I've obviously got too much time on my hands this week, as I've been puttering with projects that I'd put off for months. This one worked out well, and is suggested for anyone who wears contact lenses or has had eye surgery.

I've been wearing contacts since before most of you were born (since 1959), and nightime glare has always been an issue for me as a result. Not only oncoming headlights, but dashboard instrument lights can be a problem.

I drive home at night in the country 3-4 nights each week, and I've found that he MINI is worse than most in this, because the indicator lights don't dim with the instrument lighting - they are as bright at night as they are in the daytime. When these light up in dark country driving, they throw enough light up into my eyes to cause glare and significantly reduce my night vision.

The problem is that three of these little spotlights are almost always on while I'm driving at night: the ASC Off, Cruise Control, and Brights are usually staring me in the face. If you don't believe that this is an issue, try this experiment: turn on these three lights while driving somewhere without street lights - then block the dash lights with your hand while watching the road, and notice how much better you can see as your eyes adapt to the lack of indicator lighting.

Phew - I'm getting long-winded here, but you get the picture.

I had considered removing the speedo/tach and trying to dim the indicator LEDs, but that seemed like a lot of risky work, so I took the low-tech approach. I experimented with my laserprinter, and discovered that I could print on Scotch Magic Tape stuck onto a piece of acetate slide material, and the Magic Tape would remain sticky but still peelable.

So, I printed a few 50% grey blobs onto the tape, cut out the blobs with an exacto knife, and pasted them onto the plastic face of the instrument cluster, directly over these three indicator lights.

The results are good - in daylight, you can still see when one of these light up, and at night, it blurs and dims the indicators enough to get their brightness down to near the level of the instruments. No more indicator glare!

Attached is a picture of the blobs I printed - one of each is peeled and on my car. The blobs are 5/8" diameter, and the oblong one is 1-1/4" wide. This gives enough margin around the lights that they are covered even if I move the wheel up and down, or my head a little bit sideways.

 

Well, the 50% halftone tape worked well enough to validate the approach, so today I got a small piece of window tint film and cut out a 5/8" circle and a 5/8"x 1-1/4" oval.

The "90% tint" film works perfectly - the annoying ASC, Cruise Control, and High-Beam indicators are now dimmed to the point where they are about as bright as I like to set the instrument lighting, while still visible in daylight.

 

And here are the results using 90% window tint film.

As you can see, the indicator lights are now about as bright as the instrument lighting at night, while still easily visible in daylight. BTW, the film isn't blurry, that's just my hand-held camera shake during a long exposure in a dark garage.

I'm mystified as to why Mini made these lights so bright as to cause night-driving glare...

 

Well guys, I have to say that is pretty slick. Time to start up a cottage industry making those dimming kits. If you do I'll be your first customer. Those indicator lights are way too bright for my eyes.

Chuck

 

Anyone interested in a kit containing pre-cut removable indicator light shields, please contact Mini-Madness at http://www.mini-madness.com/html/contact.html to express your interest.

If he gets a few inquiries, he'll probably produce such a kit.

 

OldRick I just sent an e-mail to the mini madness folks. Now lets just sit back & wait for the magic to happen.

Chuck

 

I agree that they're too bright. They aren't quite so bright that I'm compelled to fix it, but they're pretty close to that threshold. I did use window tint on my '94 Impala SS digital readout. That thing was obscenely bright, and the high beam indicator was even worse.

Good mod you've come up with!

Rawhyde

 

Since doing this, I've learned that it would be easier and look better to open the instruments and use tint film inside.

On the other hand, if I ever sell this car, the external film is easy to remove with a little ammonia and water.

 

I'll say.