Radio Touch Screen Display Dimmer

Ed Aufderheide · #1 (**permalink**) 08-08-08, 03:02 PM

On the 08 CTS there is a button on the center instrument panel, directly to the right of the hazard warning flasher button, that controls/dims the radio present buttons on the nav display (when the display is down). I understand that pressing it is supposed to cycle among three illuminations, bright (for daytime), auto, and dim (for night). When I press the button, it does seem to cycle. However, I only seem to get bright and dim (actually, one bright and two dim effects), no automatic. Can anyone immuninate me (no pun intended) as to how this is intended to work? Thanks.....

The_Judge · #2 (**permalink**) 08-08-08, 06:16 PM

Mine cycles through all three, but there's not much difference between "auto" and either "day" or "night," depending on the external light conditions. If the car is in a relatively bright area, auto is going to be very much like day; if it's in a relatively dark area, auto will be about the same as night.

The two dim effects you're seeing are actually night and the auto setting for wherever you are, which is apparently in your garage or someplace relatively dark.

You can verify this with the soft touch controls. Press the tone knob and then select display, and then brightness control. You should see a small sample map and three buttons, day, night, and auto. Press each of these and you'll see the differences in the settings.

Ed Aufderheide · #3 (**permalink**) 08-26-08, 01:45 PM

Thanks for the reply. I played with the settings again. While outside, in the sun and with the nav screen up and the settings screen displayed, I used the center console button to cycle among the settings. The day was bright; but the auto and night both were dark, unreadable. Bummer, I thought.

Then I used the touch screen buttons to select to auto setting and the display was brighter. Ummm. I lowered the nav display with the presets visible and drove into the garage. When the headlights/dash display changed (automatically) to the night mode and when the dash dimmed so did the nav/preset display.

So, there seems to be some difference between using the console button and the set up function. But, now I see the display working as I would have expected. My only gripe is that they didn't explain in better in the owners manual. But, what else is new.