What the hell does it do???? Why would I ever turn that on? I can't figure it out....
Please help me..

Originally posted by Mister2cool
What the hell does it do???? Why would I ever turn that on? I can't figure it out....
Please help me.. It's for tight parking spots where your vehicle would be at risk of being hit by traffic. Turning the parking lights on will help keep your car visible. The switch on the top of your steering column will only switch on the parking/clearance lights and not the dash illumination (less of a drain on the battery). BMW's have a nifty feature where you can turn on the parking/clearance lights for a specific side of the car. This feature is more commonly used abroad.

- Kean

It's a nice feature for the fog we get down south a lot.

Originally posted by Kopf_Jager
It's a nice feature for the fog we get down south a lot. Yeah, but you can turn the headlights switch so that just the parking lights are on while you're driving and get the same effect as flipping the parking light switch on top of the steering column. As for why you'd want to intentionally leave your lights on all the time (even when you aren't in the car), that's still a mystery to me. Kean seems to have given the only explananation I've ever seen that even remotely makes sense...and even then, I'm kinda skeptical.

Matt

Kean is right. Red park lights is a regulation in Germany for more than a decade now. However, only the driver side is required. In Germany, where city streets are narrow. Parked cars are difficult to see so they need lights turned on when parked. That's why some Audi's, Mercedes and Alfa Romeo's have weird tail lights where the reverse light is white on the right and red on the left. Another example are the Nissan Skyline's on Playstation's Gran Turismo...check out the reverse light's.
That 'red' lens on the left serves as the park light. Some of these cars can be seen in the US. Some of us might think the right bulb's are busted (at night) ... they are not.

Originally posted by 20swrt
That 'red' lens on the left serves as the park light. Some of these cars can be seen in the US. Some of us might think the right bulb's are busted (at night) ... they are not.

Actually, I believe that is the rear fog light. Perhaps it's meant to do both, but it's amazing how much more visible a car is with a rear fog light on, especially above 120mph on a poor-visibility day ;)

Originally posted by Ski4Ever
As for why you'd want to intentionally leave your lights on all the time (even when you aren't in the car), that's still a mystery to me. Kean seems to have given the only explananation I've ever seen that even remotely makes sense...and even then, I'm kinda skeptical.

Matt

It was popular when I lived in Hoboken for people to double park on the narrow one way streets. Leaving a set of parking lights on helped to see the car. I guess that it was more important to them to not get hit by a passing car than to not get a ticket for double parking.

couple of things here, the one red and one white is a rear fog marker system, Audi and Porshce have this intergrated into the standard taillight assembly, ever notice the extra bright red light on the left side.

BMW started the selecta side park light on the 745's due to the width of the cars body...see several of them here in Portland on the downtown streets sticking out past the other cars.

on the suby, I use mine if I can't get right next to the curb or whatever, like this week when we've had some snow plowed up along the curbs

Steve

I believe in Europe, the parking lights must be able to be turned on whether the key is in the ignition or not. Hence, the handy-dandy-drain-your-battery-overnight-switch is featured on the tops of our steering columns. This was a feature that was simply just left in for the US models.
-Shane