Just this morning i pulled up curb side to get a cup of coffee from Starbucks. I signaled right to pull into a curbside parking stall, parked, and shut off the car and noticed a warning message on the dash saying "parking light on" but couldn't figure what's up because my headlight switch was off. Walking back to the car, i noticed the right side parking light was still on and left was off. I was thinking "great, an electrical malfunction on my fine German automobile". (I'm familiar with electrical malfunctions on Mercedes, please don't ask me how i know...) I started the car and noticed my right turn signal was on so i turned it off and turned off the car and as i suspected the right side parking light was no longer on. Seems like a design oversight how the parking light will stay on if the turn signal is engaged while the car is off and locked.

 

It's a "euro feature" so when you park on those narrow streets you can leave the street side parking light on as a warning. It's been a part of 911's for as long as I can remember. Obviously not as important in "Hamster Town" with your wide streets.

 

wow!

I always wondered why it did that I knew there was reason behind it.


Thanks for clarifying, super Cool.

 

Yup, my '74 914 and '79 928 both do it too, so not just a 911 thing but a Porsche thing. Neither my '84 Saab Turbo nor my '90 Saab SPG did it though so it's not all euro cars, maybe it's a German car thing.

 

Interesting. I don't think it's a "German" thing because my lady's Audi doesn't do it and my prior German car's have not done it (but it's not something i've never really looked for in the past)

 

Wife's previous Benz and current BMW both do it. The Benz did it like Porsche with the switch, but on the BMW you hit the turn signal to turn the left or right with car off to turn the parking light on. Pretty sure Audi can do it too, but I don't think it's enabled by default, at least it's not on my A4.

 

I learned something new. I don't recall reading about this feature in the manual.

 

This has been a feature at least since the early 70's when I bought my first Porsche. I know other European cars have this feature too.

 

I stumbled on this one by accident myself but think it's pretty cool when I keep finding "new" features I did not know about. Not that I can think of a time I would intentionally use it. Saw my neighbours Cayenne parked in the driveway with the same thing going on, went and told him, he didn't know either but was thankful he didn't leave it on all night.

 

pretty sure most people find out by accident and think something is wrong with the car - happened to me the same way