In snowy conditions led headlights quickly become snow covered causing near complete loss of visibility. vehicle must be stopped and headlights manually cleared before proceeding. the snow on the headlights causes a white-out type condition where even the immediate side of the road is not visible. fortunately we were driving on a low traffic road at the time. highway situations would be deadly. this vehicle is not safe to drive in dark, snowy conditions, which occur frequently in maine. this issue was reported to chrysler-jeep in january and they have not provided any resolution.
Yesterday, i drove a rented 2018 jeep wrangler unlimited to the salt lake city, utah airport during a moderate snowfall prior to sunrise. while on that approximately 40 mile trip, i had my headlights "on" to illuminate the roadway as it was still dark and there was minimal roadway lighting. while driving i found it increasing difficult to see the road surface and especially see the lines on the road. i had my family in the car and the situation became quite dangerous with a suddenness that i was unprepared for. once i was able to stop safely i discovered that the jeep headlights were fully covered by snow and not allowing light to pass through to the road surface. i wiped the snow away and got back on the road--within 10 minutes or so the headlights were again covered by snow which accumulated on the surface on the lens. this created another dangerous situation. apparently the led lights are not warm enough to melt the accumulating snow and the surrounding bezel area retains snow as well. while i am not an automotive engineer, i think there's a design flaw with the combination of the geometry of the jeep headlights and cooler led lighting. importantly, this accumulation happened a second time after the car was fully warmed up. i have driven many cars over the years in poor conditions and never experienced this phenomenon before. i personally feel that this created a lot of risk and danger for me and my family while driving the jeep wrangler. i feel very fortunate that we did not have an accident and experience a more serious outcome. i enclose a picture of the headlights which was taken after they had been cleared once already and then re-accumulated snow thereafter.
Driving in a wyoming snow storm, our led head & driving lights completely iced over -- after cleaning them a bit, they iced again. saying this was a problem is a understatement! we have owned a jk 2014 & 2017 with regular lights & never had a problem. not sure what we're going to do --
The combination of the shape of the headlight cup, combined with the led headlight option, causes snow to accumulate and completely block out any light produced from the headlights on the road. this will occur, whenever there is significant snow, and the vehicle is in motion or resting.
Windshield wipers and headlights stuck on despite controls set to off position. no turn signals or high beams either. had to pull the windshield wiper fuse to be able to drive vehicle home. tried to disconnect the battery and step on the brake, then leave it disconnected for 20 minutes, but this did not resolve the issue. vehicle is new, only a couple of weeks of ownership. completely stock, no modifications. *tt *tr