WARNING: I DO NOT ENDORSE RUNNING YOUR CAR WITHOUT THE DAYTIME RUNNING LIGHTS. THEY ARE A "SAFETY ENHANCEMENT" FEATURE, AND AS SUCH YOU MAY PUT YOURSELF AT RISK BY TURNING THEM OFF. I TAKE ABSOLUTELY NO RESPONSIBILITY IF YOU DISABLE YOUR DRLS AND THEN GET INTO SOME TROUBLE.
Now that that is out of the way...
I was thinking "hmm, the daytime running lights are just the high beams running at half brightness". Since the "normal" mode for the full brightess highbeams is 12volts, they must be running them at partial voltage for DRL mode. "Hmm. Whats the easiest way to drop the voltage? How about a mongo, honking big resistor... Yeah... Hey whats that big thing in front of the battery that says something like 'warning do not touch : hot'... Could that be a resistor?..."
So I unplug it and voila - the DRLs are now disabled but the highbeams still work fine.
So for those of you who tried to find a DRL fuse, but realized that it is on the same circuit as the high beams: you can unplug the resistor pack to get the desired effect.
Personally I don't like the wasteful power things they did in this car:
Heated mirrors that stay on all the time regardless of outside temp (come on Toyota engineers, you have a temp sensor built into the climate control - make the heated mirrors only activate below say 40 degrees outside temp) AND now this - a little "engine compartment heater" (DRL resistor) just eating my electric juice anytime I start the car.
Now that that is out of the way...
I was thinking "hmm, the daytime running lights are just the high beams running at half brightness". Since the "normal" mode for the full brightess highbeams is 12volts, they must be running them at partial voltage for DRL mode. "Hmm. Whats the easiest way to drop the voltage? How about a mongo, honking big resistor... Yeah... Hey whats that big thing in front of the battery that says something like 'warning do not touch : hot'... Could that be a resistor?..."
So I unplug it and voila - the DRLs are now disabled but the highbeams still work fine.
So for those of you who tried to find a DRL fuse, but realized that it is on the same circuit as the high beams: you can unplug the resistor pack to get the desired effect.
Personally I don't like the wasteful power things they did in this car:
Heated mirrors that stay on all the time regardless of outside temp (come on Toyota engineers, you have a temp sensor built into the climate control - make the heated mirrors only activate below say 40 degrees outside temp) AND now this - a little "engine compartment heater" (DRL resistor) just eating my electric juice anytime I start the car.