How to addautomatic headlights 2003-2004 Range Rover
 

Adding automatic headlights to 2003-2004 Range Rover

The entire install is quite simple. It should take 30 minutes to 1 hour. All you need is a DEI 545T automatic headlight kit. I bought mine for $35 after shipping through a vendor found at shopping.google.com, searching for “DEI 545T”. Only 1 panel needs to be opened on the vehicle. Connections involve cutting 1 wire and splicing 3 wires on the vehicle.

Preparing the DEI 545T kit:

Parking light relay: The kit has two relays, one for headlights and one for parking lights. You will only use one relay, the one for headlights. The parking light relay is not used because the RR’s lighting control module (LCM) already handles flashing parking lights for the security system. The headlight relay you will use is the one with the large purple wire and large green wire coming out of pins 87 and 30. It doesn’t hurt to leave the other relay intact, but I cut the wires and removed it.

Headlight relay: You will need to move the wire from pin 87 to pin 87a. 87a is the pin at center of the relay. I would describe how to do this in detail, but it would be too long and requires pictures. You basically take the connector out of position 87 and re-insert it into position 87a. This is done because… most vehicles have a light switch that connects something (closes a circuit) to turn lights on. The RR has a switch that DISconnects something to turn on the lights. You can test this by removing your light switch. When the switch is removed, the lights come on. So, the relay needs to be in the “normally closed” mode for the RR instead of “normally open”

You just completed the hardest part of this install. The rest is easy…

Open right side kick panel (U.S. passenger side). This exposes a black box with dozens of wires coming out of it. That is the lighting control module (LCM). There are 3 connectors that go into that module. The top connector is hidden from view. You will be able to see the middle connector (black with a white latch) and bottom connector (white). (For reference, the middle connector is #C2040 and the bottom is #C2039 in the shop manual.)

Light Switch wire: Cut the yellow wire from the middle connector of the LCM. You will notice when you cut this wire, the parking lights will turn on. If you turn your key to the run (ignition) position, the headlights will be on as well. This is the wire the DEI relay will be connecting and disconnecting to control the headlights and parking lights. Connect the large purple wire from the DEI relay to one end of that cut yellow wire and the large green wire to the other end of the yellow wire. It doesn’t matter which relay wire goes to which end of the yellow wire. Also, you don’t need the fuse included with the relay. The yellow wire is already fused within the vehicle’s circuit.

Ground: Splice the black wire from the DEI unit to the brown wire from the bottom LCM connector.

+12V constant: Splice the red wire from the DEI unit to the large red wire from the bottom LCM connector.

+12V switched (ignition): Splice the yellow wire from the DEI unit to the green / gray wire from the middle LCM connector.

The remaining wires from the DEI unit will not be used. Wrap them up with electrical tape.

Adhere the photo sensor to an area of the dash that will be exposed to direct sunlight and connect the connector to the DEI unit. Plug all the remaining connectors into the DEI unit, including the toggle switch. Flip the switch to the OFF position (the switch should be in the OFF position to enable automatic headlights, go figure).

Remove the little cover on the DEI unit. You will see an adjustment that controls how long the lights remain on after sunlight is detected. This is supposed to be able to range from 1 sec to 100 sec., adjust if desired. You will also see a red wire. (You may have to look inside the unit a bit to see the red wire.) Cut that red wire. DEI’s unit comes with “driving light” mode enabled by default. Driving lights mean any time the ignition is on, the lights come on. If you only want the lights to come on when it is dark outside, you need to cut that red wire.

Tuck everything in nicely. Close up the kick panel and you’re done.

and the trip to the dealer costs less and all you need to do is program the bcu.

yeah, hopefully the stuff won't burn out your electronics.

Good tutorial man. I'd be scared sh*tless to touch the on board computer of an L322 range rover though. If it were me, I'd just do it manually (I prefer it that way anyways ;)). Nice post though.

Rovin4Life, do you mean the the LCM? BCM and LCM are different modules. Regardless, you can't program 03-04 for automatic headlights. It wasn't a capability built into those years.

The stuff won't "burn out your electronics". The DEI unit draws 50mA (.05 Amps). The circuit you're using to run this unit is made to run up to 50 Amps. 50 Amps will run 1,000 of these units. The signal wire you're controlling isn't being fed any amount of voltage. It's only being switched off and on.

I did it because we're not used to having manual headlights. The Rover's my wife's. She and I have both left the lights on over night several times. I don't want her to be stranded one day because of this. I can't remember the last time we had a vehicle that didn't have automatic lights. Even my GMC truck has it. I just don't get what they were thinking when they left this out, omitted fully automatic climate control and threw in a cassette tape player.

06 range rovers have follow me home lights with its own setting. The older ones were BMW set up.

you mean Canadian daytime running lights that are standard on Canadian models? Because we can program them into rovers quite easily.

These instructions are for 2003-2004 read the title.

Why the heck would anyone do this install just to get daytime running lights? OMG, do you read before making these comments?

Headlight Problem
 

I followed your directions, and found them to be very accurate and thorough. Two questions for you. 1. Do you leave the headlights in the off or on position once this is installed. 2. My running lights stay on after I turn the car off. Did you have this problems or have an idea for a solution?

Running lights...
 

I leave the switch on the ON position.

By "running lights" do you mean what we in the U.S. refer to as "parking lights"? That is, front amber lights, rear dim taillights?

Did you switch the wires on the relay provided with the DEI unit as described in the first part of the instructions? If you don't, it will cause the headlights and parking lights to turn on when they're not supposed to. When you turn the key to the off position, it will cause the parking lights to remain on.

Install Update
 

Thanks for the quick response. Your directions were perfect. Turns out there are two green/grey wires in the middle loom of the LCM. Once I figured out I had the wrong one (one has more green than the other..again your directions were correct) it works perfectly. I have no idea how you figured all of that out, but I certainly apprectiate you taking the time to post it. You probably saved me at least one battery. I am loving the automatic lights now.