Dusk Sensor

Those are daytime running lights. It is a safety feature; it makes your car more visible to other drivers during the day. It is required by law in the US for all cars made after a certain date.

You've just hit on one of the pseudo-religeous subjects of this group. The evangelists will tell you that you absolutely must drive with these lights on, and you have no business wanting a choice in the matter.

In the UK it is not (yet) an offence to drive in clear visibility without lights, and there is no clear evidence of any advantage in doing so. A recent European study found it did not reduce the likelyhood of being involved in an accident.

But this does not answer your question - there may be a way of turning them off, or at least down to the sidelight version of Day Running lights, but not having any knowledge of the V40 I don't know about it. One of the less sanctimonious posters here may help, or it may be worth phoning your local dealer and asking.

"Stewart Hargrave" skrev i meddelandet news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com...

Conservative Englishmen!

Why don't you just take out the lamps during

daytime and put them back when YOU need them.

Pepe

Jaguar XJS 6.0 Conv -95 (Summer car)

Jaguar XJ 40 Sovereign -94 (Winter car)

Thanks stewert, your email was very interesting and informative,

I expected to get a load of people taking the P**s out of me for being stupid

Very grateful

John

Thanks Marvin, thats cleared that up, however; does anyone know if this safety feature can be switched off, here in the UK we are the only drivers on the road that have our lights permanently on, and im fed up of telling people that i'm aware that ive 'left' my lights on :)

not very helpul of you Pepe, it was a perfectly civil question from a new Volvo owner

I am of a more moderate view, I like the low beam running lights for two reasons-

The first is I believe they make my car more visible under certain conditions.

The second is having the low beam lights (as opposed to reduced intensity high beams on some other brands) on all the time prevents forgetting to put them on at night (there are some truly stupid drivers out there).

Note that neither reason applies to you. The first is about my car, not anyone else's. As for the second, you definitely exceed the requisite intelligence to turn on one's own lights when it is dark :)

Here in the U.S., I get a discount on my auto insurance for having the daytime running lights enabled. It's not much, maybe $20/year but, if they're willing to give me a discount, I figure the safety advantage of enhanced visibility must be real. My only complaint is that it runs down the battery awfully fast if you turn on the ignition key without running the engine (for instance, during the several hours per month every Volvo owner spends tracking down electrical problems).

When I got my 850, they were disabled and I had to figure out the little screw setting to turn them on. It wasn't so tough, it's described in detail, with photos, in the owner's manual.

-RL