[Mr.Antwerp]

 

[cnovack]

My SLK comes with auto hi-beams or something. Leave the sucker on and it changes with oncoming traffic! Sorry to sound old but what in tarnation came up with that?

 

[Avel Du]

Never had a car where you couldn't go to manual change.


The better half leaves her crv on auto. I have to remember to switch it off.

 

[BlueSLK250]

Many years ago, in my (much) younger days, I acquired a surplus aircraft landing light bulb while in the USAF. It was a sealed beam unit just like in cars of the day and the same exact size as the round quad headlights of that era. So, like the cartoon above, I replaced one of my high beam bulbs with this landing light bulb and had my wife drive down the block, turn around and, while driving back towards me, turn on the high beams. Wow. All I could see was a giant white ball, not unlike the sun. It was very impressive, but then a few seconds later all the headlights went out. It drew too much current and popped the circuit breaker. I hadn't done the calculations earlier, but when I checked, the landing light was 250 watts. I don't recall the wattage of the headlights from those days, but I'm guessing they were about 1/10th of that. So instead of a load of 100-150 watts, my combo was (briefly) drawing 325-400 watts. It was more than a bit of overkill, so I put the bulb back on the shelf, for good.

 

[GeeJay]

My SLK comes with auto hi-beams or something. Leave the sucker on and it changes with oncoming traffic! Sorry to sound old but what in tarnation came up with that?

Our C-Class Coupe has 'lighting assist' too.

This includes not putting the lights on main beam if you're travelling below 55km/h or in a well lit built up area or if a car is ahead of you or if a car is coming the other way or if the light reflects back off a large road sign...:frown:

The lights also respond to steering wheel inputs and 'steer' around curves in the road.

Fortunately simply turning the light switch from 'Auto' to 'On' foils this nonsense.