Buick Regal dash light question

christina6593christina6593 Member Posts: 1
edited November 2016 in Buick
hello, I have a 1999 Buick Regal and the dash lights turn on without the headlights being on. 
Are the dash lights automatic somehow that they know to turn on by themselves?
it wasn't at night it was just cloudy. I am concerned because I had a drivewise installed
and it started having electrical problems and the mechanic said it was the drivewise
But I have noticed on here that there are a lot of people having electrical problems with
regals that don't have the drivewise. But their problem seems to be the opposite and their's don't 
work at all. After a few minutes the dash lights turned off on their own but 
then I stopped to get gas and when I started the car back up the lights came on again. 


Please let me know.
Thank you,
Christina

Answers

  • imidazol97imidazol97 Member Posts: 27,540

    I have a 1999 Buick Regal and the dash lights turn on without the headlights being on. Are the dash lights automatic somehow that they know to turn on by themselves?
    it wasn't at night it was just cloudy.

    There is a sensor on top of the dash that tells the system when the light is bright enough to switch from headlights to just the Daytime Running Lights. When that happens the dash lights go off and the radio light on the dial will be bright so it's visible in the daylight.

    What is sounds like happens is when it's darker than normal daylight, or the daylight comes at a low angle in the sky, the sensor thinks it's dark enough to turn the DRL's off and turn the headlights on. When that happens, the dash lights come on and ARE ADJUSTABLE WITH THE DASH CONTROL FOR THEIR BRIGHTNESS. That's how you can verify that the headlights are on and that's why the dash lights are on.

    Note that when that happens the radio dial light dims from its normal daylight setting. It adjusts with the brightness control for your dash lights. That's another way to tell when the headlights do come on.

    My 08 Cobalt is very sensitive and turns the headlights on even when the daylight is moderately bright. With a very heavy overcast like you mentioned, the headlights will turn on along with the dash lights coming on.

    Good luck. Sounds like it's normal. The Allstate Drivewise should not change anything; it just reads data from the computer through the plugin that is under the dash.

    2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,

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