If the Saab worked the same way, I think it had the same bug.
If you disable the automatic lights (by pulling right on the little switch) then you switch left manually to select sidelights or headlights, then these lights will stay on even after you lock the car and walk away - in fact they will stay on forever until you next enter the car and sit down, when it will re-enable automatic mode, or you re-enable automatic lights by pulling right again.
I have been caught out by this by manually operating my lights (before I had the light sensor fix) and forgetting to turn them off and having the neighbours call me to tell me I left my lights on.
What I am saying is the correct behaviour should be:
- Headlights setting: rear lights and front headlights.
- Sidelights setting: rear lights and front DRLs
- Off setting: no lights.
Whereas at the moment it works like this:
- Headlights setting: rear lights and front headlights.
- Sidelights setting: rear lights and front DRLs
- Off setting: front DRLs only.
This behaviour makes little sense - as you have remarked on.
Hopefully this makes it clearer.
That could be an even better solution for parking lights.
Thanks, you're making it a lot clearer. I should probably go out in the dark and figure this out in practice.
To be honest it was only on Sunday evening, when I was talking to the guy setting up his tent in front of where I'd parked Caliban (hoping that the lights wouldn't be shining into anyone's space, but good intentions and all that...) that I began to think, this is not an intentional feature, it's another bug. He was baffled that any car would be deliberately set up to behave like that, and was offering suggestions as to how to switch the lights off. It was only when I said we'd had a fairly long thread on the forum discussing this, and the blackout blinds were so far the only workable solution that he gave over. (He said that if the lights bothered them he'd reverse his car to be between their tent and Caliban, but fortunately there was little wind and the curtains stayed put.)
I'm certain that this is the best way to address this. To complain that this is a bug and that the lights don't work as they should - leading to the inability to switch off the DRLs when sitting in the car, regardless of where you're parked.
I've been out for a spin on a very dark road, and only looked at what lights were showing in front. My conclusion was:
- Auto-lights setting, headlights on, dashboard lit up
- Auto-lights off, only the DRLs showing, dashboard has gone dark
- Sidelights setting, only the DRLs showing, dashboard lit up
- Lights-on setting, headlights on, dashboard lit up.
It's interesting that the dashboard lights go off when the auto-lights are switched off, even though the DRLs stay on. To me that indicates that the car is
supposed to go dark, and that the DRLs staying on is a feature of an entomological nature.
Other than the dashboard lights there is no difference as regards the front lights between the sidelights setting and the off setting. I appreciate that the rear lights will be on when the sidelights setting is selected, though.
That's the bug, then. There is a perfectly cromulent sidelights setting that leaves both front DRLs and rear lights lit. No problem with that. It's presumably what we should be doing if we park somewhere that new ruling says we should leave lights on. (I'm not quite clear whether the ruling is mandating both front and rear lights or just front ones, but both would seem logical.) I also noted that if I left the lights at the "on" position (furthest left) then when I got out and locked the car, the headlights dimmed leaving only the DRLs showing, just as if I'd left it on the sidelights setting.
There is absolutely no reason at all to make it impossible to switch off the DRLs without powering the entire car down. The parking lights function is adequately covered by the sidelights setting, and quite properly leaves both front and rear lights showing.
I'm certain this is the approach we need to take. Complain that the lights are not functioning correctly in that the DRLs are staying on when they should be going off along with the rear lights when auto-lighting is switched off. Report it as a software bug, enumerate the problems it causes (sitting in the car in a residential street, aurora-watching, drive-in cinemas, camping etc.), and request a fix.
(I tried the thing with the indicators just to see, but it doesn't work. When I locked the door the indicators went off but the lights stayed on both sides. Even though it would indeed be a better solution, the MG4 doesn't work like that.)
It would also be handy when heating / cooling the car remotely. Mine was parked facing some houses, it was around 1 am and I thought great will heat the car. When I got to it it was like a lighthouse shining in all the windows
This is a point that seems to have got a bit lost. Is it part of the same bug? I suspect it might be but I'm not sure. I've actually found the fact that the lights come on when I pre-heat the car to be quite useful, as it means they're on when I go out to the car. I often pre-heat before leaving choir practice on frosty evenings, and it's nice to have the car lit. But on the other hand if I was that bothered about it being lit, I could use the key fob to do the job, I think. I can well imagine that there might be circumstances where you don't want the car to be blazing with light when it's pre-heating. Someone in another thread mentioned his reluctance to pre-heat the car early in the morning because the lights were shining on a neighbour's window.
Any thoughts? I think this should be included in the bug report/complaint.
If the fix involves the lights off toggle becoming inoperative while moving I think quite a few people would take an interest as a number have plunged themselves in to darkness when going to dip the lights while driving.
Sorry, this just connected with my brain. You're perfectly right. The lights-off toggle shouldn't be able to be operated while the car is moving. It's frightened the life out of me on two or three occasions, and my only comfort was that I presumed the DRLs were still on even though I wasn't aware of them. It seems to be part and parcel of the whole mess. I wonder if it's possible to disable that when the car is in motion? It bloody well ought to be
