Automatic Lights

[Winstanley]

This morning I set off in fog. The lights came on automatically. A few miles down the road, the fog thickness and light hadn't changed I noticed that at some point the lights had automatically switched off even though it was poor light and visibility.

I have previously played around with the settings to make them come on more frequently trying the various options. Bright, brighter, dark, darker.

I changed it this morning to try both brighter and darker whilst in the fog but for both settings the lights didn't automatically come on and I had to manually switch them on.

I am assuming setting them to "brighter" makes them more sensitive?

The manual doesn't make it clear it just states the settings that can be made.

Pardon the pun but can anyone shed any light on this? 😁

[kam]

On purchasing a vehicle years back, can't remember which Make. Was advised not to really on the Automatic Light setting in Fog.

[stepppy]

I find I always need to manually turn on auto headlights in fog in all the cars I have owned. Although there may be poor visibility, the sky can still be quite bright and therefore not turn on the headlights. 

In fog it’s just not worth taking a chance and I always turn them on myself, the same with rain too. Safely is so important and sometimes a human knows best.

 

[Winstanley]

4 minutes ago, stepppy said:

I find I always need to manually turn on auto headlights in fog in all the cars I have owned. Although there may be poor visibility, the sky can still be quite bright and therefore not turn on the headlights. 

In fog it’s just not worth taking a chance and I always turn them on myself, the same with rain too. Safely is so important and sometimes a human knows best.

 

Thanks for your reply. I'm more comfortable with manual override because this is the first car I've had with this feature and I'm not used to it. As they automatically came on this morning I just assumed in fog they would stay on. You live and learn!

[Briar]

The automatic lights react to light levels, not visibility.  So in fog you will have to switch on the lights manually.

A separate question - do the headlights come on after the wipers operate a few times as the did in my BMW?

[NemesisUK]

1 hour ago, Briar said:

A separate question - do the headlights come on after the wipers operate a few times as the did in my BMW?

Not on my RC or the RX, miss that obvious function, had it on my Mercs but in EU dipped headlamps are mandatory in rain maybe not so in Japan? 

[Winstanley]

2 hours ago, Briar said:

The automatic lights react to light levels, not visibility.  So in fog you will have to switch on the lights manually.

A separate question - do the headlights come on after the wipers operate a few times as the did in my BMW?

I don't believe so, I certainly haven't noticed that and haven't seen anything in the user manual about it.

[rayaans]

2 hours ago, Briar said:

The automatic lights react to light levels, not visibility.  So in fog you will have to switch on the lights manually.

A separate question - do the headlights come on after the wipers operate a few times as the did in my BMW?

The RX seems to do it in conjunction with the wipers being on so I cant see why the LBX wouldnt

[Winstanley]

4 minutes ago, rayaans said:

The RX seems to do it in conjunction with the wipers being on so I cant see why the LBX wouldnt

I'll look out for that, I wasn't aware of it but there's so much functionality on this car compared to my previous car, a 16 year old Rav4.

[NemesisUK]

19 minutes ago, rayaans said:

The RX seems to do it in conjunction with the wipers being on so I cant see why the LBX wouldnt

So the current RX does switch on the lights with the wipers? That's a definite improvement on the previous version..👍 

From the RX500 handbook. Nothing similar in the LBX  though..

 

[Shufman]

The lights come on when the ambient light is low, as a driver you need to turn them on manually in fog etc or low visibility that doesn’t involve it going dark… e.g heavy rain or daytime fog.