sleepy

I did it again!

During one of my night time freeway runs, I turned the headlight switch only 2 clicks instead of 3 without realizing it. Most cars I've owned only need 2 clicks to turn on the headlights so that turns into a habit. Luckily the LED lights at the front was on, and the rear lamps at the backs were illuminated as well, so people could still see me.

It makes me think... the headlight switch needs 3 clicks to turn on because there's the "home" welcoming light in between. But how many Porsche owners actually leave the car in a dark driveway?

997_Toronto

If it was dark, did you not notice that your headlights were not on? How bright are your front LED running lights?

PhilD

I leave mine in the Home position all the time, mainly because that is how I have the LED fogs to come on as DRLs. Why Porsche do not have automatic headlights is a mystery to me.

sleepy

The LED lights are stock. My neighborhood streets were well lit so I didn't depend on headlights to see the road.

I've also wondered why we have no auto headlights but have rain sensing wipers... talk about priorities. Good call on just leaving the switch at "home"

997_Toronto

I learnt the hard way with leaving the lights on 'Home' because you walk away from the car with the lights on and I, like the hero I am, left the lights ON thinking they were on the 'Home' setting. 2 days later...D-E-A-D battery

Atleast I learnt how to open the frunk with a dead battery.

BrakingBad

I keep turning on the rear fog light.

The Cayman S procedure was to pull the switch halfway out for the front foglights and all the way out for the rear. I forget they are always on in the C4S.

Chaos

OMVI DWI

Minok

I just don't understand why this is that difficult.

Lights off: turn counterclockwise as far as it goes
Lights on: turn clockwise as far as it goes.

Use the intermittent positions only rarely and with specific intent and then verify its the position you want.

I'd argue the home position should not be there, it should be OFF-PARKING-ON.
You should be able to program if you want 'home' functionality in the PCM and the OFF position behaves as you set that to be, either immediate or delayed off.

BTW, the LEDs are DRLs, they are not fog lights (on the 997.2). There are no front fogs when you have the bi-xenons as they work well enough on beam pattern limitation and light output to not need front fog lights.

The bigger danger is all of the electric vehicles out there. I see way more cars driving with headlights off in the dusk/dark now than I did a decade ago. The vast majority of them are Prius. I suspect its because these cars come with screen driven control clusters, rather than analog control clusters that are illuminated. With the analog systems, you know you don't have lights because the dash and instruments would be black. In cars where the dash is always a display light up with color, day or night, you have a much harder time noticing you don't have headlights when driving around urban areas. Its only going to get worse.

Auto headlights are in my view, a bad idea, that teaches bad behavior. Drivers should be aware of and activate or deactivate the lights as necessary - the car cannot do so in a timely fashion. Eg the autosystems I see come on only after most cars are well into a tunnel, and sometimes needlessly. These drivers don't turn on headlights in the rain either typically.

The autowipers address a different thing. Yes, they can turn on the wipers when it starts to rain without your help, but the real benefit is in the changing rain conditions where you don't have to futz with the wipe frequency as the rainfall intensity changes.

sleepy

Minok, no it's not difficult, I just haven't developed that into a habit as I've owned my P-car for a couple months. It was entire my own fault to drive with parking lights on.

But I don't understand your argument regarding auto headlights vs auto wipers... shouldn't the driver be aware of the changing rain conditions as well? And I've always liked auto headlights because they usually turn on automatically in the rain instead of letting the drivers ignore them.

BrakingBad

It's not difficult, it's habit. The Cayman S and C4S have nearly identical light switches. For the past couple of years my night time driving procedure has been; turn switch to the right and pull. That muscle memory takes time to relearn.

kkswow12

it rains almost all the time here, but its only dark half the time

gpjli2

Heh heh. Is there a special option for Alaska then?

kkswow12

maybe a skeeter scraper ?

Minok

I guess my view of the difference between auto wipers vs auto headlights is summarized as follows:

Headlights: turning them on and off happens very infrequently in a given trip: either when it gets dark/light enough or when you enter/exit a tunnel or when weather requires the use of wipers. (Note that DRLs remove the requirement to turn on headlights when it starts raining or snowing or dust storming, so that requirement may be moot with today's models)

Wipers: you would have to turn the on and off frequently during a trip in may parts of the country/world where rain intensity is not consistent. That would require frequent distraction of the driver momentarily to turn wipers down or up.


I'm thinking (correct me if I'm wrong) that your and other's position is:

Headlights: the driver typically doesn't see them and thus isn't as aware of them being in the proper mode (on or off) so better to have the car automatically manage that.

Wipers: the driver sees them directly and would be more aware of the need to adjust the setting.



For the auto headlights, if they came on immediately entering tunnels and turned off when leaving, and prevented drivers from leaving them in high beam mode when driving, I'd be 100% behind you. I'm just opposed to having automated systems that the driver just becomes unaware of on their car and thus too often tends to not manually adjust when manual intervention is required (such as making sure high beam is off, or lights are on immediately or prior to entering a tunnel). When operators don't manually use a skill they tend to forget they need to do it. Its a problem with airline pilots relying too much on autopilot as well; they forget how to fly the airplane by instinct and in emergencies make bad maneuvers.