Display Dimming Question

[jcs]

I was driving my 3.8 Tech tonight at dusk with the lights in auto mode and noticed that the headlights were turning on and off every few minutes with seemingly no delay. The most annoying aspect was that the dash display would dim whenever the lights went on and vice versa. To prevent the dash from changing, I switched the lights to off. To my surprise, the dash lights kept switching back and forth even tough the headlights were off. From reading the manual, it appears that the dash display is dependent on the lights and the dash should not dim until the lights turn on, i.e. the dash lights are not independent of the headlights. Am I wrong about this - should the dash lights respond to the outside light even though the headlights are off? Thanks.

 

[Sonata2009]

Should they? - Nope. Do they? - Yup! When the sensor decides that the lights should be on, it dims the dash lights as well, regardless of where the headlight switch is.

 

[Canadian]

I've had my car for 5 days and just noticed the same issue this morning on the way to work. Turned into the sunshine and the dash lit up. Checked the headlight setting and it was NOT on auto. Don't know if it's intentional or a design flaw but it's very annoying. The only alternative is to to set your dash to the brightest setting (where it clicks) all the time so there's no change when you drive in and out of clouds, tunnels, etc. Has anyone talked to the dealer about this?

 

[Sonata2009]

I had a XG-350L, and it did the same thing, and so does my 2009 Sonata - so it's designed that way.

 

[Campo57]

I've got another question about the dash lights. I like to have my dash light illumination very low at night. I've turned down the control knob as far as it will go and noticed that the lights are still fairly bright (compared to other cars I've owned which usually allowed me to shut the dash lights off completely).

Does everyone's dash light knob only dim the lights to a certain level or can you shut them off completely?

Thanks,

 

[mcginnpm]

Nope. They just go down to what Hyundai considers dim.

I too dislike this I wish it was like my old car which allowed me to dial the lights down to completely off. The other thing I don't like is that the nav screen must be dimmed separately. If the car were truly integrated, the nav screen would dim down along with the instrument cluster lights.

 

[MrB0462]

I love to see your comments/complaints if you bought a really expensive car. Bentleys, Royes all have similar issues.

 

[garddog32]

IMO, the real problem is that the gap between when the system turns the lights on and when the system turns the lights off is too narrow. (It should not turn the lights on and off at the same light level). If the gap between when the lights turn off and on were larger, I don't think you would see this problem. I have not had this problem on any of my other cars with automatic head lights... but they were just Chrysler's and Pontiac's. What's worse is that the headlights are turning on and off too. I'm sure that puts extra ware and tare on the bulbs. In the overall scheme of things, it's probably not that big of a deal... just annoying.