DRL's always on or no?

[bourgeois]

Can someone with the wiring harness send a picture of the DRL LED strip so I can see how bright it is? thanks

 

[ebelp]

I'm getting the impression that this harness activates the LED strips as the DRL's (instead of the low beams), but only at low brightness...not full brightness like the LTZ. Just to clarify, you can already accomplish this by turning the headlight knob to the parking light setting. Hopefully I'm wrong, but that's what I'm gathering by gen5diy's replies that have been posted in here.

 

[Bamnkam]

I received the harness the other day. It was obviously used due to broken tabs, gouges on electrical connectors and wear marks from mounting bolts on relay's.

I return shipped it today asking for 100% refund......I'm not going to use it.

 

[ebelp]

Wow, that's ridiculous...I hope they agreed to give you a refund before you shipped it back.

 

[Bamnkam]

They said they would send a replacement but I told them to keep it. After receiving the used harness I have lost faith in the product and store. It's already on the way back. If they refuse to refund me I will fight it. I have documented my findings in detail with pictures.....plus they admitted in writing that I received a "test harness".....unacceptable!

 

[OCTahoe15]

I just got a reply back from the sales rep and it is true that the brightness will NOT be increased to the LTZ level. The headlights are supposedly different and the LT models lack the brighter LED's all together. Its odd, because I just figured the same LEDs were being driven and a lower power and dimmed... The part numbers look the same for the LTZ and other models...

Bummer too - I just got an email that my harness shipped. Now I will likely need to return it and spend the money elsewhere.

 

[ebelp]

The headlights of the LT and LTZ are the same. If not, then you could simply buy a used set of LTZ headlights and swap them in. That won't work though. It's the BCM that controls how the LED strips behave.

 

[OCTahoe15]

So, long story short: No harness or any external modification is going to get us what we want. In order to get the bright LEDs as DRLs we need to reprogram the BCM. Is that even a possibility?

 

[ebelp]

I'm pretty sure you are correct. I had hopes and dreams that this gen5diy harness would somehow trick the LED strips into coming on at full brightness, but that's not the case.

At one point there was a company that claimed they could reprogram the BCM to make this mod work, but I have yet to hear from any owner who has used this service. Even if it did exist, it would require several days of downtime while the BCM is off the vehicle...and then I hear the process of re-installing the BCM and "marrying" it to your vehicle again is quite daunting.

 

[kh0806]

Man, I got way excited over the gen5diy harness for a second. To the point of almost buying it right away! Then I read carefully what it actually does... What is the point of buying a $160 harness when you can just turn the nob to the right once and have it do the same? Ive had my LT tahoe for 8 months now. Absolutely love it! But the whole LED DRL is a huge fail for a 60K car. I read in another forum (maybe this one) that the LT uses only 6 volts for the DRL while LTZ uses 12 and that makes the difference in brightness. Makes sense, I guess. Hope one day there is a work around for this. For now I have HID installed that run during the day (and night) and look way better than the halogens. I also swapped the ugly LT grill with LTZ one and that made a big difference as well.