Check You High Beams As Drl

[wwest]

The high beam bulb on the left was removed from my '01 AWD RX300 about 5 years ago, at I believe, about 12,000 miles. I gave the other one from the RX to the service manager at Bellevue Lexus to let him know what I had found. The two on the right were just removed, moments ago, from a '95 LS400 with 210,000 miles. I'm fairly sure they are the original factory bulbs.

When I put the new bulbs in the LS the DRL mode was so much brighter it was hard to believe these original ones were still working. Luckily the 95 has two high beam bulbs in each side so the loss of one due to the severe sooting wasn't all that noticeable.

I have found documents on the internet indicating that this is a fairly common problem with Halogen bulbs being operated as DRLs with sub-standard, below normal operating level, voltages. The 95 LS operates the halogens in series, 6 volts each. The Rx300 also operates the bulbs in series but has an additional voltage dropping resistor mounted below the battery.

[SKperformance]

Wow never seen a bulb bubble like that as a drl.