I think the OP is referring to the coin-sized light sensor located to the left of the defroster vent next to the windshield.
If it detects ambient light below a certain threshold, it turns your lights on automatically, without turning the dial for lights on the turn signal stalk.
I
love this feature because I never actually "turn on" my lights; I let the light sensor handle it. This way I can never forget to leave the lights on when parked and come back to a dead battery. (Which I actually managed to do once when a valet actually "turned on" my lights; despite that there's even an "idiot buzzer" reminding you about the lights if the lights are on but the key is out of the ignition.)
However, I've also been to "star parties" (i.e. astronomers viewing the sky together) to view the
Leonid meteor shower on a particularly frigid November night, and you
cannot have your car lights on at these events (since the whole point of a telescope is to collect dim light from far away). With the automatic lights, I realized how this feature can become a bug -- there's no way to turn off your lights without the whole car being off. (So much for warming yourself up in the car for 15 minutes!)
Frankly, there should be an override button. A really solid solution, if you have an 01-02, would be to get the old defrost switch from the 98-00 models (the one that's opposite of the 4-way hazard lights button) and wire that up so that when it's depressed, the circuit for the light sensor is interrupted, and all the lights are
off even with the car running or set to battery-only.
Linear Mode
