Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
This was something that always perplexed me. How and more importantly, WHY did some people modify their flashers (a.k.a. turn signals) to blink really, really fast?
Most cars, when you activate the left or right turn signals, they blink at the rate of one "on/off" cycle about every second.
The ones I'm talking about would have a flash rate of about three or four times a second. Almost bordering on a strobe light.
Why?
This seemed to be most common in the early and mid 90's on so-called "riced" imports: mainly Honda's of the period, but I've seen that mod on other models too such as Toyotas, Mazdas, and Nissans.
It's nowhere near as prevalent today as it was back then, but I still see it from time to time on a few of those cars that have survived to the present (almost all of them are by now really badly beaten up and worn down). And once in a blue moon, I'll see a contemporary car where this mindset carried over. But like I said...it's really rare.
I never saw that done on purpose but do know that IF one of the bulbs is out either front or back the flasher always goes faster until you replace the burnt out light bulb.
I never saw that done on purpose but do know that IF one of the bulbs is out either front or back the flasher always goes faster until you replace the burnt out light bulb.
This is what causes it, had this problem on one of our cars this week.
They may be using LED replacement bulbs without a loading resistor (simulates the replacement bulb - makes the load the same resistance as a real bulb - wired in parallel with the LED bulb - checked with a multimeter set to ohms).
People do mod it purposely as well. Why? No idea. Same reason you have low riders, donks, lifted pickups with all-terrain tires that never do anything but mall finding. At least fast blinkers don't adversely affect the vehicle is used like lifting a pickup and putting on all-terrain tires to run back and forth from suburban shopping centers does.
I never saw that done on purpose but do know that IF one of the bulbs is out either front or back the flasher always goes faster until you replace the burnt out light bulb.
Very true. A lot of people aren't aware of that.
As Billy_J said above, something else that does the same is when the exterior incandescent or halogen lights are changed with LED lighting. In this case if the flashers aren't replaced with LED-ready ones, the lights blink two or three times as fast.
The Euro-style LED lights sold all over the US are quite popular these days, but a lot of people aren't aware that they also have to replace the flashers with ones for LED lighting.
It's a feature, not a modification. It's designed to fast-flash to let the driver know that a bulb has burned out. (This is supposed to be an improvement over the old way, where it doesn't blink at all if a bulb fails.)
LED bulbs can also cause fast flashing for reasons detailed above. I guess some kids think it looks cool, but it just makes me think they need to check their bulbs.
In the late 80's and early 90's if you had a tow package you used a flasher that was ment to tow a trailer or a camper. The flasher would work normal when hooked up to the trailer. But unhooked the car or truck flashers would flash real fast. Now a days it's stupid but some people like being stupid.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
