Lighting Question

"sm70- why not Duesenberg?" (sm70-whynotduesenberg) 10/31/2017 at 22:37 • Filed to: None

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My newly purchased Saabaru has some odd lighting characteristics. It has daytime running lights, which come on anytime the car is on and the handbrake is down. These daytime running lights are literally just the headlights, with no tail lights on and the headlights themselves only ever so slightly dimmer than normal. When the headlights actually are in the on position, turning off the key and removing it immediately shut down all interior and exterior lights. No parking lights, no gauges, nothing is left illuminated. My question is, since it doesn’t appear that having the headlights in the on position while the car is off actually lights anything up, am I OK to just leave them in the on position all the time?

jvirgs drives a Subaru > sm70- why not Duesenberg? 10/31/2017 at 22:42

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I don’t see why not.

You can tell a Finn but you can't tell him much > sm70- why not Duesenberg? 10/31/2017 at 22:45

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Sounds like my 07 STi which makes sense. Yes, you can leave the light switch on all the time. If you are parking the car and actually need the parking lights on while the car is off you need to flip the switch that is probably on top of the steering column. Weird that the tail lights don’t come on with the DRL’s. My Subaru had full lighting come on as DRL’s including tail lights. Turning on the light switch dimmed the dash lights and gave the option of high beams.

Urambo Tauro > sm70- why not Duesenberg? 10/31/2017 at 22:55

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If the car is cutting power to that circuit, then you shouldn’t have to worry about it magically coming back on and draining the battery.

However, I don’t think that’s a good habit to develop. Personally, I don’t think any kind of automatic headlamps are a good thing to get used to. Just turn them off manually on your way to reach for the door handle, and let that become muscle memory. That way, you won’t be caught off-guard if your next car lacks that feature.

Highlander-Datsuns are Forever > sm70- why not Duesenberg? 10/31/2017 at 22:55

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This is a Subaru thing, I think Volvo does it to. The lights just turn off when the key is out of the ignition. I leave the switch on my Subaru in the on position all the time.

Kiltedpadre > sm70- why not Duesenberg? 10/31/2017 at 22:56

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Yes, you can leave the switch in the on position. My wife had an Impreza and did exactly that. The only time she had any issues was when her battery was on it’s last legs, and she needed to turn the lights off to crank the car.

cmill189 - sans Volvo > sm70- why not Duesenberg? 10/31/2017 at 22:59

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Yes. It’s a Subaru thing like others have said. Been that way for many decades. Whatever you do leave the switch above the steering column alone! You’ll have a dead battery without realizing what happened. I never found a practical purpose for using that switch across three Subaru’s.

TheTurbochargedSquirrel > sm70- why not Duesenberg? 10/31/2017 at 23:00

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Yup, perfectly fine. Coming from a 2001 Outback it really annoys me that I have to remember to manually turn my headlights off in my Mini.

sm70- why not Duesenberg? > cmill189 - sans Volvo 10/31/2017 at 23:16

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The parking lights? Haha yeah idk wtf those are for.

Boxer_4 > cmill189 - sans Volvo 10/31/2017 at 23:49

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In some areas of the world, the use of parking lights are required when parked (such as on a narrow street), and you may want to be able to use your parking lights with the engine off and the keys removed. This almost never comes up in the US.

I believe in those models with the parking light switch, the main light switch doesn’t do anything unless the key is in the “on” position. Models that have been redesigned starting in 2008 no longer have the separate parking light switch; you now can turn the parking lights (and headlights) on with the main light switch with the key removed (the lights turn off automatically when the car is turned off and the key removed, but can be turned back on by moving the switch to off and then to the desired setting if the switch was left on when the car was turned off, or directly to the desired position if the switch was already set to off when the car was turned off.) A chime will sound if you turned the lights on after you turned off the car and the driver’s door is open.

105 HP of fury > sm70- why not Duesenberg? 11/01/2017 at 08:30

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Toyota used to be this way, my dad had a 97 Camry and I had a 95 Corolla that would automatically shut the lights off when you turned off the car. But they changed the design at some point, the 05 Rav4 would leave the lights on until you manually switched them off.

MINIGTI > sm70- why not Duesenberg? 11/01/2017 at 08:39

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MINIs also do this. We leave ours on all the time.

cmill189 - sans Volvo > Boxer_4 11/01/2017 at 11:14

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Interesting. Thanks for the info.

AR24-7 > sm70- why not Duesenberg? 11/01/2017 at 19:57

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Yeah. That’s what I did with my car. It had the same setup with lights.