I've got plenty of common sense but don't really feel it prudent to be running electrical wires through my car when I'm not comfortable working on the car or wiring. I'd be kicking myself if I tried to wire it myself and ended up frying something resulting in a much larger and more expensive problem. That's common sense to me.

 

replacing headlight bulbs is a minor thing, and doesnt happen very often (mine have been in there for 10 years, and i do LOTS of night driving)

as for jtbreen, im not sure where you are now (have you moved yet?) all i meant was that it is pretty easy to do with very basic tools and understanding of electrical (or the included directions), the electrical system is protected by fuses from screwups, but like i said a couple hours max labor to install, not sure what the going rate is.

 

Yeah I've moved. I'm already in Montreal, did the vehicle import. But need to get the DRL mod done before I go for Federal Inspection. Canadian Tire, which is kinda like Walmart/Target has a large automotive department and does repair. And they are also the authorized center for federal inspections which is why I was considering just taking it there for the mod.

However, they have a reputation for doing overpriced and dishonest work so thats why I'm concerned. Now considering that I'm giving them a specific task to do, and as you claim, its minor work, I think it should be ok.

They have a flat rate of $140 which includes the module and the install and then I can have them do the federal inspection as well. I think that's probably the best thing to do. I just wanted to make sure I wasn't getting totally hosed on the deal. Thanks for your input though!

 

Apparently this is way more of a pain in the *** then I expected. I contacted Hamsar who makes the $40 unit sold at Canadian Tire and they said it would not work for the first-gen Durango. They said I need a different unit and "an extra set of headlights" and provided this explanation.


"The 45040 (70-987) as sold by Canadian Tire is a universal DRL system, designed to be operated at full power, which means that your headlights or foglights will operate at full power while the DRL system is on. However, not all vehicles are applicable to use this DRL system. Your Dodge Durango being one of them. We would need a wiring diagram of the head lights and fog lights to give you a definitive answer on why the 45040 would not work on your vehicle, however at this point all I can say is that it is either feeding back to the ECU module or it has switches / relay at both power and ground side.
Hamsar does state on our website that the end-user should contact a sales representative in order to qualify the correct DRL system for your vehicle, which for your vehicle will be the 45020. Since Canadian Tire does deal with Hamsar, the store can call us and order that part directly from us. I have included my direct line in this email, present it to the parts department and get them to order from us directly.
Should you have any questions, please give me a call through our toll free number, my extension is the same as my direct line."



The unit they recommended is $72 whereas the unit from eBay was $20. He's got me totally lost with all the wiring jargon. Anybody out there actually modded their 1st gen durango with DRLs? Or do I really need to spend $72 on the unit and extra headlights? Does he mean just the bulbs? This is driving me nuts. Thanks guys

 

honestly you are the only person i know who is going someplace the requires them, and having them required by law is the only reason to have them. if he had given us more information i could check the wiring diagrams (i still will check them and see if i come up with anything) but the PCM doesnt control the headlights, the CTM does through the use of relays.

 

yeah, I'm smelling some bs here from that mechanic

 

ok so with the wiring diagram in front of me, the fog lights are controlled by the CTM through a relay on the hot side and go directly to ground with nothing in between (only one switched line)

and each headlight bulb should have 3 wires going to it, low beam, high beam, ground also controlled through the CTM (it appears directly based on the wire diagram, no reference to any relays) so maybe this is the reason that kit wouldnt work.

although considering this a dealer could most likely reprogram the CTM to run the DRLs, thats my guess for how the canadian models are set up, give them a call and ask if you havnt already.

 

to control the ctm, the switches for the lights (and most other things) simply send a 12v signal to the ctm, so the ctm could be thought of as a big relay box. If you had the drl module send 12v to the headlight signal wire on the ctm (that comes from the 2nd position on the headlight switch) you should be able to have the headlights come on with the drl module. It should work so that just the headlights would come on as the headlight switch has 2 separate feeds for the headlights and parking lights (the alarm only flashes the headlights without the parking lights). Alternatively (and probably much easier) you could just run a wire to activate the fog light relay instead since fogs can be used as drls in canada iirc.

 

Sorry guys but I am thoroughly confused here. I don't know anything about the wiring or the terms you're using.

I need the DRLs to pass federal inspection in Canada as I moved to Quebec with my 2003 Durango. Otherwise I wouldn't care.

I did call 2 dealers. One daler said there's no way to program this particular model to enable DRL. The other said it may be possible but they would need to inspect the car in person. If it didn't they could add a module for $200 with parts and labor.

Canadian tire sells the hasmar model that supposedly will not work. But they said they would do the install for $140 with parts and labor. However they didn't ask me what car I drive so that figure may be wrong and they may have to order the other more expensive part. And Canadian tire has a horrible reputation for doing shoddy work even for something as minor as this.

My goal was to buy the correct module as cheaply as possible and bring it to a trustworthy garage. That's all I want. This is just becoming the biggest pain. Thanks to all of you guys for your input. I really don't know much about any of this stuff and never dreamed it would be so complicated.

And while I'm on the subject, could anybody recommend good reasonably priced and long lasting headlight bulbs? Apparently upgrading OEMs is best because of the way the module is wired.

 

basically the canadian tire people could make the cheaper module work if they wanted to, but they're trying to make you buy a more expensive part.

Actually I just thought of something. If your fogs would be legal to use as drls you could simply make a jumper wire to go between two relays in the pdc to make the fogs come on with the engine. The a/c or fuel pump relay would only have power with the engine on, and then you could just run a wire across that to the signal terminal on the fog light relay. All you've have to do is pull the 2 relays out, place the wire in the appropriate slot, and push the relay back in over the wire, so I think you should be able to handle that. The 03 pdc is different than the 99 pdc so I don't know what the pinouts would be, but maybe shrp can help you with some pics and pinouts since he has an 02.