Well after leaving my lights on today and draining my battery I was wondering if there is a way to wire the the lights into the ignition so that they come on and off when the car is started and shutoff? It was like this in my old car and I really miss this feature. I am not used to turning the lights off. Any ideas?

 

I think the simplest way would be to find the power wire to the headlights and wire it in with something powered on with the ignition (ie power windows, blower or radio) the only problem is you might burn up a fuse with the lights on. I haven't checked this on my Maxima but in a lot of Toyota's the cigarette lighter is tired in with the ignition that would be a perfect power source to use.

I have seen write ups for other cars on how to convert your lights to automatic ones I searched Google and didn't have any luck.

 

good idea. i never thought of hardwiring my lights, but i might try it out
seems pretty simple

 

actually, the best way might be to use the 1st ignition wire coming from the back of the ignition lock. This would insure that you dont blow any fuses because i belive it is on a 60 amp fuse already. That might be safer. www.bulldogsecurity.com has the wire colors for the ignition if you need. I beleive it is the black/white-stripe wire coming from the rear of the lock.

 

I never understood how people leave the lights on. The gauges are lit up & the car beeps....hard to ignore. Anyway, all you really need to do is cut the power wire from the stalk and splice it to an acc wire. Anything is fine, since it just gives 12v source. If you google search it I know there was a longer thread about this a while back. I'm sure you'll find something worth while. Good luck

 

i read on here a while back that the beeping is only in the newer 4th gens

 

you could wire up a louder beeper if all else fails. shouldn't be too hard.

i agree with you that the beep that goes off is extremely easy to ignore. it's like a "put to sleep" beep

 

I have indigo gauges and they are hard to see lit up during the day. I was also in a rush so I guess I didn't notice the beeping. I am not used to turning the lights on and off because on my old car is was automatic and I just got the Max.

 

Well I stand corrected by you guys. I forgot about the beeping only being in the upper models and indiglo gauges I can def. understand. But yeah on the topic, just connect that wire to another power source. Simple as that. I believe its the yellow wire that comes from the stalk. Could be wrong tho.

 

Instead of powering the lights with another source, just use a relay on the original wiring. Pins 85 and 86 are the ground and 12+ ignition source, and pins 30 and 87 go inbetween the original headlight wiring.

 

why? It's more work to do that. You need to buy a relay, cut wires, and solder them to the relay. What a waste of time. All you need to do is cut and splice. Job done.

 

Cause then you don't have to worry about blowing fuses or multiple circuits.

 

Well that depends where he wires it too. He can just put a bigger fuse and that's fine. Wiring lights to a power wire probably wont blow a fuse anyway.

 

Not that a car is any where as flammable as a house but I have seen people fry wires by putting bigger fuses in. The load of a 15 amp fuse at 12 volts is only about 180-220 watts headlights alone can almost be that much so a dedicated fuse would be a good idea

 

find an open fuse that goes on with ignition or accessory