Daytime running light - HVAC fuse adventure

Hi all,

I thought I'd relate my tale of woe. My '18 PHEV Clarity has been performing great, and I love it. However, this story should be of interest to most.

Back in the winter I had my car parked back end in first in a space in a parking garage. When I returned to the car, I noticed the front right bumper was scratched up with some paint transfer. Someone had clearly bumped it on the way in or out of the adjacent space. My car is leased and I generally do not care about how my car looks, so I thought "meh" as there were no dents, or anything out of place - just some paint scratches.

Weeks later I did notice that the front right daytime running light [DRL] (the sort of long angular strip LED that goes around the side and bottom of the headlights) was out on that side, but I also thought "meh" as I didn't feel I needed that light, and didn't feel like filing a claim and dealing with repairs.

Fast forward to early June. The car has operated normally other than that light being out for months. One Saturday I turn it on and the dash displays a POWER SYSTEM light for the first time ever. "Well, that's not good," I think. The car will drive and most systems are normal, but the entire HVAC system is out, and unresponsive. I take the car into Sport Honda in Silver Spring MD and they are puzzled at first, but they connect the dots. The housing of the DRL got cracked, and water was able to intrude into the housing. Water got into the wiring and caused a short. The fuse that was shorted, turns out, is connected to the entire HVAC system. One cannot just replace the fuse - one needs to replace the entire DRL if it is broken. Every time the fuse was replaced, the system would short out again, because of the ruined wiring in the DRL. Luckily my insurance covered most of this, but I still had to pay a deductible. The DRL replacement alone was about $400.

Lessons learned:
1) Always file a claim and get things checked out
2) The HVAC fuses are connected to the front DRLs!!!! Don't crash into anything (or be crashed into) and think your HVAC will work!