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vanko25

Follow me home lights

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On 23/10/2017 at 6:28 AM, vanko25 said:

Is it only me that found out that we got the option on our cars? :D

It works like on the Avensis and Auris. When turn off engine just flash the lights when on Auto or 0 and they will stay on for 30 secs. 

News to me! Will have to try it next time haha

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On ‎23‎/‎10‎/‎2017 at 6:28 AM, vanko25 said:

Is it only me that found out that we got the option on our cars? :D

It works like on the Avensis and Auris. When turn off engine just flash the lights when on Auto or 0 and they will stay on for 30 secs. 

Well I never knew that, nice feature. Thanks for sharing

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On 23/10/2017 at 7:23 AM, Lauren said:

Yes, I knew about it, but because I always reverse in when I park, they are of no use and I can see anyway. 

But that's exactly the use case that they are designed for!

You reverse in to a parking space, in the dark, and after you switch your engine off you can have your have your headlights illuminating your path as you walk away from the car. Hence the term "follow me home" lights - i.e. giving you some illumination as you walk from your driveway to your front door.

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40 minutes ago, Philip said:

But that's exactly the use case that they are designed for!

You reverse in to a parking space, in the dark, and after you switch your engine off you can have your have your headlights illuminating your path as you walk away from the car. Hence the term "follow me home" lights - i.e. giving you some illumination as you walk from your driveway to your front door.

I'm confused. I always reverse onto my driveway. So when I walk from my car to my front door, my lights will be shining in totally the wrong direction, just blinding people across the road! 

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15 hours ago, Lauren said:

I'm confused. I always reverse onto my driveway. So when I walk from my car to my front door, my lights will be shining in totally the wrong direction, just blinding people across the road! 

You're being pedantic now :-)

Imagine if it was pitch dark (e.g. during a power outage) - you'd still get enough light spillage to help you on your way to your front door. Or you might park somewhere else (unless all your journeys start and end on your drive, and you never park anywhere else?!) where it could be useful.

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I think Lauren was replying to your comment that her reversing on to her drive was exactly what the feature was for, when, as she explained, it's not, it's for when people drive forwards on to their drive.

If you're not at home, chances are the car park or street has lighting, and if there is a power cut, then you've got 30 seconds to get where you're going before being plunged into darkness anyway :P 

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2 hours ago, Philip said:

You're being pedantic now :-)

Imagine if it was pitch dark (e.g. during a power outage) - you'd still get enough light spillage to help you on your way to your front door. Or you might park somewhere else (unless all your journeys start and end on your drive, and you never park anywhere else?!) where it could be useful.

I'm being pedantic? :P

Wherever I am, I always reverse park, so that's why in the five years of having the car it's never been of use to me. Power cuts? Rarer than snow round here!

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I have similar habits to Lauren, preferring to spend a bit more time/efforts when parking, to have it easier/quicker/safer (better manoeuvrability/visibility)  to take off later on. 9/10 cases i reverse park. But to each his own, there seem to be more of such drivers that park other way, at least according what i observed in big shop parking lots, so hence maybe toyota's choice regarding that feature. Imho to make everyone happy it would be nice to make this feature adjustable .. eg. using techstream or alike tools, so that it can work for almost everybody. For example for ones with parking habbits like me have reverse lights on for "follow me home" .. or not, especially if it can rise car price .. i simply don't care much about this feature being there or not.

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Church, I call these other drivers that park front end in, simply amateurs. :P

Like you, this is feature I never use. If I have to clamber in the pitch black, I simply use the light on my phone. 

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What's reversing in got to do with anything? 

What if where you want to go is in front of the car? Like a badly lit car park...

Either way useful tip I didn't know this will try next time :)

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19 hours ago, Church said:

I have similar habits to Lauren, preferring to spend a bit more time/efforts when parking, to have it easier/quicker/safer (better manoeuvrability/visibility)  to take off later on. 9/10 cases i reverse park. But to each his own, there seem to be more of such drivers that park other way at least according what i observed in big shop parking lots,

When I park in a shopping centre, I normally chose to drive in - that makes the boot accessible when I return with my purchases. But if I'm not planning to buy anything, then I'll usually reverse in. At home, I drive in to my garages, because the layout makes more sense that way. At work, I normally reverse in to a parking space, but (depending on the particular space) it sometimes makes more sense to drive in. When parking on the road, I parallel park. Each situation needs to be assessed on its own merits.

The reason that I originally mentioned "reversing in" being the main use case for follow-me-home lighting, is that (as a general rule), when you drive in to a space there's likely to be a wall/whatever in front of you, so the illumination won't be of too much use, as opposed to reversing in, when there will be an open area in front of the car and there will be occasions when it will be safer or more convenient to have that area illuminated by the headlights for a period after getting out of the car.

As for stumbling around in the dark using the tiny LED on a phone rather than using the functionality that Toyota's engineers designed in to the car, well that's just bizarre :-)

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Philip: if i'm alone and shop for just one-two bags worth of groceries, those go in front of passenger seat anyways :). Also when parking in garage-alike places imho it's easier to gauge side space in sideview mirrors, with car side line in them as kind of ruler .. again, when parking in reverse. And there is always bit that due one sitting in front of car it's easier/safer to start driving off if reverse-parking due need to drive out car of row way less, to be able to see side traffic behind other cars, or less turns needed to drive off. One usually can do one maneuver quicker, other - slower. I prefer longer park-in, quick-easy drive-off. Others parking front first - quick park, slow drive-off. Matter of preference i guess.
AND - if parking in reverse, rear camera that i installed, helps a LOT to trim those last few cm till wall/other car. One of best usability mods for this car due it's very bad rearwards visibility with high boot line / hard to gauge distance through rear window.

P.S.

There is another bonus for reverse parking, especially in parking lot where most park front first. - if it happens that due some bad parkers that find it difficult to park in middle between lines, and due them cut space from both spot sides thus only very very tight spot that classic "front-parkers" find too narrow to use, you can still reverse (or front, if others are reverse parked, main idea being - opposite direction) park-in .. but getting your space to open doors via parking passenger side very close to passenger side of car next to yours. Even if one wants to get in passengers in such, it can drive out a bit from row, but otherwise no problems of getting in from driver-sides of such closely parked in opposite pairs cars.

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I also normally reverse into parking spaces but since learning of this feature have found it really useful. Where I live there is no street lighting and little light pollution so I simply drive into my drive and flick the lights stalk giving me time to walk to the front door. 

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On 25/11/2017 at 3:55 PM, Lauren said:

Church, I call these other drivers that park front end in, simply amateurs. :P

Like you, this is feature I never use. If I have to clamber in the pitch black, I simply use the light on my phone. 

I just make sure I select my door key on the keyring before I get out of the car. And I blip the remote for the burglar alrm at the same time too.

I also always reverse park  - I hate numpties who forward park and then reverse into the road.

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Regarding locking/alarm i missed a lot audible beep of alarm when locking i got in almost every other car. Easy to miss if really had locked in middle of city during noisy day from locks locking sound only and flashing of turn lights due bright daylight. One of main reasons of mirror-autofold module for me was to gain easy to see visual clue if i had locked car. :)

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