sidehill

I live in a gated community where the common courtesy is to not blind the gate guard with headlights at night. Is there any way to turn off the headlights for just a few seconds? Can the Automatic Mode be overridden at night? No matter which button I press, I can’t bring up the parking lights instead of the headlights, or just turn them off.

During daylight, I can turn on the headlights and Auto Mode goes off, but I can’t manually turn then off without pressing the Auto button.

This wouldn’t be a problem but the Cayenne defaults to Automatic at startup, and I can’t find any option to override that.

LSR

The car defaults to auto mode for the headlights whenever it’s started, and you cannot override that. But you can turn the headlights off by pushing the headlight button (top right, I believe, of the 4 buttons) continuously for 4 seconds. Then turn on the parking lights. If you drive for a few hundred feet, though, I believe the headlights will come back on. I may be wrong on a couple of the details, as I’m writing this from memory, but it’s all described in the owners manual.

sidehill

Thanks for the reply. Yes, the upper right parking light button will turn off all exterior lights if pressed for a couple of seconds, but not, in my experience, if the car is moving.

Daviddww

I have the same problem when loading the ferry boat. No matter what, the lights run back on at 5mph. Dealer says they can't do anything, which is frustrating because we get dirty looks from all the operators and they point out all the signs saying "parking lights only".

sidehill

I was told that not being able to override the auto headlights is new for the ‘19 models. Pretty stupid in my opinion. Driving at night is the only time I miss my Infiniti.

Daviddww

Need to find a hacker! Driving at night sucks because of the dash you can't dim too! Dangerous

sidehill

Agreed. Every other car I’ve owned had an easy way to adjust dashboard brightness. Either a dial or a couple of buttons.

Too bright panel lights and no way to dim them is a lawsuit just waiting to happen.

LSR

The instrument cluster can be dimmed, but not much. There is a setting in the PCM in the vehicle section, I believe. Unfortunately, the dimmest setting is barely dimmer than normal. At night, on a long drive home from a weekend trip, the glare of the instrument panel was very distracting. Wish Porsche would provide more dimming range.

BIG8

Even more stupid is, at least in my experience, the tachometer isn’t affected when dimming the digital instrument displays. It’s brightness level is fixed. Discussed this with my sales rep and he concluded that is indeed the case unless we’re both missing something.

LSR

Wow - never noticed that. I'll take a closer look next time. If that's the way things work, it's a strange design decision.

sidehill

The ‘18 Cayenne owner’s manual shows a little dial under the tachometer for adjusting panel brightness, but that dial is gone in the ‘19 owner’s manual.

And the index in the ‘19 manual shows “Instrument Panel:Adjusting Lighting - p142”. But there’s nothing at all about it on that page in my book. Only interior lighting.

Bad decision, Porsche. And bad proofreading too.

LSR

Well, I took a closer look tonight and, indeed, the tach is brighter than the rest of the instrument cluster that I had dimmed the maximum amount (but, in fact, hardly dimmed at all). I wonder whether Porsche even knows about this? It could be just another PCM bug. It seems rather odd to design the instrument cluster so that everything but the tach can be dimmed (even if just a little bit). My car's going into the shop Tuesday for recall AKB8 to reprogram the instrument cluster, and I think that would be an ideal time to raise this dimming issue. If it's a bug, the only way it'll get fixed is by opening a case with Porsche. So that's what I"m going to do. I'll post what I learn.

BIG8

Will look forward to hearing what your dealer says, LSR. The 2019 Cayenne is my first Porsche and while there’s much to like about the car I’m finding there are some pretty ridiculous oversights and design quirks. Another one, as has been discussed in this forum, is the inability to scroll through radio favorites/presets from the steering wheel. And while not a flaw, let’s not even talk about the most basic options standard on a Corolla for which Porsche makes you pay an extra arm and a leg. So far I’m not a fan. There’s more to the driving experience than power and handling. It should be considered a total and comprehensive package, and that includes common sense creature comforts.

Mech33

Agreed. Yet they dedicate separate buttons to placing a call and hanging up a call?

sidehill

As much as I love driving the e-hybrid, I’m getting a real bad reputation among the gate guards as “the guy who won’t dim his headlights”.

i did a lot of research before buying my first Porsche, but never in a million years would I think to ask “can you just have the parking lights on at night?”. Seriously, is there any other car that won’t let you dim your headlights?

And yes, I know you can turn off the headlights if you come to a complete stop, but how practical is that when approaching a gatehouse or driving onto a ferry?