The '05 brochure lists auto-off headlights in the Exterior Features list. Is this new to the '05 model?

 

no, they turn off now and can be set for timeout, although it would be nice if they came on auto as well.

 

Haha, Auto OFF, not Auto On or Auto Headlights.

Gotta love Marketing.

 

The manual explains how to have them turn on automatically and off automatically...

 

 

I second this.

 

my 02 Tacoma has auto off. if you have them on and you yank the key open/close the door the headlights will auto-off.

i have not tried this with 04 TL.

 

If they turn off and the headlight switch is still on....

Then when you get in again, they will turn on.

Auto off; auto on.

 

well no!!! what everyone here WANTS which i dont know why.. because its so damn F ing lazy to turn a nob... is so it senses when it gets dark to turn on headlights and when it gets day time to trun off!!! a no need that will jack up price for no reason. also this auto headlight turning crap.. what for!!! havent you been driving ok without it!!! all i can say is maybe rear seats folding becuase of loads. But think about it. How much do you want the car to be!!!

 

Nigguh, if they can adjust the fucking air temperature between the lleft and right side based on GPS Coordinates and a Light sensor in the dash, it shouldnt be too much more work to make the damn lights turn on when its dark.

All in all, I dont care either way. Its MY car, and once I get totally used to driving it, hitting the switch wont be a problem.

 

Unless I'm doing something wrong, if you leave the switch on, when you lock the doors using the fob, the lights will go out according to the timer on the keyless settings. However, if you don't lock it, I don't think they will go out. If you hit the lock button twice, they will go off instantaneously and not wait for the timeout. When you unlock it, the lights come back on.

 

Actually, this is a excellent feature by itself. I sure wouldn't want to kill my battery because my lights were left on.

Having the lights turn on automatically would be OK, but something I could (and do) easily live without. If I had auto-on headlights on my TL, I would turn off the feature until all the cars I owned had Auto-On. I noticed that I would forget to turn on my other car's lights when I drove a loaner with Auto-On for a month.

Besides, I find it was funny watching cars with Auto-On always turn their headlights on when going under a small bridge/overpass.

 

thats exactly what i am saying... just turn the nob. get used to it. But eevery one complains on what the car didnt come with.., they want lights auto, all wheel drive, etc.... and more.. why not buy a car that has these things already? thats all i;m saying. this car is bad ass!!! and i baught it cus i love the way it is already. i am like damn. fine!! let me get this car, but i dont really like it.. and i wish it had this and that.... i got it cuz i saw all it had and it was perfect. just my opinion. and like you said. just get used to it.

 

Did anyone notice that when the highlights are on and you are turning on the car, not one signal light will lose any power (dim). I found this interesting. I was wondering if maybe their is another source of power for the headlights while the car is turning on? Maybe it's just me but I found this very unique.

 

Auto-on lights are not a big deal but it would be nice. When I drive I often look at the gauges. When I first got the car I would be driving it around dusk and forget to turn the lights on because when I looked at the dash the gauges were all lit up as if the lights were on. The gauges are always lit up when the key is on. With my other cars, the dash lights only come on with the headlights, so it's obvious if the lights are on or off. Occasionally oncoming cars would flash their lights at me. I thought it was because the HIDs were so bright, but it was actually because my lights weren't on at all.

Doesn't really happen anymore, but in this car it's easy to see how someone could forget to turn the lights on at dusk. Auto lights would take care of that. Of course, if it's pitch black out and you can't see anything, the lights may be off.

 

My old '86 accord had Auto-Off head lights.. although other people referred to it as a dead battery

It also had auto-on head lights... They always seem to come on when I had to get my car battery jumped.


Crazy cars... I believe I like Acura's implementation a bit beter tho.

 

If you remove the key and get out, whether you lock it or not, or fob it or not, the lights will turn off. The only way they will stay on I believe is to leave the keys in the ignition with the lights on.

I leave mine on all the time. In atlanta, you have enough of a problem with people seeing you cuz they can't drive to save their f'ing lives, so I leave mine on as a brightness factor. As a reminder, there is no mandatory drivers-ed in georgia, thus the driving difficulties. So they are on at nite when I get in, and I know that they always turn off when I get out either on fob double-click, or on the timeout as set by the MID.

P.S. and the headlights don't dim when you start the car or do anything else because our lights are not filament based like traditional bulbs, they are gas light-discharge, so as long as the gas is excited, it lights, and it's an on or off function, not voltage variable. That's why they take a few seconds to come up to brightness, like street lights and other high intensity bulbs do, they ahve to get all the vapor excited up to their optimal glow point. The 04 TL brings the light up faster than the last gen TL, and those were pretty quick as is, some early hids were slow to light up. But if you notice the bright flash when you first turn them on, that's the ignitor lighting them up more quickly than say a street light, which is just barely visible when it turns on, and takes several minutes to come up to full bright. That would certainly suck if our headlights took 3 minutes to warm up. (hence the quick ignitor/Balast)

later.

 

Great information, Thanks!!!

 

I just looked at the Acura site and went through the list of Safety features. I copied them here for all to see. Check out the "Auto -On/Off Headlights"

Looks like auto-on has been added to the TL.


Vehicle Stability Assist (VSA®) with traction control
Anti-Lock Braking System (ABS)
4-Wheel Disc Brakes (front/rear)
Electronic Brake Distribution (EBD)
Electronic Brake Assist
Bi-Xenon High-Intensity Discharge (HID) Headlights
Auto-On/Off Headlights
LED Side Markers, Taillights and Center High Mount Stop Light (CHMSL)

 

Good finding. Pro Street. Let's wait and see the real 05TL.

 

I have to take issue with you. I have a great fear of forgetting to turn the lights on. Why? Because I drive home from work in heavy traffic usually where it may not be obvious that my lights are not on.

But here is the real problem. In years gone by, if you did not turn your lights on your instrument were not lit either. This made it quite obvious that your lights were not on. But today, with the intruments lit up all the time, it is not so obvious that the lights are not on. This is even bigger of a problem for people like me who have not owned a car without automatic headlights for several years. And a lot of my driving in the dark is when it has been light out, then gets dark while I am driving. I really don't want to be involved in an accident that would otherwise not be my fault until a witness points out that my lights were not on.

It's not a matter of lazy - it's a matter of no indication that they are not on.

 

Light-sensing auto headlights open new frontiers in dead batteries for careless people like me. My newer car, not a TL, has them. My wife and I both leave the light switch on "Auto" and let the light sensor do the deciding for us. A few months ago we were going someplace at night, and from some dumb reflex, I turned the light switch one more notch over to "On" without even realizing what I was doing. When I pulled the car into the garage later, removed the key and got out, I ignored the fact that it was still kinda bright in the garage ("Just the exterior courtesy lights, right?") and ignored the warning beep ("Just reminding me that I opened the door before removing the key, right?") After all, with the lights on "Auto", they will always turn themselves off as appropriate, right? Guess what I got when I tried to start the car the next day. Yeah.

 

DWP, you're right. If there is auto feature, the manufacturer should give it a unique switch, such as one notch into the different direction. So this will reduce the problem you have experienced. If the car maker puts this between Off and On, someone would get trouble sooner or later.

 

I fail to see the problem. My Saab has the auto on/off headlights too, only one switch position is for DRLs only, one position for parking lights, and the third position for all lights on. When i got the car 6 years ago, I set the switch in the third position and haven't touched it since. The only problem is driving a different car without the auto feature.

 

... but does your SAAB have a non-automatic "ON" position that leaves the headlights on regardless of lighting conditions or key fob in the ignition? That kind of "ON" is the trap for the unwary, when combined with "AUTO" lights.

 

Nope. But I think I see your point. I will have to experiment with the lighting when my TL gets here in 1.5 weeks. (and counting)

 

I've never heard of a car with Auto-On headlights that doesn't automatically shut them off after a certain period of time as well once the key is removed. How stupid is that?

Anyway, with the TL, as some have said previous - just leave the lights on. They will turn off automatically when you get out of the car, and they will turn on automatically when you get back in. There's no reason not to leave them on in my opinion. They are safer during the day, and the HIDs will supposedly last a very long time (I've heard the life of the car, but can't say for sure).

The "auto-on at dusk" feature that a lot of cars have is useless unless the life expectancy of the lights is a concern. My wife's Lexus has this feature, but we still just leave the headlights on at all time anyway.

 

When people in this thread have referred to "auto headlights", I just assumed that they were talking about headlights activated by a light sensor - they switch on at dusk, in a tunnel or under very overcast conditions, for instance. That's what my newer car has. What people are actually talking about, though (except in the Lexus reference above) are headlights that go on when the key fob goes in, and go off when the key fob comes out, right? I'm in this forum to research the TL, so my question would be, does anyone know if the '05 TL will have headlights that are "auto" in the sense of being light-activated?

 

I don't think either the 04s or 05s have light-actuated headlights. I plan to leave my lights on at all times that the car is running. Less hassle and much safer that way, recognizing that bulb life will be shortened.

 

Does anyone know how to de-activate the chime reminder that the headlights are on? I would probably leave mine on all the time if I didn't have to listen to the chime when I got back into my car (and when I exited after pulling the key out).

 

Check post #19. And, wait for the real 05TL in the showroom.

 

no

 

You are certainly entitled to this opinion, and there's no reason anyone should be disrespectful of it. But I have to say, if this feature is as important to you as your comments indicate, then you really should drive a car with Auto-on headlights. The '04 TL is not the car for you.

 

If we lived in a perfect world where someone actually came to my house and found out exactly what I like in a car, and made sure it was absolutely perfect for me, I would take your advice. I don't think I bashed the TL that much in my post for you to take the attitude that the 04 TL "is not the car" for me. I'm realistic enough to know that every car made is going to have something I don't agree with.

I guess you think that we should all bow down on our knees to whatever car we own and act like it is perfect. I for one am a believer that there is nothing wrong with stating our dislikes so that if there are enough people in agreement, the manufacturer can give us what we want. I suspect the cost of this feature is extemely small - especially considering that there must already be a relay in place to turn the lights OFF automatically.

If my attitude pisses YOU off so much, perhaps this forum is not the forum for you!

 

jjsC5 - It appears you interpreted my comments in the most negative light imaginable, certainly not as I intended them. Someone else was bashing you, not me, which is why I said what I said in the first sentence. All I was trying to say is that, if someone says, "Feature XYZ is very, very important to me," then usually it would make no sense to buy a car that doesn't have that feature. Personally, I don't think the auto-on feature is a big deal. Evidently you do. On the other hand, for my needs, dual side and head airbags is a very, very important feature. And I most certainly would not have picked the TL if it didn't have that feature.