but it will. Even the cruise control pulls a good current. Best turn it off when not in use

I find it hard to believe that you burn more fuel at night then in the day time .. with all else being the same.. ( light on at night.. light off during the day.. ) .. if almost sound like the tailgate up and tailgate down argument here..

As far as cruise control.. on my 98.. vacum opperated as I know it.. very little electrical draw on that..

shorten the life of a alternator.. we have GM parts.. not built by ford... I just replaced my 8 year old alt last week.. but for the last several winters.. I have been plowing a good amount.. and that will shorten the life more than lights on and cruise by far...

Just my .02 ..

Pete

gslam88

The power to run the lights aint free. It has to come from somewhere. That somewhere is the alternator. I takes a couple of horsepower to generate the current needed for headlights. This horsepower comes from the motor, and you have to burn fuel to make it. Thus, less fuel efficiency.

Tim

Can you measure the parasitic load of a loaded alternator vs gpm fuel used probably not with what we have at our disposal, but there is a load, if not overdrive and underdrive pulleys (not for use on or trucks alt also generates the tach signal wrong pulley throws this off) would not exist to try and recoup lost HP. How effective those pulleys are is another whole topic of debate, on my OD/UD pulley equipped gasser my seat o pant, azz-o-meter says yes, but it's real close to the wallet repository that says for the money I shelled out it's working, of course more Hp requires I use it (more gas pedal :D ) so I don't know if there was a gain in mpg.

As for alternator wear DP said that also probably not something easily measured, but current use as CR says comes from somewhere, & loading of the alternator is using it; the more you use it you are taking away from it's life, going into my 2nd alternator soon bearings are making noise again, crappy alternator design or continiously loaded with DTRL I don't know.

But an alternator every 45K miles seems ridicioulus, so if running lights during nite time hours only adds any life to the alt I'm all for it. Plus its PITA driving DTRL coming out of a bright lit gas station, road in front it lit up but nothing else isn't, another thing how much wear are you subjecting to the headlamps fillament always on.

Yes a tail gate up vs down agrument to an extent, but for me I'm going to disable my DTRL, I don't see any down side to this cars/truck went for years without DTRL.

IMO the whole DTRL came out as a warm fuzzy idea to make wussily car owners feel better, "once people see me with my lite on they won't run me over" sort of worked for a while; as early on, you would notice the idiot in the daytime with his headlights on, now everybody's is a light on vehicle so it doesn't draw your attention. Buy a bigger car if you don't want to get squished:eek: , kind of like the dumb baby on board signs a few years back, wonder how many times those things worked, only wish I had thought of the idea I'd not be going to work ever day.

I'm not worried about big green being seen, folks generally tend to notice it and get out of my way, (someting about a reasonably tall truck combined with rackety rack of a Diesel) I follow the lead-follow-or get out of my way philosophy when I drive.

Heeyyy, for conspiracy theory guys this DTRL issue is a plot from bulb manufacturers, "if we burn bulbs always we will sell more when they burn out", then we fill land fills, get to invent extended life bulbs that last longer charge big bukck for them, after filling land fills pizz off the earth firsters, then get them to hate cars/SUVs even more, make the SUVs lovers buy more to pizz off the tree huggers just for spite more, wow the escallation of this theory is mind boggling, here we are ":eek: back to war-for-oil, it is all connected maybe the left is right:eek: NAH" this is too much on just one cup of coffee 1st thing in the morning.

Just a thought, but do the Canadian trucks have a different system than the US trucks for 94? My 94 had the daytime running lights on it from the factory. Maybe there is a module you can just add to yours? Check with a GM parts dept in Canada maybe?

crappy alternator design or continiously loaded with DTRL I don't know.

When your alternator decides to take a holiday what went? Bearings or inards? I think there was a major design flaw in where it was mounted, my 95 chewed up at least 6 alternators in 300,000 km's and everyone was bearings, the tensioner is mounted to close and over 50% of the pulley is being pulled down on hard from the tensioner. The 00 i have now hasn't taken out 1 yet after 185,000 km's, i got the history on the truck when i bought it, the alternator has been repositioned along with the tensioner sometime between 95 & 00 but i don't know when.

1st one was bearings, this one sounding much like the 1st, I'm milking it to closer to when my extended warranty runs out in 4K miles, will get replacement under warranty, this time I will get aftermarket lifetime warranty, after going thru 2 AC Delcos now. Alt is mounted where yous is I think 98 & 00 same location pass side of engine, also replaced tensioner @ 70K just in case that was a problem.

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Hi gslam88,

I drive my shop truck everyday and drive at the speed limit and very consistent 350 miles a week. The mileage will decrease if I use the GM running lights in the day time. The cruise control uses a little electronic controller on the firewall of my 98. The box gets real hot so I know it's using a lot of current. The bad thing is it uses this current whether your using the cruise control or not. By turning the cruise control off the little black box does not heat up and has no current draw.
Poor batteries can reduce mileage and reduce alternator life also. Weak batteries really work an alternator to death.

By the way my 98 v6 Chevy extra cab gets 20.3 miles to the gallon. 19.6 when I'm speeding. 18.9 before mods.

The cruise control part wouldn't apply to an EFI 6.5 since they don't have any cruise control module. (drive by wire)

Never did like those wire throttle cables. If you own a 6.5TD you really need to check the throttle linkage wire. Sometimes it just comes up short of going wide open and you can loose a lot of power there.

Just a thought, but do the Canadian trucks have a different system than the US trucks for 94? My 94 had the daytime running lights on it from the factory.
Your absolutely right, thats one of many things I noticed when I moved to Canada, DTRL became mandatory like in ~'88 up here.

My question is this...is it really that hard to push the headlight switch when you need them? I mean, if its dark enough outside to need them, don't you usually like to have the dash lights lit up anyway? I think DTRLs are as annoying as Air bags, ABS, Automatic seatbelts and the like.

Part of DTRL annoyance is that even at night I have caught myself not turning on lites as where I left was so bright interior is lit up I did not notice dash not illuminated I keep my dash more dim than brite anyway, same while driving in fog you think the lites are on but give yourself a DOH moment realize DTRL has fronts on you see that in the fog, but tail lites are off.

I am mixed on the safety feature claimed by DTRL use; again I think once everybody has them they will be ignored and you will take more notice of cars without them. But am firm believer in the rest of the stuff you mention

After reading this discussion, I got curious and decided to dig out my electronics books and blow off the dust. This is what I found:

746W = 1hp

So, now we have to apply Ohm's law, which states:

P = V x I

We know V = 12v, and typical headlights draw around 8-10 amps. So, knowing this we can plug it into the equations:

P = V x I
P = 12v x 10A
P = 120W (watts)

746W = 1hp
746W/120W = 1hp/x or x = (120W*1hp)/746W
x = 0.161hp

So assuming my calculations are correct, a typical healight system will only require 0.161hp to operate. Very minimal power consumtion, so for a headlight sytem to reduce MPG is had to believe. As far as replacing altenators, I would recommend perfroming PM's (preventative maintnence) on it at least once a year (semi-annually would be better).

JMK with what you have provided here you have put some credence that power loss/fuel consumption is negligible, this is good sharing of differing opinion, & sound application of science to back it up. While I'll concede that, you have given more credence to your opinion than I about negiligible fuel, I still think DTRL load is bad on the bulbs constant on, which I don't think you expressed an opinion one way or other here.

I was interested though in the annual preventative mantenance of which you speak, going into my 3rd alternator; if you have some secret to longevity I'd like to hear it, possibly we need to add it to FAQs.

i always thought that the DTRL were ran with less that 12V to save life of the bulb? even if it were just a bit under, so the bulbs was not at full power all the time?

Dp...

Do you drive with the radio on... when it rains do you use your wiper blades... what about turn signals... I am sure they all realy kill your milage...

Pete

I drive with my full-up headlights on ALL the time on all of my vehicles. Habit to flip the switch on after I turn the key, habit to flip the switch off when I shut down the vehicle. It is one of the best safety tips I know and I have been doing it since I started driving. Something my grandpa told me. Neither of us have been hit by someone who "just didn't see us." Having lights on your vehicle at all times enhances visibility in low light/shadow conditions as well as "camoflauge" conditions like a gray car on concrete.

Amazingly, I have never had an alternator go bad. I probably replace headlight bulbs a little more often than most. I drive close to 40,000 miles per year. Compared to everything else in your car that's drawing current, I'd say the headlights aren't enough to accelerate wear on your alternator. Besides, it's just doing it's job. It's not like towing an extra 200 lbs has been shown to accelerate engine wear. The engine does its job either way and as long as you're operating it within reasonable parameters, you aren't accelerating wear.

It seems like we're over-thinking a little bit here. I'm sure there is a nominal draw on the engine due to headlights being on, but over the course of the lifetime of your truck, it's probably costing you about $10 in extra fuel.

drivin to work to day it was pretty foggy. saw three people without their headlights on. how stupid can you get. its foggy. turn them on. and i almost hit an amish buggy too.