[Chili Palmer]

I just noticed when I pulled behind a black truck that my headlights were on, (and yes, it was in the middle of the afternoon with no clouds and plenty of sunshine). I looked at the switch and made sure it was in the Auto position which it was. I scrolled through the vehicle settings to see it there was something that had been changed, but the only items that pertained to the headlights was the shut off delay time and the daytime running lights on/off selection.

I have no idea where the light sensor is to see if a spider or fly died in there and is giving the sensor a false reading.

Any ideas other than take it to the dealer?

[The X Men]

My auto headlight does the same thing, its on a lot more than my other cars. Its porbably another case of BMW engineers being overly cautious.

[ibimmer954]

My headlights are on way more than I think they should be as well. It's weird.

[Boss330]

The owners manual states that:

A blue sky with the sun low on the horizon can cause the lights to be switched on.

So I guess this will occur more frequently during fall than in the summer.

And my F10 is much quicker to switch on the lights (from DRL) than many other cars when visibility is poor. I find that reassuring.

[VWtoBMW]

I find that the sensitivity on mine are perfect. They only come on if its starting to get darker or very cloudy. They never come on mid day when the sun is out. If they are off but I turn the wipers on, the will likely turn on as a safety precaution.

I find that mine function perfectly well.

[snj1013]

I agree that the auto function doesn't work exactly as I would expect. In the morning, bright conditions, and often my headlights are on.

[Fantasm]

No problems with mine. Work as expected

[MMVI]

I have been constantly frustrated by this in all the years I ave had a BMW with this function. My non xenon car has its headlights on as part of drl which is ridiculous.

I treat the auto position on the switch as .off. Then flick to sides to bring the rings on nearly every time that i see the green lights telltale on the dash during the day when I know that headlights aren't needed.

It's clumsily over sensitive and doubly so for halogen equipped cars.

[AP]

i don't get why people find this frustrating to be honest.It should err on the side of safety, it they were not coming on when it was dark, that would be a fair reason to complain. I really don't see any downside with this at all apart from theorectical very small increase in fuel consumption.
just leave itin auto and forget about it. I have yet to manually overide mine where I felt lights needed to be on but the car thought otherwise.

[The X Men]

I guess people get frustrated by stupid thing, a little green light on the dash does not bother me at all.

[Boss330]

While it doesn't bother me (I don't override the auto function) I do feel that the front looks better with just the corona rings lighted...

[BigKutta]

Originally Posted by Boss330

While it doesn't bother me (I don't override the auto function) I do feel that the front looks better with just the corona rings lighted...

Exactly this. I too like only the rings during the day, and with the lights being on, it takes away from the rings. The BMW auto lights are over sensitive to the point that they're as well stay on all the time. In my MB the lights sensitivity is tuned to perfection and I am sure the BMW can be too.

[///M ARMY]

Originally Posted by Boss330

While it doesn't bother me (I don't override the auto function) I do feel that the front looks better with just the corona rings lighted...

To me it looks good and stands out

[TimeFor]

Originally Posted by AP

i don't get why people find this frustrating to be honest.It should err on the side of safety, it they were not coming on when it was dark, that would be a fair reason to complain. I really don't see any downside with this at all apart from theorectical very small increase in fuel consumption.
just leave itin auto and forget about it. I have yet to manually overide mine where I felt lights needed to be on but the car thought otherwise.

Why is this frustrating? Personalty, its because I spent 66 grand on a new car with a broken sensor that my 20 grand Toyota had in 2004. Hell, my e46 had this feature in 2000 and it worked perfectly. There is no reason whatsoever for our cars to be having this issue. Blue Sky, Error on Safely, whatever you want to call it... It's broken because we're talking about it.

-Time

[JamRWS6]

I agree this is frustrating and it is worse when coming out of a parking garage the headlights stay on excessively. I think the comment about the blue sky is very true. I've noticed when it was very cloudy (rare here!) that the headlights shut off very quickly.

It doesn't hurt anything but I agree with the above that when you spend 60 grand on a car you'd hope the auto headlights work properly. Either way still love the car.

[Chili Palmer]

Originally Posted by TimeFor

Why is this frustrating? Personalty, its because I spent 66 grand on a new car with a broken sensor that my 20 grand Toyota had in 2004. Hell, my e46 had this feature in 2000 and it worked perfectly. There is no reason whatsoever for our cars to be having this issue. Blue Sky, Error on Safely, whatever you want to call it... It's broken because we're talking about it.

-Time

My point exactly.

[Rbembas_M3]

Originally Posted by Boss330

While it doesn't bother me (I don't override the auto function) I do feel that the front looks better with just the corona rings lighted...

How do you turn on the corona rings? Do you turn the switch to parking lights?

[Chili Palmer]

Go into the vehicle settings menu, there is a box for daytime running lights, that's the corona rings - make sure it's checked. And there you have it.

[Boss330]

What he said

Light switch turned to position 0

[Fokker123]

It doesn't bother me, I just leave the switch on auto and let the car do as it wishes. One thing that does annoy me are the auto wipers which for some reason does work as convincingly as my other car with this feature. The variation switch is pretty useless. When it's raining heavily and I'm at town speeds the wipers don't compensate enough leaving me no option but to use the manual override.

Anyone else with this issue? I'm lucky enough to have a 911 c4s as well and the auto wipers on that are fine and my old m3 was fine. The F11 is useless.

Dave

[73henny]

I find this a little annoying too. My Subaru XV has auto lights and the sensitivity is perfect in my opinion. My 5 series is definitely more inclined to have the lights on when it isn't remotely dull. Whats more annoying though is the daytime running lights setting has the headlights on all the time (Halogen), which is exactly the same as leaving the headlights in the on position. So effectively this renders the auto lights useless other than changing the dash from white to orange.
Almost a bit of misrepresentation from BMW.

[ramblinmanva]

I have found the same thing on my 528. Having just spent 4 hours last night trying to replace my Halogen bulbs (and ended up having to pay a mechanic $68 to help me finish it), I don't want these lights running all the time. I've now turned mine completely off and will manage it myself.