Annoying auto headlights system

I saw a contractor van Transit Connect, or one this little Nissan. One morning no lights zipping through traffic. Then the driver blows through the flashing red signal, at the end of the off ramp.

You don't really need to stop to be safe, as you have a clear view of the on coming traffic when the volume is low. Unless some other idiot is speeding down the road in the dark with no lights on.

 

My man, this is about automotive lighting. Thank you for stating your credentials and trying to explain things from a design perspective. I also never claimed to be smarter than anyone I’m calling stupid. But I have been in current era vehicles with some people that have me questioning how they manage to get through the day without hurting themselves or others, maybe certain designs are helping with that? I understand what you’re saying - but you know it’s an issue WHEN THE GOVERNMENT HAS TO STEP IN and say “listen, you’re ALL stupid, we’re taking away your OFF switch”.

 

The government came in and said that because of the design issues with dashboard illumination I mentioned earlier. Without feedback, it’s a mistake everyone is just waiting to make. If you have DRLs and an illuminated dash, it’s pretty easy to see how people would fail to notice a problem.

i, for one, know that my primary method of determining if my lights aren’t on and should be is by my dash lights (I drive a first gen). You’ll notice as you drive by these “idiots,” that nearly all have an always-illuminated dash.


the move to auto lights, which sounds like a boon to safety, can actually make things worse by disinvolving the driver. Human performance in a task follows a curve where performance increases with the challenge of the task until saturation occurs. So we can actually expect better performance in many cases by challenging the human in a system to become more involved. Automatic headlights removes the difficulty of lighting tasks, and therefore we expect that human performance (in determining whether lighting is correct or not) would actually decrease.

hence, we have to take away the off switch. Not because people are stupid, but because they perform exactly how they’ve evolved to.

Anyway, now I’m rambling.

 

Wait until an entire generation becomes accustomed to having automated toilets in the home.

 

Nah, I say it's stupid people Few times I drove without illuminated dash and headlights on before on previous cars few times without realizing my headlights were off, the city lights were bright enough, should we blame city for making it too bright? How many times I drove with the e-brake ON on FWD cars... Glad that now I can leave lights switch on auto and most electric e-brakes de-activate when car is in Drive or 1st gear... FFSK people don't even clean snow off their cars here, never ever I seen anyone clearing the snow instead of just driving off and hoping it clears off on it's own... I ain't the brightest, so are the people around me and you can be same or worse. It only takes 1 person to cause an accident. So yeah, screw those designers, just automate everything already...

 

You might be able to adjust the sensitivity of the auto headlights on your 2022. Had the same problem with mine (2018). I go to apps, settings, scroll right, vehicle customization, light settings.

 

I hate resurrecting an old thread, but did you ever find a solution? This is driving me crazy!

Every time I drive under a bridge, the lights come on. The strange thing is that the headlights, dashboard lights, and display screens all seem to come on at different times. If I just drive under a bridge, the display screen will dim, then brighten again when I exit the other side a moment later. If traffic is slow, and I'm under that bridge for longer, the dashboard lights come on a few seconds later after the screens dim.

I've adjusted the sensitivity in the settings menu, so the headlights don't seem to come on when I'm under a bridge anymore, but that doesn't seem to have any effect on the dashboard lights or screens.

I've wondered if simply disconnecting the ambient light sensor would force the ECU to behave like a model without the automatic headlight feature, but I'm not too keen to take apart the entire dashboard just to find out.

 

You guys are getting annoyed by the littlest things! So what if the screen dims under a bridge?

 

I'm just a little frustrated. After a week with this truck, I feel like Toyota spent a fortune engineering a very impressive machine, then hired some highschool kid with his first c++ book to write the software. The headlights aren't the only irritating thing about the programming.

It would been nothing to program the ECU so that the headlights, dashboard lights, and display screens all change at the same time... or at least give the driver some control over the sensitivity of each one.

 

And then you have those that run headlights and fogs on in broad daylight

 

I can think of a way to get around it by using some hardware to open the circuit so the “AUTO” doesn’t get sent to the ECU, but it would also require a redirection of the DRL. I came up with a way to add auto lights to my SR, so it could be modified to override the auto function with a few small changes. If I remember, I will post a diagram later.

 

Here in Canada, you have to install DRL if you import a vehicle without them. They'll often do that by just hard wiring the headlights to always be on.

That doesn't really bother me, it's the people with no taillights that I can't stand. Where I live, the sun sets at 4pm in the winter, and doesn't rise until almost 9am. I'm still flabbergasted by the number of people driving around in the dark, often in thick fog or a blizzard, with zero taillights.

I totally understand why they make automatic headlights standard now. I just wish it worked a little better. A 60-90 second time delay would be sufficient in most cases... now that I think of it, that could be accomplished with a time delay relay.

 

That would be appreciated! I've also wondered if the signal light switch could be swapped with one from the states. I don't know if they're compatible, since I don't think they comply with Canadian legislation.

 

Except it isn't a single ECU that controls these things...

Meanwhile the soccer moms on the 4Runner forum are complaining auto headlights aren't included in the US Off Road Premium model...

 

I imagine penny-pinching Toyota didn't change the harness just for the Canadian trucks for 2021. Swapping the turn signal stalk with the 2020 version should work?

 

It’s a single signal being sent to the ECU though. We just need to open that circuit, so as far as the ECU is concerned, the stalk is set to off. But by doing that, it will not turn on the DRL either, so we need a little trickery for that. It isn’t that bad. A couple relays and a tee harness between the stalk and the ECU. Also would need a battery tap to run the DRL, and we could either tap the high side of the low beams (preffered) or the low side of the low beam switch at the stalk. The reason tapping the high (+) side at the low beams is preffered is you can still use a a switch to enable/disable the auto function if you wanted.

I don’t know much about Canadian models. Does the stalk have an OFF setting? If not, swapping the stalk might work to be able to turn everything off? I believe you guys can’t turn off the DRL? But if you swap the stalk, it would still be auto function I suspect? I’d be interested to look into it. @caribe makaira might know the answer to that.

 

This thread is in the Ontario, Canada section. In previous years, the stalk had OFF, Auto, running lights, and headlights detents.

Per regulation, DRLs come on and off with parking brake engagement, with no separate switch available to the driver, been that way for three decades.

 

Sorry, didn’t realize it was Canadian . It might still be possible though, depending on the stalk and how it’s wired? I assume a Canadian stalk is auto/park/low beam? If someone can get a picture of the harness going into stalk, I should be able to determine if it can be done. It all comes down to how lazy/cheap Toyota is. If I were engineering it, I would just eliminate the “off” position on the stalk. That way it has to be set to one of the positions with DRL or low beams.

 

We have the Type C switch (Headlights, Parking lights, and Auto). DRLs cannot be turned off. I'd be happy with a Type A or B.

I think the reason they eliminated the "off" option in Canada is because too many people are driving around in the dark without taillights, so new legislation requires that manufacturers make that impossible.

This suggests to me that even if I change the stalk, the dashboard lights would still operate off the ambient light sensor, but I could be wrong.

 

Good to know, thank you! I am betting they use the same harness though. If anyone would like to check? Is all that is needed to look is removing the lower cover off the steering column. There are 2 screws behind the wheel (turn the wheel to the right to expose one, to the left to expose the other). Then you will see a plug going into the base of the stalk switch. Unplug it and grab a couple pictures showing the wires. Most of the wires will be in one row, those are the ones I'd like to see. It would make sense for Toyota to just use the same harness, but eliminate the "off" option via the type C stalk. If we can determine this in fact what they did, then swapping to a type A should be possible for sure. The only difference between Type A and Type B is the lettering by the way. So putting a type B on the truck wouldn't eliminate the auto headlights. Mechanically, they are the same thing, it is just what the ECU does with the signal that changes