Auto Beam Randomly Flashing High

[Chris H]

I have a 2024 (73) MG ZS EV Trophy connect SR. I bought it in August and it's been back to the dealer twice so far for faults (only 1 out of 4 were fixed), about to go in again to fit a part ordered for steering knock issue.
At the weekend I did a 145 mile journey in the evening (just made it, with 12 miles to spare) but on the motorway I noticed my high beam randomly flashing, only for about half a second about once every 1 to 10 minutes (not regular intervals). Yesterday I was driving in the dark and again my lights randomly flashed, so much so that the car in front stopped, the driver got out and started waving his arms about at me. Then I started getting beeps and messages saying "Front Camera Blocked". Aha, I thought, that must be it, the system must use the front camera to detect other vehicles, so I got out and wiped the front camera, which seemed clean anyway. Still my high beam was flashing and the camera blocked messages kept appearing. So that's 2 more things to add to my list when it goes back to the dealer.
Has anyone else had this?

As a side note, I'm looking in the manual so see how to operate/turn off the auto high beam. It's gobbledegook and clearly the MG documentation QA person was on holiday that week.

 

[Gadget Geek]

I turned off the auto high beam, it was a nightmare in mine. The front camera is in the unit under the rear view mirror and does suffer from condensation which is what blocks the camera's view.

 

[balshawr]

My MG ZS Trophy SR full beam kept coming when there was a car in front of me. It came on due to bad light but I had hoped that the car in front would be detected and not put full beam on. I was forced to turn it off as I didn't want to dazzle anyone

 

[Willie]

I also switched off the auto beam because it kept dipping when passing highly reflective road signs, this was not good on dark country roads where you need all light available.

 

[Ferretusmaximus]

Auto High Beam is positively dangerous in my MG4. Surprisingly, blinding oncoming drivers on corners is not usually appreciated. Have it turned off permanently, another non-feature (and due to the position of the Auto Lights button in the 4 it's possibly to turn off your lights completely when manually engaging high beam).

 

[APMG]

I had turned it off last night too. Pulled off a motorway up a slip road of which a car was just joining the round about probably 200m away from the start of the motorway slip road.

At this point the car decides to high beam probably blinding the car joining the roundabout but I think luckily they were far enough and turning to not get dazed. As I approached the round about the lights full beam again and I'm not sure what idiot would be full beam joining a reasonably lit roundabout as other cars go around it!

Did have to faff as not yet used to the lights so managed to turn them all off for a few sections then back to high beam and then manual all the way to the left!

I'll be just using like my old car for now

 

[MG steve]

Mine did the flashing for a split second on the motorway too so turned the feature off. It was also dangerous as it would blind people randomly on country roads, not good!

 

[balshawr]

My last car was an Audi A4 and it was 13 years old but the auto high beam worked seamlessly to the day I traded it in for the MG ZS EV

 

[MG steve]

My last car was an Audi A4 and it was 13 years old but the auto high beam worked seamlessly to the day I traded it in for the MG ZS EV

I had a BMW before that worked flawlessly too

 

[Chris H]

My last car was an Audi A4 and it was 13 years old but the auto high beam worked seamlessly to the day I traded it in for the MG ZS EV

Same here for my 2015 Mercedes E220 Conv. I've never seen headlights like it before or since; the high beam 'shapes' around the car in front so it blanks out just the part of the beam where the car is. It's amazing and worked flawlessly every time, I never got flashed.

 

[DBedford]

I've experienced the random flashing of the high beam over the last few weeks, I guess it's down to the camera not seeing the oncoming car headlights or tail lights of the car in front. But such a rare occurrence, I'm not loosing sleep over it...for now!!!.

 

[APMG]

There is a "fix" for this;

Lighting > Automatic High Beam > off

 

[Chris H]

Isn't this an odd way round to do it? In most cars with an automatic headlight mode, when you have dipped headlights they stay dipped and when you put the lights on high beam they get dipped automatically. This is the first car I've seen which automatically uses high beam when you have it set to dipped.
Anyway @APMG thanks for the tip. I think I'll switch mine off since it's getting to the shitty weather season so the camera is likely to become obscured more often from the muck being thrown up from the road.

 

[scoobeesnac]

Anecdotally, before any software updates the 'flashing' never occurred and worked just as well as our BMW. It's now very fast to turn full-beam on and off again, causing the flash. I'm pretty sure they need a longer delay before enabling full-beam.

 

[APMG]

Coincidentally I was behind a newish Porsche on county roads this weekend and their lights kept flashing up and down like a yo-yo.

Cars ahead of it would turn a bend and immediately it would full beam, this also was doing it sometimes prior to them fully turning blinding whoever was in front. The same when on coming traffic may or may not get a flash bang.

It seems isn't just MG who has lack luster auto light performance. If I was in my old car I would have just thought the driver was an idiot and kept turning it on and off for the slightest bend prior regaining vision of the car ahead two seconds later.

Some technology I guess is better suited to holding up the full beam stork and letting it go when you see lights. I've never been a fan of locking it into place as that short delay trying to turn it off can mean an eye full of high beam for anyone Infront!

 

[DB Go Rex]

Hyundai gets this right. It's a useable feature on the Ioniq 38kWh.

On this car it's an absolute necessity to turn it off.

I just don't get how this passed any QA testing, it shouldn't have been on the car at all.

 

[DBedford]

Auto beam works 99% of the time for us. Remember, you get what you pay for.

 

[DB Go Rex]

Auto beam works 99% of the time for us. Remember, you get what you pay for.

Depends what your definition of 'work' is...

Yes it dips the beam in most of the instances.

But...

- Often the response time is too slow, which means you are blinding people anyway.

- poor dip response in built up areas. The Ioniq was rock solid in this respect.

- False dips are frequent - where it dips and instantly realises the activation light level isn't enough, so puts high back on, a car comes into clearer view and then dips again.

The later is the worst, it's basic looks like you are constantly flashing lights all the time.

Get what you pay for? My Ioniq lease was less than my ZS...