LED Headlights and Snow.

Took a long drive in the Tundra in a reasonably heavy snow storm. Quickly found out that the headlights do not produce enough heat to melt themselves clean. Luckily the DD fogs I have stayed clear and we were going slow enough that they were ok. But I had to stop and clear the lenses on the headlights a few times.

I am sure I am not the only one with this issue. Anyone have ideas or solutions?

It was definitely a worst case scenario with wet heavy snow and coming down hard, but I would like to fix it if possible?

RainX seems to help but I am also interested in answers.

In really bad conditions, nothing will help except lots of heat.  I've had 100w halogens slush over in extreme cases requiring me to stop and scrape them clear periodically when the buildup started to get thick (once it got beyond a thin layer it grew rapidly).  Some aftermarket LED setups have heated lenses for this reason, but I don't know if any of the OEMs have done that.  Interestingly, HID projectors are no worse in my experience than halogen reflectors for slushing (despite the lower wattage), likely because the output is concentrated into a smaller area of lens. 

My Truckites have heaters in them. 

I don't recall seeing any snow buildup on the Tesla on our winter road trip a couple of years back. I'll have to see if that's due to aero or due to heaters.

I don't revell in your predicament ,  but I have obtuse joy thinking about Bro JEEPs hauling 12 LED light bars and not being able to see E36 M3.

In reply to ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ :

Yes I have heard wax/rain X may help

In reply to rslifkin :

My previous HID (different truck) did fine. Melted an almost perfect circle.

In reply to Keith Tanner :

Yes the Truck Lites are heated. IDK why more OEM's aren't. Seems easy at the OE level.

In reply to Appleseed :

My BRO LED's were off as I was in traffic. The Diode Dynamics fogs saved the day. Yes stupid expensive, but well worth it at the moment....

Not all Trucklites are heated, but one of my sets are :) 

Big issue with LED's.  The municipalities have found that the extra labor to clear the led street lights nearly cancel out their energy savings.  Gonna try to rainx mine up as I have a detroit trip Wed and had forgotten this fun fact.

Weathers gonna be fine Dave!  No need to worry this trip.

Appleseed said:

I don't revell in your predicament ,  but I have obtuse joy thinking about Bro JEEPs hauling 12 LED light bars and not being able to see E36 M3.

Having driven in snowstorms, more light = worse visibility.

I've driven with only my parking lights on, because I could see further than the wall of glareback that the headlights produced.

(and this dear friends is why fog lights should properly only function with the headlights OFF.  If the headlights are on then the fog lights are useless)

Pete. (l33t FS) said:

(and this dear friends is why fog lights should properly only function with the headlights OFF.  If the headlights are on then the fog lights are useless)

Agree 100% except when the roads are twisty enough that regular headlights are not actually fully lighting the direction you are going in, and it is not foggy.

An aside, that I just remembered, the headlights on my Quantum were definitely incandescent, and they would get covered with slush very quickly.  Make me glad that my next car had headlight wipers.

The only thing I can figure is that the Quantum had backwards-angled headlight lenses, so there wasn't any kind of natural wind to blow them off.  Maybe.  I never experienced that in any other car.

I thought I'd seen this in the CAN messages for the Tesla...

VCFRONT_headlampRightTemperature
VCFRONT_headlampLeftTemperature

I can't find one for headlight heaters, though - I can for the mirrors, seats, windshield and the little special windshield for the radar.

In reply to Pete. (l33t FS) :

Yes more light doesn't always help in heavy snow. My light bar makes the Star Wars light speed effect real quick with the glare.

The selective yellow fogs however are great. Down low, low beam pattern, minimal glare. 

Keith Tanner said:

I thought I'd seen this in the CAN messages for the Tesla...

VCFRONT_headlampRightTemperature
VCFRONT_headlampLeftTemperature

I can't find one for headlight heaters, though - I can for the mirrors, seats, windshield and the little special windshield for the radar.

I wouldn't be surprised if the software is there for an option we didn't get on our pedestrian version.  I'd guess the X and S get them.  In the grand scheme I'm good with some compromises to keep the 3 available to humans like me.

How about mounting up a set of windshield washer sprayers? Or grabbing some designed for headlights? My Fiat 124 Spider has them because the fancy lights on it don't generate heat either. I run into the same issue as you in wet, clingy snow. But then I double tap the windshield washers and the headlights get a nice 1-1.5 second spray of fluid and clear up.

Bonus points for running Rain-x washer fluid. Before I discovered the method to activate the headlight washers:

And you can see the sprayer mounted on the bumper just in front of the headlight:

- Sean

84FSP said:

Keith Tanner said:

I thought I'd seen this in the CAN messages for the Tesla...

VCFRONT_headlampRightTemperature
VCFRONT_headlampLeftTemperature

I can't find one for headlight heaters, though - I can for the mirrors, seats, windshield and the little special windshield for the radar.

I wouldn't be surprised if the software is there for an option we didn't get on our pedestrian version.  I'd guess the X and S get them.  In the grand scheme I'm good with some compromises to keep the 3 available to humans like me.

I'm pretty sure my documentation is for all Teslas - most (all?) manufacturers have a common set of PIDs across their entire range. For example, this one includes "liftgate status".

Ah, I just found "headlight fan" so the concern is overheating, not cold weather in this case. But if you're trying to melt snow, maybe you don't turn the fan on :) After all, the car knows...

O_ 603 ID25BAPP_environment: 1 ChassisBus
 SG_ APP_environmentRainy : 0|1@1+ (1,0) [0|1] ""  Receiver
 SG_ APP_environmentSnowy : 1|1@1+ (1,0) [0|1] ""  Receiver

ShawneeCreek said:

How about mounting up a set of windshield washer sprayers? Or grabbing some designed for headlights? My Fiat 124 Spider has them because the fancy lights on it don't generate heat either. I run into the same issue as you in wet, clingy snow. But then I double tap the windshield washers and the headlights get a nice 1-1.5 second spray of fluid and clear up.

Bonus points for running Rain-x washer fluid. Before I discovered the method to activate the headlight washers:

And you can see the sprayer mounted on the bumper just in front of the headlight:

- Sean

Added washers may be a good solution. I literally never used them on my audi. But this is a different use case it seems 

In reply to Keith Tanner :

"Headlight fan" sounds like one of those things you'd ask the newbie at the parts counter to go in the back and find.  It's next to the upper radiator hose for the 68 Beetle, you know!

In reply to wae :

I cannot wait until an active sound muffler's internals seize (because they are moving parts in a hot corrosive environment) and sets a code, so I get to watch the service manager try to say with a straight face that the car failed emissions because of a bad muffler bearing.

My road has 15' high poles with reflectors. I find that high beams will light up the reflectors so I can drive home in the evening by "keeping it between the navigational beacons."

On my drive in to work this morning my sealed beams didn't have enough heat to stay clear. But it was light enough I was just using them to be seen, not to see.

Related to this: do yellow tint on fog lights help in the snow?  Was looking at Yellow LaminX for my Subaru fog lights. 

GTwannaB said:

Related to this: do yellow tint on fog lights help in the snow?  Was looking at Yellow LaminX for my Subaru fog lights. 

I've got yellow fogs on the Jeep.  They're good fog lights that throw pretty far (but with a good cutoff a little below low beam level), so much more potent than a lot of factory fogs.  I do find yellow glare to be a little easier on the eyes than white glare.  And in deeper fresh snow or on uneven packed snow, running them with the low beams gives light from 2 different heights in 2 different colors, making it a bit easier to pick out the contours of the snow in front of you. 

Keith Tanner said:

Not all Trucklites are heated, but one of my sets are :) 

Sounds like a nice set of lights. ;)

Glad they're being put to good use. They were great on my NA, but I've been dailying an NB for a couple years now, so that's why I had sold them. 

I put some LED bulbs in the NB I think last year, but now I can't recall if I had issues in the snow or not. I don't think I had much reason to drive in the snow last year with remote work though. 

GTwannaB said:

Related to this: do yellow tint on fog lights help in the snow?  Was looking at Yellow LaminX for my Subaru fog lights. 

Yes yellow is WAY better IMO. It makes the glare off snow was less irritating to my eyes. I ran laminX On my previous fogs. It will cut output some.

I Run a Diode Dynamics S3 Max fog. Aimed correctly its amazing, aimed incorrectly pisses everyone else off. Its right at the max brightness for a SAE rated road legal fog.

If you want to geek out on fog lights..... https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/the-led-sae-j583-fog-pod-fog-light-review.554813/