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2006 Honda Civic mini-review

Hyundai mostly uses world-compliant rear lamp clusters. Subaru *was* doing the same, until the new-design Legacy sedan came out with red rear signals. BMW has gone on a red-signal kick lately, as have VW, Honda, Nissan and Toyota. Audi's been bouncing back and forth between red and amber for years as a styling gimmick for model year differentiation, and so has Ford. GM and Chrysler use mostly red, with the occasional amber styling gimmick.

There was a 5er station wagon some time ago that had red rear signals in the US 'cause the rest-of-world signals were all of 2mm(!) too small to meet the US minimum-illuminated-area requirement. This wasn't an actual shortcoming so much as it was a difference between the US and rest-of-world methods of measuring surface area.

Current Golf, Jetta and Passat models all have red in North America.

And the current MINI has red.

Reply to
Daniel J. Stern
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Looks like the new sedan is NAFTA-only. Europe and Australia get a hatchback design and, in some countries, the previous-design sedan. Maybe next year?

Reply to
Daniel J. Stern

The Japanese brands are much worse, lately.

Once in the mid-'90s (5er station wagon, their first red rear signals since the 1968 model 2002). And now again with the new 3er. I initially suspected they did this so the new 3er's rear lamps wouldn't look quite so much like those on the '95-'98 Nissan Maxima, but on a trip to Europe a few months ago I noticed that the rear lamps on rest-of-world current 3ers look virtually identical to the US model, it's just the signals produce amber light instead of red (there are several different ways to achieve this "looks red until it lights up amber" appearance).

I donno, that sort of depends on how we define "worst". I'd put Honda closer to the top of the Taillamp Hall of Shame.

It cost less to throw a cap over the center compartment that was to have been the amber blinker and simply flash all or part of the brake lamp instead -- that is directly from one of the engineers on VW's regulatory compliance team.

Reply to
Daniel J. Stern

Volvo is part of Ford, so I was not considering it a separate company.

But as far as lighting is concerned, I have seen some newer Volvos with high beam daytime running lamps (older Volvos with daytime running lamps used non-annoying low beams).

Reply to
Timothy J. Lee

Does Mexico allow red rear turn signals any more? (since you mention NAFTA)

Reply to
Timothy J. Lee

Nope, no high-beam DRLs on Volvos -- they're actually a functionally-dedicated daytime running lamp mounted inboard of the BiXenon high/low beam headlamp.

DS

Reply to
Daniel J. Stern

Yes.

Reply to
Daniel J. Stern

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