City lights with the European Glass headlights?

[123c]

Does anyone know if the European headlights have a City light installed? I am so wanting some City lights, they look so cool

[TDGKORN]

I know the right-hand drive ones have them. I was going to buy a set, but the deal fell through.

Be prepared to get flamed on pretty hard by some of the members here. Some are very against the idea of rhd lights on our cars.

[vrg3]

Uh, there's a good reason to be against the idea of RHD lights on LHD roads. It's dangerous! This is not a matter of opinion.

Anyway, 123c is not asking about using the wrong headlights on his car; he's asking about city lights on the correct headlights for his car.

Yes, the European lights have city lamps in them as well. Check out EJ22_SLO's post:

http://bbs.legacycentral.org/viewtopic. ... c&start=29

(He's calling them "position lights.")

[123c]

Yes, I already know the difference between RHD and LHD headlights... How hard would it be to install the city lights in what I already have? I might look into that group buy

[vrg3]

In principle it should be pretty straightforward. After removing the lens clips, you'll have to bake the lights to get the lenses to come off, and then you can just cut a hole in the unused outboard portion of the reflector and install a mini wedge bulb socket, and then pop in a W5W bulb. Be careful reassembling the light, since if the lens ends up in a different location it will mess with the beam pattern.

Then wire your sidemarkers to work as turn signals as well as parking lights (and put W5W bulbs in them too), and wire both filaments of the corner lights to operate exclusively as turn signals! Yeah!

[123c]

I might try and get a cheap pair from a wrecking yard and try this out

[Legacy777]

Doesn't the US reflector take up the entire portion of the lense area, unlike the EDM & JDM lights that have the city light in there?

[evolutionmovement]

Sort of - they use more of the surface for the reflector than the EU or JDM lights, but the edges are still unused. There's a perfect vertical concave 'V' shaped spot at the outboard edge of the reflector that would be perfect to use for this bulb instal and would have no interference with the standard beam pattern.

Steve

[boostjunkie]

By chance, what's a city light for?

Dumb question, I know. I would assume that they're used for driving in the city, where you wouldn't really need headlights... but I'm not sure.

[vrg3]

They're the European counterpart to parking lights.

They're clear low-output bulbs that poke into the headlight reflector but aren't at the focus. They're clear, though, not amber, and they are inside the headlamp housing. This is good for a couple of reasons. It eliminates the commonly-used dual-filament amber corner light, so European turn signals are generally much more visible. It also allows the light to effectively indicate the headlight's position if one headlight bulb burns out.

Their purpose is the same as that of parking lights: to make a stationary car visible. They are never to be used while driving unless the headlights are also on, or -- in the case of severe fog -- unless the fog lights are also on.

In at least some parts of Europe you're actually supposed to leave them on when parking a car on an unlit street to make sure the car doesn't get hit. My German-spec Mercedes could actually turn on only the left or right city lights to halve the power required for this task.

I believe the DOT parking light specification is strictly more permissive than the ECE city light spec, so all ECE city lights are legal parking lights.

[EJ22_SLO]

In most of European countries headlights must be turned on while driving car - ordered by law (day and night, all year) - the point is to make cars more visible (and believe me - they are - even in summer sun);

so - we use what you call "city lights" only when car is parked in street (at night, fog,...). That's where "position lamps" term came from

regards.

[vrg3]

Thanks for the more authoritative answer.

I was not aware that running headlights in the daytime was mandatory in most of Europe; I thought it was mostly limited to Scandanavia.

Here we call those "daytime running lights" but most manufacturers implement them very poorly.

[boostjunkie]

In most of European countries headlights must be turned on while driving car - ordered by law (day and night, all year) - the point is to make cars more visible (and believe me - they are - even in summer sun);

so - we use what you call "city lights" only when car is parked in street (at night, fog,...). That's where "position lamps" term came from

regards.

Cool! Thanks!

My car seems to have "city lights" built into the headlights, however, I can't see them being at all useful during the day time. They're just a small bulb, about the size/shape of a Christmas light.