Daytime running lights

[Sunderas]

I've ransacked the below picture from somewhere on these forums and I need some help from you guys. (Sorry OP)



My daylight driving lights have never come on. Is there any option in the car to activate/deactivate these? Or shall I deduce immediately that either the fuse or the bulbs are busted?
If I need to replace these I have 2 further questions:
1- Are they easily accessible? (I'm used to Ford's usual easy access)
2- Can they be replaced by a LED alternative since the original replacements are plain robbery? If so do they have to be Cam-Bus corrected?

As we are in the subject of lights, the rest of the lights should have no problem to use LED (as my C5 does not warn you of busted bulbs), but what about the blinkers?
I used to have an old Fiesta that when one of the blinkers went out the other would flash faster. The other lights would not influence any faster blinking but a busted blinker would.

Thank you all for your help.

[GiveMeABreak]

Have you checked the menu ( car stopped, press right hand wheel button, check lighting configuration to see if you have daytime running light option in menu. If not, it will need activating via a Lexia, but the bulbs are there and it will work once activated.

I only bothered replacing my drl bulbs when one of my HP24 bulbs blew. I then changed with LEDs, but you do need to do some work first on preparing the bulb holder.

Don't use LEDs in any of the other front headlights, they wont be legal. Indicators are plenty bright and the only decent LEDs for this type are expensive as they have to light and blink correctly, so a waste of time replacing these. I'll try and dig out my post on the DRLs.

[JohnD]

You can turn drl bulbs on and off via the steering wheel controls. I turned mine off a few months ago because one stopped working. According to Citroen it's a front bumper off job to change them but members on the forum have managed to do it from under the bonnet. Also there's a posting on using replacement LEDs in the original bulb holders.

[Hell Razor5543]

If the DRLs are not shown in the menu options then they will (as Marc has said) need to be enabled by use of a Lexia (they are physically there, but the ECU is 'ignorant' of them). Once this has been done they will show up in the relevant menu. I did this for a new member a few months ago.

[GiveMeABreak]

I've ransacked the below picture from somewhere on these forums and I need some help from you guys. (Sorry OP)
1- Are they easily accessible? (I'm used to Ford's usual easy access)
2- Can they be replaced by a LED alternative since the original replacements are plain robbery? If so do they have to be Cam-Bus corrected?
Thank you all for your help.

Right, here's the post I was referring to:
https://www.frenchcarforum.co.uk/forum/ ... 15#p464087

The issues you will have are:
a) There aren't as yet to my knowledge any direct replacement LEDs for the non-standard HP24W. As you can see from the pictures in my link, you will have to retain the original bulb holders and carefully modify them to take an LED with the long pronged wires, without damaging it.
b) Getting them out - If they have never been out of the bulb housing (very likely) then they can be a bu**er to free. There is slightly more room on the Halogen headlights to work than models like mine with Xenon headlamps - although still tight as a crab's a**se. I had to get the main dealer to retrieve the bulbs for me with partial bumper removal. I then managed to grease them up, do the conversion and modification myself and refit them with my own mod to make it easier to get them out again.

My guess is, the bulbs are fine but are not activated - as at new, for earlier X7s, the law did not require DRLs, so although fitted, they just didn't activate them by default. When I activated mine, I guess I had about a year before one of the bulbs blew, so that is when I went and did the LED conversion. Lots of research has been done on a suitable LED replacement, that provides enough light, so the ones I have used are about the best light output you will get.

[Stickyfinger]

my 2009 car had them and they were deactivated when I got it.....

[Sunderas]

GiveMeABreak -> Thank you for your info and ideas, but I think that I will adventure through the replacement of the DRLs for leds when I either have a absurd abundance of time or feel bored out of my mind.
Your car ended up looking really smart.

[Sunderas]

Does anyone have anything against replacing the rear lights with LED ones? I've seen some from Sylvania/Osram that can be a direct replacement as easy as bolting a new bulb and done.
Has anyone have any thoughts about it?

What about the blinkers for the car? Would I need Can-Bus bulbs to avoid hyperflashing?

Thank you!

[GiveMeABreak]

Glad you like them. Once the bulbs have been off once and the threads of the holders greased they should be easier to do again on future. Still going strong since I did them!

[GiveMeABreak]

Does anyone have anything against replacing the rear lights with LED ones? I've seen some from Sylvania/Osram that can be a direct replacement as easy as bolting a new bulb and done.
Has anyone have any thoughts about it?

What about the blinkers for the car? Would I need Can-Bus bulbs to avoid hyperflashing?

Thank you!

It's a topic of some debate regarding LEDs for the rear. I personally wouldn't have these as they can be too bright and cause distraction to rear drivers.

I have only replaced my reversing lights with LEDs as there was more light coming out of a gnat's arse than with the original bulbs! I was happy to do this as they are only used for reversing and I live in the country where there aren't any street lights where we are. You should always get CAN bus LEDs as these tend to have resistors built in to stop flashing. The C5 doesn't have a bulb out warning system, but will get the 'flashes' if the load isn't right.

[The Ace]

In my case, since I bought the car used and didn't know what had happened with the DRLs, they didn't work, although I had checked the option in the menu. Turned out, one of them was burned and the other must have been slightly dislodged, so none of them lit up. At that time (about 2 years ago) there wasn't any LED of decent luminocity (600-800lms) so I bought two new original HP24W from the dealer. You can remove/install them yourself, you just need a T40, some gum (in order to avoid having the bulb falling inside the engine bay) and small and/or delicate hands.

Nowadays however, there are several G4 CREE LEDs with adequate luminocity (>650lms), in order to replace the stock bulbs. Like GiveMeABreak said, you need to remove the bulbs, undo the bulb from the holder, install the LED, and reinstall the assembly onto the headlight. Be sure to check the length of the LED, usually the seller indicates whether the LED will fit into the C5 X7's headlight.

And yes, it's always a good idea to get CanBus "error-free" LEDs, because otherwise you will probably end up with either malfunctioning DRLs (flashing, strobing, not lighting up etc) or non-functioning at all. Same goes for every LED you want to install in the C5 X7, always go for the canbus versions

[Sunderas]

Ok, so my DRLs were just turned off in the car controls. I had to have the parking break on. The one on the right come on but the other one either burned out or it is not completely connected, so I turned them off again as it was plain rubbish to have one.
I think I'll go over the possibility of a LED replacement if I get enough time on my hands.

As for the back bulbs anyone has a schematics of the bulbs that it uses?

Thank you.

[GiveMeABreak]

Just Google HP24W. These are the original bulbs. An LED replacement will need a modification to the bulb holder to fit them in. All covered in the link in my previous post on this thread.

[van ordinaire]

Direct replacement LED's seem to be available @ http://www.ebay.com/itm/2x-DRL-HP24W-7- ... -5008-/282.

Personally I'm for LED's in most applications (all my rear light conversions have been very red, rather than very bright) but found that they're poor for illumination, so am interested what GiveMeABreak used in his reversing lights (I know there are some listed specifically for that application).

Not a big fan of DRL's (or, correctly - at least in this country - conspicuity lights) though (a) it's just dim-dip for the 21st century (b) they legitimise running on foglights for no reason than they're standard equipment.

[white exec]

The good news here (Spain) is that driving with foglights on when there is no fog is an offence - points and fine.
The bad news is that traffic police almost never enforce it.