Comfy

I noticed that when I set my headlamp in auto mode it lights up every time I open the driver side with the car turned off while parked in garage. I believe that's how it is supposed to be, but sometimes the headlamp lights up when I open the front passenger door as well. It's unusual though and I've noticed it a few times.
Is this a glitch with just my car or is this how it's supposed to be.

ceb

My TSX does the same.

andysinnh

It's actually doing what it's supposed to. When I pull into my garage, after a few seconds, the headlights come on in "auto" mode since it's darker in the garage than outside. When I open the door the lights stay on and then shut off. If for some reason they don't turn on automatically when I pull in the garage, opening the door does turn them on. Why? Because it's the preferred behavior at night to have the lights come on to aid with walking around the car. The length of time they stay on after you close the door is one of the settings on the MID......

andy

Comfy

Thanks Andy, I understand perfectly why the light is coming on when opening the driver door. My question is that it happened INTERMITTENTLY while I'm opening the front PASSENGER door !!! Once it did that when I opened the rear passenger door too leaving me flabbergasted. I cannot reproduce it reliably but it happens once in a while leaving me scratching my head wondering if I had changed some setting inadvertently.
It's not a huge problem or anything for me to worry about but understanding why it happens would make me feel better. Thanks guys.

andysinnh

Are you consistent about unlocking the doors before you get out of the car? I know that if you open the driver's door it doesn't unlock all the doors. And if you then get out and open the passenger's door, or the rear hatch, it will auto-unlock because you have the key fob, and it will make the auto headlights come on. If, on the other hand you do hit the unlock button before you get out, the auto-unlock isn't activated when you open the passenger door or rear hatch - so the headlights won't come on. I have run into that in the past....

andy

guytdt

For me, I set it so when I unlock it opens all doors. With that in minds, when I open passenger door, the headlight is on 100%.

For summertime, You can disable homecoming and homeleaving features so headlight is not on when open door. During wintertime, I turn it back on.

Comfy

I think that's it.... the auto-unlock feature...I got it all figured out....Thanks to you Andy .
Here's what happened. .
I always auto unlock before I open the driver door so that I get all the baby stuff and things out the rear hatch easily. But I very rarely lock the car afterwards while in the garage. So whenever I open the passenger front door to look for something, the headlight does not activate since the car is already unlocked. On those rare instances when I actually lock the car in the garage and do the same, the auto unlock feature unlocks all the doors and activates the headlights....cool.
I tested everything a few times and confirmed that I can reproduce everything. It explains why this happened once while opening the rear door as well.I must have grabbed the front door handle to unlock everything and immediately opened the rear door. Since there is a 1-2 second delay in switching on the HID lamps it coincided with me opening the rear door immediately afterwards leaving me all confused.

About disabling the homecoming/ home leaving feature, I need to consult the manual on how to do that. .

Now I'm willing to bet that Ceb does not lock his TSX while parked in his garage .

ceb

How much? Enough for lunch at McD?

Since I park in a parking garage during the day, I've gotten accustomed to locking the car even though the garage at the house is well secured and the door to the house is always locked.

The TSX doesn't have pushbutton start so I need to have my key in hand anyway,

I didn't normally lock my BMW when it was in my garage at night - maybe I was hoping it would be gone one morning

Comfy

Okay you got me. I overestimated the features of TSX. Should've realized that it's replaced by TLX.
So did you figure out why your auto headlamp works erratically from passenger side?
Lunch in McD for sure, next time you're in town.