Can you program the mini to have day time running lights. Will they turn off when the car is turned off or do you just have to rember to turn them off. Not really day time running lights though if thats the case. Thanks

 

Yes and yes, they turn off when the car is turned off.

 

I'm wondering whether enabling daylight running lights is a good idea if you have xenons? I hear they have a long life when running, but flashing will shorten their lives. I assume that means that startup is hard on them. So, it seems that the number of times you run them would be the determining factor as to how long they last. Anyone know how many cycles they have?

 

Hadn't thought of that. I don't have them on, myself, unless I'm on a road trip. I just don't like having full beams for DRLs and people have flashed their lights at me during the day to tell me my lights are on. (Well, twice.) I don't get that at night, it's not that they're misaligned.

 

The DRLs do not turn on the Xenons (at least on my R53). They turn on the high beams at ~50% power.

 

The R56 has bi-Xenons, so they're on for both low beam and high beam. A shutter shields some of the light on low beam and moves out of the way to allow all of the light out on high beam.

 

Sowellman is right and my dealer recommended not programming daytime running light when you have xenons because they will burn out faster.

 

This is what I did...ordered this DRL module from autobarn.com, for $29.95.


http://www.autobarn.net/des20013.html

Then, I wired it up to turn on the fog lights at 75% intensity. This way, the Xenons are only used at night, fogs are used as DRL's

 

Unlike other cars, even the regular headlights turn off when you turn off the car, at least on the R56. Just as an aside, I can't stand DLRs.