Mk3 Sidelights

[Woody55]

Might be a bit of a stupid question but does the Mk 3 have sidelights? I have a 16 plate Titanium and noticed when driving at dusk the other day that the front of the car wasn't illuminated. 

I have LED running lights that are on when the switch is at 0. When I turn to sidelights the LEDs dim but nothing switches on at the front. Rear LEDs go on. Next switch to dipped beam works fine, as does high beam. 

Looked at bulb diagram in manual and side lamp and high beam are listed as the same lamp so I'm a bit confused. There's only one bulb there when I look, plus an indicator and a low beam. I'm convinced something used to switch on but I may be talking nonsense. 

Any help would be great. 

Cheers 

[mjt]

On my Mk3 without DRLs the sidelight bulbs are at the top rear of the lamp, as arrowed in the photo. It may be that on vehicles with DRL's separate sidelight bulbs are not required. Hopefully one of the gurus can confirm this.

 

[Jezza54]

Yes, no sidelights when DRL's are fitted.

when I had Nolden DRL's fitted to my Focus mk3 Titanium at the Ford dealer the sidelights were "deleted"

[DJ_Andy_M]

If you have LED running lights fitted to your car, these are your sidelights too. They will dim to 50% when switched to the sidelight position.

They aren't "deleted". There is an option in the central car configuration which can be toggled if you were to switch back to standard headlights without DRLs and visa versa for retro fitting headlights with DRLs.

[Woody55]

Thanks for that guys. It had occurred to me that might be the case. They just seem pretty dim to me. I guess the lighter evenings have played their part too. 

 

Cheers 

[madmole]

I run LEDS in the sidelights as well as my Nolden DRL's, looks good

Just use Focus to turn the sidelights back on

I also added Rear DRL's and lights in the reflectors

[DJ_Andy_M]

4 hours ago, madmole said:

I run LEDS in the sidelights as well as my Nolden DRL's, looks good

Just use Focus to turn the sidelights back on

I also added Rear DRL's and lights in the reflectors

Which will also disable his Sidelights in the DRLs, and the DRLs when the sidelights are off. I don't think the wiring is in there for conventional bulbs, and looking at the DRL version that hole isn't there.

[madmole]

1 hour ago, DJ_Andy_M said:

Which will also disable his Sidelights in the DRLs, and the DRLs when the sidelights are off. I don't think the wiring is in there for conventional bulbs, and looking at the DRL version that hole isn't there.

The aftermarket Noldens are standalone normally, they are not connected to the Can bus and take the dim/bright feed by piggybacking into the light circuit. Ford say piggy back them into the side lights so they dim with them, I wired mine into the dip beam so they don't dim on sidelights. 

This maybe a fundamental change in the light wiring with the Mk3.5 as the Mk3 doesn't have DRL's from the factory (just dim dip if required). The Mk3.5's have DRL's as standard I believe

[DJ_Andy_M]

22 hours ago, madmole said:

The aftermarket Noldens are standalone normally, they are not connected to the Can bus and take the dim/bright feed by piggybacking into the light circuit. Ford say piggy back them into the side lights so they dim with them, I wired mine into the dip beam so they don't dim on sidelights. 

This maybe a fundamental change in the light wiring with the Mk3.5 as the Mk3 doesn't have DRL's from the factory (just dim dip if required). The Mk3.5's have DRL's as standard I believe

Genuine DRL headlights are a feature of the Titanium X models on both the MK3 and MK3.5 neither of which have a space for a sidelight (parking light) bulb. Nor do either have a "dim dip" as this is using a different lighting convention altogether. Dim dip was a feature present on old cars from the 80s/90s that allowed night time driving in street lit areas without full dipped beam. It used the dipped beam at half power.

The aftermarket Noldens won't need a change in the central car configuration as they aren't genuine Ford or have an LED control module the car would normally worry about like it would with the genuine LED DRLs.