Prius Running lights issue

I thought "true" daylight running light only the headlights light up...you have to turn on the the "night time" lights to have rear tail lights come on...at least this is how my daughters grand prix works.

 

I'm confused. Do you have a Canadian car? In the US the Prius doesn't have DRL. Whatever lights you want lit have to be turned on--day or night doesn't matter.

 

The confusion might be spreading. I have an 05 Prius. During the day, the lights on my car are off, unless it rains/snows/drizzles or it gets foggy and I switch them on. When I turn the stalk switch one notch up from the off position, the parking lights come on, and they include the front marker lights, the tail lights, and rear license plate lights. No head lights at this point.

If I turn the stalk switch one more notch, the headlights come on... while the others mentioned in the above paragraph stay on as well. Is this somewhat close to the way your Prius lights work?

 

Bulbs may not be seated properly in their sockets. Try cleaning the connection points and then reinstalling the bulbs in their sockets and see if that helps.

I found my right front marker light off the other day, so I tapped the light unit with my hand and it turned back on. Thats when I went in and took the bulb out of the socket and did the cleaning and seating. It has been working fine since.

 

I had this same problem with the front side marker bulbs. Did a close inspection of the bulb, microscopically, and noticed that the filament had broken right where the filament support wire was wrapped around it. The circuit would periodically be interrupted either by heat or vibration resulting in the bulb going off and the ability to restore the connection with a slight tap. The OEM bulbs have this wire while the long-life aftermarket replacement (available through your local favorite auto parts store) does not. I will see how these replacement bulbs fare over time.

 

Glad to see I'm not the only one who discovered the tap on lights. Just a month after my annual inspection, which had all lights functioning, I suddenly had the front two parking lights and one rear tail light go out. I had one spare bulb so I replaced the tail lamp. It didn't come on right away, but when I twisted it out again and back in, it lit up. I ordered bulbs for the front two. Last night I was heading home and checked the tail light again. It was out, but a light tap on the housing brought it back on. Then I tapped both front lights and they came on. My friend, who was parked near me saw it and thought I was magic. I'm going to pull them out and clean the sockets and see if that's the cause of the intermittent outages.