I noticed the DRL was not on when I scrapped frost from the windshield after starting the car this morning. It was 17 deg F with no windchill. After driving 20 minutes, by the time I parked the car, it was working again. Is this normal? (Sorry I hit the submit button twice and I could not delete the other duplicate post)

 

Honda, in their infinite wisdom, doesn't turn on the daytime running lights until you release the hand brake. I noticed this and thought I was seeing things, but it's in the manual. I suspect your brake was set when you were scraping and then you released it to drive, turning on the lights.

Conversely, when you set the brake, the lights do not turn off until you turn off the ignition. Strange huh?

 

My 2003 Subaru had the same arrangement, except not as sophisticated; DRLs always turn on/off with the hand brake. I'm guessing that on the Subaru, the switch was mechanical, while on the Fit it's controlled by software.

I noticed last week that cruise control works both uphill and downhill on the Fit (it downshifted on a steep grade); again, I suspect because of computer, rather than direct, control of the throttle. Pretty soon the cars will be smarter than we are...

 

That way in the case of a parking brake circuit failure the DRLs won't turn off, assuming the parking brake circuit fails ON (keeps you from driving away with the parking brake on, assuming you pay attention to the red light in the dash). Probably...

 

I call this the "drive-in movie" feature. This allows you to start the car in order to run the heater, without having the lights come on and annoy the other theater patrons, who would then honk and throw popcorn at you.

Mighty clever, them Honda fellers.