My 2007 Vantage had its 4 year dealer inspection/service a couple of weeks ago. Since the service the feature that automatically turns off the headlights in bright sun has stopped working. I took it back to the dealer thinking that some software upgrade was routinely performed and it somehow screwed up this simple feature. The technicians have not run into this issue before. They hooked up the computer and could find no problems or error messages. They were thinking that the light sensor that is located in the middle of the front dash may have for some reason failed or had some other issue. This strikes me as being unlikely, and I do not want to pay them to tear apart the dash for no good reason.
Has anyone experienced this issue or have any suggestions. Thanks

 

Never heard of a Vantage having this feature before. How is it supposed to work? And how would you disable it for those times that you need your headlights to be on in bright sunlight?

 

Yeah, never heard of this.

 

i've never heard of this either.

 

It's really not a hard fix, the dealer can datalog the switch and solar sensor with there AMDS. I've replaced a solar sensor before, for a like concern. With the lights on auto and in the sun, is "just" the headlights on, or are the headlights, parking lights on and gauages dimmed too??

 

OK, I know I can't be the only one confused by this. There is no mention in the 07MY or 08MY Vantage owner's manuals of an automatic mode. All references to the solar sensor pertain to the climate control and not the headlamps.

Starting in the 09MY Vantage owner's manual it explains that any adjustment to the instrumentation lighting dimmer only affects lighting levels during the twilight and night time hours and it uses the sensor for this. Again, no mention of this affecting headlamp behavior.

What are we missing here?

 

Sry, in Canada..the "On" position is auto mode for us (just a way we say it, does not write this on switch)..We have Daytime's, so we leave the switch in the "On" aka "auto" and never touch it when entering nor exiting. Lights are always on and with the switch in the "on" aka "auto" for us, just the dash/console lights are dimmed/brightend at request..just like the manual describes for all markets

..none the less, weither it states in the owners manual or not, doesn't mean the the solar is not used for the lighting. Aston does not explain all it's features ...it's like there ambient temp sensors, ever come across a faulty one ...the temp display isn't the only affected ..symptoms are(and not all will ocur): car doesn't start..alt doesn't charge..convert top doesn't work..trans doesn't shift..engine stalls .....that's not explained in the manual for ambient temp sensor operation.

 

Yes, but this is not what the original poster was claiming. He said the feature that automatically turns off the headlights in bright sun has stopped working since he took the car in for service. Even with DRLs I have never heard of this feature on a Vantage.

The way our headlamps work, if you leave the switch in the ON position, the lamps come on when you start the car and shut off when you shut off the engine. I have never seen where the headlights shut off automatically in bright sunlight and, apparently, neither have others. The Jag, however, does have this feature. You just leave the light switch in the AUTO position, and the car turns on the lights automatically whenever it gets too dark outside and shuts them off when it gets bright outside again.

I suspect that the original poster may be mistaken or did not explain himself clearly.

 

Ok see what your saying..wish I had one here to test, only have canadian spec cars right now which like we know have the drl's active..are you in a shop that can verify this, shine a flashlight on the solar sensor and see what happens??

 

My headlights aren't active either. They operate just as KF described. My BMW, however, has the "auto" lights and turn on and off in response to ambient light levels.

 

I know the old lighting system is the same as Volvo, like on the S40..don't know about 2009 onwards..not sure if ford allowed aston to use the volvo system or restrict them .. just like the heated front windscreen for 2009+

 

I was disappointed when I got my 2007 V8V and had to manually turn the headlights on and off. I have not had to do this in 25 years. Its safe to say the Brits are a little slow to grasp technology.

 

Not really the Brits per se. It's more Aston Martin and it's limited resources. The result is not having a lot of the "bells and whistles" common to many modern cars.

 

True about the limited resources, but frustrating when you see the amount of tech available on a new Ford Focus. It even has a parallel park-assist which was only available in a top of the line Lexus 2 years ago.

I don't necessarily want park-assist on my Vantage, but simple things such as a smart key would be nice on a $150K+ car when a sub $30K Hyundai has them.

 

I hear ya. It seems like these guys add the very least amount of techno gadgetry that they can get away with. What's funny to me is that cruise control was an "option" on the Vantage at one point (if it still isn't). Cruise control?! That's been standard on most cars (cheap and expensive) for how many decades now?