We already knew that turn signal DRL's were a bad idea...

but DAYAM.

Had Vlad the Impala in the shop today to get the brake job done that it needed to pass inspection (apparently all pads were worn out at only 50Kish miles, as well as front rotors below wear limit... sheesh!) and I needed to visit a job site. Ended up taking my boss' old car which was due to be turned in, which is an '04 Malibu. First of all, I really liked the 'bu. Much tighter ride than the Impala, flatter cornering, quieter, and the thing felt like a little rocketship compared to the Impala. I guess it should, with a larger engine (3.5 vs. 3.4) and smaller body. Since my house was on the way to the job site, I even stopped at home and pulled into the driveway to check ground clearance; while it is near impossible to get the Impala in my driveway without dragging the front air dam, the Malibu can be pulled straight in with no issues. Really, the only fault I could find with the car was that it pulled to the left and also had a disconcerting "pop" in the front end when making slow speed turns, which I attribute to a worn out ball joint or strut bearing, which one could consider a normal wear item.

And then, on my way back to the office, one of the turn signals stopped working. I had my toolkit with me, out of habit, so I just pulled into my FLAPS and pulled the right front headlight assembly. Holy crap, what a POS. Not only did I need a 10mm nutdriver to R&R the headlight assembly (would it have been too hard to stamp a Phillips recess into the bolt heads? It's not like most drivers travel with a full toolkit...) but both headlights showed obvious signs of heat damage due to the bright filaments of the park/turn bulbs being on all the time. This is an '04, mind you. The amber lens over the bulb was browned and bubbled near the little vent slots that were cut into it, and both the "chrome" backing of the light cluster and the polycarbonate lens itself showed obvious discoloration for a large area around the turn signal bulbs. The driver's side was no better.

Someone please tell me that the redesigned Malibus don't have this garbage DRL implementation - I was seriously leaning towards getting one for my replacement company vehicle but if I have to replace the headlight clusters every few years (I've heard enough stories that I know it's pretty much futile to get GM to disable the DRLs on any non- police or military vehicle, and it's not an easy DIY job) I'll be quite a bit less likely to consider it.

This is why people have a negative opinion of GM cars... if they can't get blatantly obvious details like light clusters right, what does that say about the engineering that went into the rest of the functional bits of the car?

nate

Reply to
N8N
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You think that's bad? I need to use a torx bit to remove and replace the headlamp assemblies in my Audi. On top of that, I need a security torx bit to remove or replace the ballast unit (for the HIDs).

I believe that Daniel's opinion on the matter is that turn signal DRLs are probably the best of the bad implementations out there. But, if car companies can't take the time to design the parts to withstand normal usage, then those car companies should not get any business.

What would really be nice is if the car companies lost a class action lawsuit over the glazed polycarbonate headlamp assembly lens issue that affects practically all vehicles that have them. Or better yet, the NHTSA should have to pay out (if they didn't have sovereign immunity to such legal action).

Reply to
Arif Khokar

GM I am going to guess isn't much different than a large US corporation I once worked for. Basically the 'engineers' who were in engineering because they were good at school but couldn't design their way out of a wet paperbag become engineering management, while those who can design are stuck at the lower levels.

It the decisions that these boneheads make that cause these sort of things to end up in the products. Somewhere, there is an engineer who said they shouldn't do that. Somewhere there is a test report with the browning labeled a failure. Elsewhere is the spin job put on it by management and the business decision by upper management to let it be that way.

The fastner thing, well, with GM you're damn lucky it wasn't security torx. (torx with the pin in the center that requires a special set of drivers with a hole drilled in the center of the torx driver bit)

Reply to
Brent P

I hear ya, but... don't these people own and drive their own products? You'd think this would be obvious to any owner of a car that had reached "a certain age" during the course of a normal wash and wax. Lenses that look worse than those of a "normal" car decades older at only three years is a definite failure in my book, no matter how you spin it.

Actually that would still have been OK, as the product line that I deal with on a day to day basis uses Torx head screws a lot. OK for me, that is, not for the average consumer.

nate

Reply to
N8N

Maybe they drive them, maybe they don't. The good at school types are about the politics. I've watched minor customer undetectable issues become huge while serious design problems that made the product essentially crap not be an issue. It is about the political wind at the company. While these light assemblies were allowed to be such that the plastic is clearly degraded, I'll wager there there is some underhood component where the finish changed color slightly with no loss of performance that was a panic issue to 'fix'.

most GM's I've had to do work on used torx... wonder why that car is different. Then again I don't think I've touched a GM newer than the 80s...

Reply to
Brent P

Seems to be common everywhere, there's a lot of Torx on my '93 F150 as well.

nate

Reply to
N8N

My '90 Cherokee failed inspection because of a burnt out front parking light. While I haven't looked at it more than briefly, it looks like I have to remove the battery to get to it.

On my Camaro it's a matter of grounding a wire, I've even made an on-off switch.

I've never experienced a problem with my turn signal DRLs. I only had the original lenses for about two years before switching to aftermarket clear lenses, but neither showed any sign of damage last I checked. Haven't had a single bulb burn out on this car either, so I'm perfectly happy with GM's lighting implementations. I even think the sealed beams are adequate, except maybe for the high beams. :-)

With that said; the angel eyes and hockey club DRLs on newer BMWs and Audis look nice. Maybe Chevrolet could come up with bow-tie DRLs or something...

Don't buy a vehicle with plastic headlight lenses. I haven't.

Ulf

Reply to
Ulf

Other than signal ambiguity... a good enough argument in and of itself for disabling them.

Impossible in the US, unless you buy a vehicle with sealed beams. Unless I'm behind, the only glass lenses allowed are on sealed-beam type headlights. Aero-style *must* be polycarbonate. ECE regs allow replaceable glass lenses for headlights, so you can blame NHTSA for this one.

nate

Reply to
N8N

Ahh, liability. They didn't want you fingerpoken and mittengrabben near the high voltages.

Reply to
Matthew T. Russotto

I like Torx. It doesn't strip (Phillips, hex) or slip out (Phillips + slotted) or round off (hex bolt). And the drivers, being slightly tapered, work in some hex screws which have been partially stripped or were just badly made to begin with.

Security Torx, though, is just silly. I have a set of drivers for them, it's not like they are restricted items. It just makes the lawyers happy because it keeps the average Joe Moron out of whatever dangerous thing is behind the panel, and lets them blame the better-than-average Moron when he opens the panel anyway.

5-sided Torx is an abomination too. I don't have any of those yet. What's the point, except to get people to buy more tools?
Reply to
Matthew T. Russotto

Nope. I have white DRLs which makes them impossible to confuse with turn signals if one bulb were to burn out. While, when other drivers see one flashing, they realize it's a turn signal. Much safer if one bulb stops working. The only issue with combined DRLs/turn signals is when signaling in traffic circles IME, but that's easily solved by not signaling at all.

IIRC, it was/is Canada that required plastic headlights, unless they were hidden. The same people that allowed 7000 cd, and turn signal, DRLs in the first place, mind you. They could have made up for it a few years ago by allowing ECE vehicles, but of course they chickened out...

Ulf

Reply to
Ulf

Interesting, outside the hotwire sensor (security torx, which I have not had need to touch, but did notice) and the seatbelt bolts I haven't encountered any on my mustang.

Reply to
Brent P

This must be false or a relatively recent idiotcy added to the code. The torqueless wonder car (1986 mazda 626) had GLASS aero-style headlamps.

1985 626's have sealed beams.
Reply to
Brent P

Camcar's patents?

Reply to
Brent P

Or for them to be stolen. The 02-03 Maximas had a high number of headlights stolen. They finally redesigned it so they couldn't be ripped out as easily. I guess they sell very easily and fetch a high price.

I don't know how you'd get shocked by it, I just put a foglight HID kit in and it's very very simple. Looks great!

b
Reply to
Brent

Just thought of something I didn't think of before...

were this my own car, an acceptable "fix" might be to simply break apart the amber lens and shake/vacuum it out of the housing. then use a

3157NA bulb in place of the regular 3157. Wouldn't fix the discoloration of the reflector or the hazing of the polycarbonate, but at least the lens could be polished, and the discoloration just looks bad. The right fix would be, of course, to disable the DRLs completely, but I have no idea how difficult that is on that particular car. I'd bet losing the amber lens would also help the assembly run cooler, even with the DRLs.

nate

Reply to
Nate Nagel

Were the bulbs the correct size? I found a bubbled lense in a Tbird and found that some genius had put a similar appearing bulb into it, but the wattage was far higher. Dont know if this is even possible in this application.

Reply to
HLS

According to Sylvania's web site, yes - 3157LL (looks like a 1157 but with a plastic wedge base instead of the usual dual contact bayonet base.)

nate

Reply to
Nate Nagel

Big snip....

Square drive is all the rage now in appliances. First glance it looks like a Phillips and a Phillips might work but if it's tight no way. Robertson drive seems to come to mind as the official name. More tools, better hang on to my Whitworth stuff in case it comes back......LOL

Reply to
Repairman

Uh...no. Where'd this factoid come from? There has never been any such a requirement. Glass lenses are perfectly legal under North American headlamp regulations.

So do US regulations.

DS

Reply to
Daniel J. Stern

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