Automatic Headlights Too Sensitive ?

[DunkPoole]

What's your experience with the auto setting ?

The last couple of mornings when leaving home just after 7am, the auto setting turns the lights on (I don't mean the DRL LED lights) and they stay on all the way on the 20 min drive to work. It gets light after about 4.30 to 5 am at this time of year and at 7am where I am at this time of year it's been brilliant sunshine the last couple of days. The only thing is the sun is at a lower angle in the sky at 7am. Does this make a difference or is the vehicle that intelligent it knows the time of day and leaves the lights on as a precaution ? I know I can turn the auto mode off but its just annoying all the lights are on when you are driving directly into the direction of the sun. The sensor on top of windscreen is clear of any dirt or obstruction. I have active city stop and, auto wipers so I have a full set of sensors. Shining a torch into the sensor will turn them off. If went back to the car at 5pm drove out of the multi storey and within 5 seconds they turned off, and in my opinion it was darker then as it was cloudy!. Its just weird the way they function . I wonder if there is a sensitivity setting the dealer can adjust.

My previous 2011 Titanium auto headlights werent as fussy and only came on when it was darker.

[D13 HPD 95]

IMHO, it shouldn't need to use lights in the morning regardless of what time the clock says, it should only be activated on two things one manually so when u turn them on and two is there enough light outside to have them on, when in auto, and at 7am yes more than enough light to turn them off, and i agree maybe after u leave if its a dull day and there aint a lot of light yes, so if its still under warrantee id say pop back to a dealer and ask them to take a look at it most likely just the sensor is a little faulty, it could be over reading is not calibrated correctly to recognise light and no light,

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[Gary.J]

Mine is like that also. Actually find the headlights and wipers auto not as good as a previous car, a pug 406. apart from having a word with the dealer, and hopefully there is a setting that can be changed in the computer, there's nothing you can do.

[Mariner]

When the sun is low the auto lights do come on on the mk 7.5s - I believe it is programmed this way as mine does the same.

By comparison my previous mk 7 2009 Titanium did not do this.

On the whole my current 2013 auto lights work better than the previous 2009 version.

[Dave-2912]

I find the auto-lights pretty good although I wouldn't really care if they were on all the time.

I leave for work at 6:15 each morning and when the sun is low in the sky there can be a lot of glare but also a lot of shadows cast by objects at the side of the road. Going between these light and dark areas can lead to quite awkward visibility so if having the lights on helps someone see me, I'm quite happy to have them on.

I have to say that I think the auto-wipers are garbage though, so I just disabled them in favour of intermittent wipe. The ones I've had in previous cars have been far superior. I think the auto pack on the ZS is worth getting for the auto-dimming rear view mirror alone though.

[mixmasterlooney]

Auto wipes for me work 100% better than any other car and I retrofitted mine. Auto lights on the othefmr hand can be considered sensitive I agree but act as drl for low light times

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[Phil 87]

I've been perfectly happy with the auto lights on My ST and 09 Titanium. I'm not sure if they only measure the amount of light, I've heard some cars can detect the sun angle as well (you should always have your lights on when the sun is very low regardless of how much light there is). I normally set off about 7:30 in the morning and I think my lights don't turn on this time of year.

Also on the new cars, the rain sensor can turn the lights on which is a nice feature. But as others have said, the auto wipers aren't great, the sensitivity sometimes needs adjusting in light rain because they have a habit of wiping way too slow or randomly going to full speed lol. Sometimes I just leave them off and do single wipes when needed.

[mixmasterlooney]

The only time I found auto wipers to be slow is when my blades are worn, otherwise it's great but I have sort have found a perfect setup.

I set the wiper sensitivity to its penultimate setting then when I need I turn it one notch up to its max in light rain. I never leave it on max sensitivity as that seems to reduce how fast it reacts compared to turning the sensitivity higher once wipers are actually in motion

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[mark t]

At 11.08 today my lights were auto on, so turned them off!

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[mixmasterlooney]

There is one thing to note here, not all sensors are the same as I found out when retrofitting mine.

For the focus and mondeo I know there are 3 known sensors AA, AB, AC, with AC being the latest.

I dont know if there is an AD sensor or not, this will of course affect how sensitive the sensor is.

I previously had an AA sensor but installed a newer one on my final moment of the retrofit

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