I'm suddenly having a problem with the Twilight Sentinel headlights operation on my 4 month old 2003 Seville STS.
On an intermittent basis, my Twilight Sentinel thinks that it's night during a bright sunny day and therefore the dashboard indicates "lights on" during the day. There is no physical blockage of the dashboard mounted photocell sensor(s) and my windshield is clean/clear.
Two days ago, the problem persisted for the entire day, during several short trips, but yesterday it seemed to be functioning normally.
I cycled through the twilight sentinel on and off and manually turning the headlights on and off, and during the bright daylight hours. When manually turning on my headlights, the feature programming display indicated "HEADLIGHTS RECOMMENDED". I also stopped and restarted the car several times with no luck and canceling this flaw or fault in the ability of the car to recognize daylight.
Because this new problem seems to be intermittent, I would appreciate any help in further diagnosing the problem.
Also, since taking delivery of my vehicle, there has been intermittent operation of the passenger mirror tilt-down feature while reversing the automobile - even though this feature is always on (via feature programming, and I only use one key/remote (the other key and remote are never used and stored away.) Sometimes the mirror tilts down while reversing, and sometimes it does not - even through multiple cycles of reversing while the engine is still on during the same automobile "trip". Again because this is an intermittent problem, it will be difficult to track down. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Of course, I realize that the dealer can and must "fix" these problems, but I would like to understand them better, before I make arrangements to leave the vehicle with them, and they start arbitrarily taking the car apart to find these intermittent problems.
... Also, since taking delivery of my vehicle, there has been intermittent operation of the passenger mirror tilt-down feature while reversing the automobile - even though this feature is always on (via feature programming, and I only use one key/remote (the other key and remote are never used and stored away.) Sometimes the mirror tilts down while reversing, and sometimes it does not - even through multiple cycles of reversing while the engine is still on during the same automobile "trip". Again because this is an intermittent problem, it will be difficult to track down. Any advice would be greatly appreciated...
pjm: My Cadillac is nowhere close to new as your's is. However, working in the auto industry, I've seen vehicles (usually luxury) that have the sideview mirror auto tilt down feature. If you notice approximately 4 circles on your rear bumper, those are sensors that pretty much judge if you're close to a curb or anything else. When it senses being close to any object the sensor tells the computer to tell the mirrors to tilt down to better view the curb or whatever is in it's path. So I don't know if that's THE prob/issue that you are having, but I'm just kinda stating the obvious, hoping it helps???
I'm suddenly having a problem with the Twilight Sentinel headlights operation on my 4 month old 2003 Seville STS.
On an intermittent basis, my Twilight Sentinel thinks that it's night during a bright sunny day and therefore the dashboard indicates "lights on" during the day. There is no physical blockage of the dashboard mounted photocell sensor(s) and my windshield is clean/clear.
Two days ago, the problem persisted for the entire day, during several short trips, but yesterday it seemed to be functioning normally.
I cycled through the twilight sentinel on and off and manually turning the headlights on and off, and during the bright daylight hours. When manually turning on my headlights, the feature programming display indicated "HEADLIGHTS RECOMMENDED". I also stopped and restarted the car several times with no luck and canceling this flaw or fault in the ability of the car to recognize daylight.
Because this new problem seems to be intermittent, I would appreciate any help in further diagnosing the problem...
another thing... I just looked as some other posts and saw one from "rnail" titled: "Twilight Sentinal on 2001 STS".... he had this to say:
"It seems that my car has rain-sense wipers. Evidently, the dealership had moved the wiper stalk to the intermittent mode, but since it was not raining, I did not know they were on. The owners manual states that if the wipers are on for more than 6 seconds and the Twilight-sentinel is on, that the lights will automatically come on. As soon as I turned the wiper switch off, the lights went off."
Let us know if this helps... It at least sounds like the same symptoms that you mentioned.
The problem may have been that I had rain-sense on and didn't know it; this kept the "headlights on" even during bright daylight.
I experimented by turning rainsense on during a dry and bright sunny day. Immediately, the windshield was swiped once by the wipers, then they went to rest, but a few seconds later, the "lights on" indication appeared on the dashboard.
As soon as I moved the wiper-controlling steering column stalk (lever) to off (one click down), the "lights on" indicator turned off.
Thank you again, for saving me an inconvenient trip to the dealership, where they probably would have spent a day dismantling my car trying to find and fix the problem.
The problem may have been that I had rain-sense on and didn't know it; this kept the "headlights on" even during bright daylight.
I experimented by turning rainsense on during a dry and bright sunny day. Immediately, the windshield was swiped once by the wipers, then they went to rest, but a few seconds later, the "lights on" indication appeared on the dashboard.
As soon as I moved the wiper-controlling steering column stalk (lever) to off (one click down), the "lights on" indicator turned off.
Thank you again, for saving me an inconvenient trip to the dealership, where they probably would have spent a day dismantling my car trying to find and fix the problem.
That's a really cool feature by the way. Another thing that will happen is if you have the Twilight Sentinal turned off, and the wipers are on more than 6 seconds, the "Headlamps Suggested" message appears in the information center. The first time this happened I was scratching my bald head thinking "how the heck does it know that?"
