Delay with Auto Lights coming on?

[adekil]

I've not noticed this before, especially with the lighter days/evenings but tonight when switching on the engine, the front headlights took a good 5 or 6 seconds to come on and there was no calibration taking place, the lights just came on in position.

After I got home, switched off the engine and back on again and the lights came on immediately along with the calibration.

Anyone else see this before or is this sometimes the case that the light sensor hasn't kicked in for some reason?

P.S Lights are always set to Auto.

[phil_790]

Hey,

I also noticed the lights taking a while to come on sometimes after getting into the car, can't say I noticed if the calibration did its thing or not, will keep an eye on it. Hopefully it's not a problem.

Cheers,
Phil

[itavaltalainen]

You can set the lights to come on "early" instead of "normal"... on normal it can take a few seconds for the lights to come on (light sensor may still be running self check).

I would suspect it does the 'calibration' (actually it is just an initialisation) on start up regardless of whether lights are on or not.

[ajmoir36]

Are you talking about the levelling? with the wiring of motor noises?

[phil_790]

Good point, maybe they do their levelling thing before the lights actually come on.

[ajmoir36]

Mine whir randomly and sometime I have driven off down the road, be stationary behind someone and noticed they are moving up and down. A flick of the adjustment wheel and they stop doing it.

[itavaltalainen]

What adjustment wheel are you talking about?
Only halogens have the electric (manual) adjustment for height, xenons constantly level automatically.

[ajmoir36]

Halogens on mine.

[adekil]

You can set the lights to come on "early" instead of "normal"... on normal it can take a few seconds for the lights to come on (light sensor may still be running self check).

I would suspect it does the 'calibration' (actually it is just an initialisation) on start up regardless of whether lights are on or not.

Lights are set to come on early (leaving home function I think its called) when unlocking but this did not happen this time when returning to the car and unlocking; but can honestly never remember ever starting the engine in the dark and having no lights come on immediately. I can accept if this is a one off quirky thing but don't want to be stranded at any time with no lights if this doesn't sound right.

[itavaltalainen]

I can check what mine does later this week (need to code from 'scandinavian' DRL = always dipped beam back to normal DRL for that)
Guess you have xenons with LED DRL?