Turn signals are now parking lights / DRL's - parking lights are turn signals (MB/Audi style)

After doing the front side marker lights mod awhile back, I was thinking about something different to do that would make my car stand out from the many other Prius' I see on a daily basis in the LA area. I had an idea of what I wanted to do, but I was waiting for the right bulbs to become available before I messed around with it.

The LED lights on the new Mercedes and Audi cars have kind of grown on me, and they are really noticeable in traffic so you see the cars pretty easily. I didn't want to do the same LED strip thing with some cheezy light strip that you can buy from Ebay, so instead I made my bumper turn signals into the parking lights using some very bright projector LEDs (which can be used as DRL's if I turn on my parking lights), and the parking lights in the headlight housing are now my turn signal blinkers. I opted for this because awhile back I tried putting 64 SMD LED bulbs into the foglight housing and I didn't like the output or the way the housing made the color look. Plus these projector LEDs were much brighter than the standard 7440 SMD LED bulbs that you can buy, as they were actually more dim looking.

The wiring took maybe 30 minutes to do, but then it took me another 20 minutes figuring out how to change the turn signal relay underneath the dash (19 minutes figuring out how to get my hand up underneath the dash.... once I got it up there after removing one bolt, it took less than a minute to swap out the relay, and in the end it was actually pretty easy to do).

Below are some pics and videos.



I found a place locally that made a projector style LED. After the pics and videos I saw of it, I figured this should work well. And they are extremely bright and are very visible under the direct sunlight during the day (I'll get daytime pictures of that later this week). Even though they project forward, the light still reflects in the housing so the output is good on the Prius.







For now, I'm just using a chrome 194 amber bulb in the headlight housing. I have some 5-way and 9-way amber LED 194 bulbs coming in later this week so I'll swap those out. The bulbs are easily visible at night and when it's overcast, but it's hard to see under the direct sunlight. This is the only drawback so far, but I'm hoping the brighter LED bulbs I have on order will fix this. If not, then I have one other thing I'll try out, but it'll take some thinking on how to make it work.





After wiring everything up, here's what it looks like with my parking lights on.









Here's how the LED parking lights look with the headlights on. The color of the factory LED headlights actually match pretty much perfectly with the LED's in the bumper turn signal housing. When I tried similar LED bulbs in the foglight housing awhile back, they were more blue looking and did not go well with the headlights.





Here are a couple of pics with the HID foglights on (I never turn these on unless the weather or conditions really call for it), just to give you an idea of how it looks with that much lighting up front.... still legal in CA, as you're allowed to have 6 lights on up front at once (3 on each side).







Here are a couple of videos showing the LED parking lights by themselves, and with the headlights on. I'll take some videos during the day when I have some time later this week.

Final thoughts... I like the look since it now stands out from other Prius cars on the road, and also the LED's work well as a DRL while driving during the day or at dusk. The turn signals facing the front do need to be brighter, and I'm working on some things for that. You also need the CF18-08 flasher relay or your blinkers will be fast, even if you're using halogen bulbs. But once you put the relay in, you can then switch everything out to LED bulbs.

I can easily switch everything back to how it was before, but I figure I'll drive around this way for awhile to see how it works out for me.

 

My goal is to wire up a couple of relays that I have, and have it so the parking lights turn off when it see's a signal from the headlights being turned on. I didn't have time last night to do this, but I'll probably mess around with it later this week. I just need to figure out a good 12V switched signal coming from the headlight harness to tap into.

I'll take some pictures during the day when I have some time this week. But when I looked at it this morning under the sun and stood back a good 100 ft, they still looked very bright at all angles (except directly to the side of the car).

I picked up these Super Bright HID LED bulbs from this seller. There's really nothing HID about them, but they are super bright and illuminate better than a 30 SMD LED bulb in the turn signal housing.

 

I picked up 5-way, 9-way, and 25-way amber 194 LEDs to try out in the headlight housing.

I didn't even bother with the 5-way because they were not bright enough. 9-way LEDs fit just fine and clear the headlight glass just fine. They're right, but not bright under direct sunlight... they work fine at night.

The 25-way LEDs were much brighter but the top LED touches the headlight glass. I actually just used those because you can see them in direct sunlight, even with the top LED touching the glass. I didn't harm anything and I even tested them by letting the blinkers flash for 12 minutes straight, and the glass was not hot or discolored at all (I wouldn't plan on using my blinkers for that long anyways).

 

Yes, you can easily use amber LEDs or just regular orange 7440 halogen bulbs that come stock on our cars. I just chose to use a LED that matched my headlights. But using the orange 7440 halogen bulbs would've been much brighter and the light would've filled the entire housing.... a really good DRL.

And yes, the backup bulbs are the same 7440 bulbs as the turn signals (front & back). I actually tried out the projector LEDs and they are extremely bright as the backup lights. With the rear camera at night, I can really see a good distance behind me.

 

I put the 25-way LED in the top of the headlight housing (which is normally a parking light, but is now a turn signal). It looks like this:





The 9-way LEDs I also have look like these:




You can see the top LED on the 25-way is small, so it doesn't produce much heat that would affect the headlight glass. But the sides to illuminate a lot more and the light reflects better in the housing.



I didn't change the bulbs in the side parking sockets (I assume you're talking about the bulbs behind the amber reflector in the headlight housing). I left the clear 194 halogen bulbs in there and just disabled them when the headlights are on, and they blink with the turn signals HERE.

 

I know of 2 ways to accomplish this......


1) Wire up 2 SPST relays to make this work. We did this years ago with Honda bumper lights that used single filament bulbs & 2-wire sockets. The turn signal bumper light would stay on with your parking/head lights, but would flash to the 'off' position when it received a signal from the turn signals... and flashed normally without going fast (back then, no LED bulbs were available).

2) Find a dual filament 3-wire socket that will fit into the turn signal housing (may need to modify the tabs) and then use a dual filament 1157 bulb since those are very common & cheap. The low filament will stay lit when your parking/head lights are on. When you activate the turn signal, it will light up the 2nd filament and will be much brighter and flash normally.


Both ways would require some wiring to do. The 2nd option would require some more work locating a socket that would work and modify the tabs if needed, but has much less wiring is involved.