I ran into an interesting situation with my Girlfriend's car that got me thinking. We were at the drive-in theater in her Camry (My MINI hasn't arrived yet). As anyone who's ever been to a drive-in knows, headlights pointed at the screen or the cars in front of you are a major faux pas. The problem we had was that as long as the engine (and the A/C) was on, the headlights automatically go on when it's dark outside. We decided it wouldn't be horrible to just keep the car off and to go without A/C for a couple of late-night Arizona hours, but since we were using the radio to listen to the movie, every so often, we'd have to turn on the car for a while to assure that the battery would be charged enough so the car would start for us after the movie. It goes without saying that this angered the heathens in the H2 in front of us. I looked all over her Toyota manual and have come to the conclusion that the automatic headlight feature can't be defeated. Will my MINI be the same? I suppose in the MINI, I could turn the car around 180º and sit in the back, but this would still leave me shining the lights on the people behind me.
Thanks,
John

 

question .. did you have the E brake up.. on some cars MINI included (my 03 anyways) if the E Brake is up at the one click atleast it will defeat the auto light. Also will turn off all dash lights as well.

 

Are you talking auto dim or the Daytime running with the highs being at half power?
I do not have the auto on feature so I can't give you anything on that.

If it is the Daytime running option, there is no way to defeat it that I know of.
I tried the parking brake thing and it was a no go.
When I had my MINI in this past month I had that feature disabled.
Cheers
Shawn

 

I believe this is the way to do it on Toyotas too (at least, it works on my Matrix). You have to shut off the car, pull up the hand brake then start the car again....voila, no auto headlights until you release the brake.

 

I have an '06 with auto headlights. There is a position on the stalk for AUTO, OFF, P, and ON.

So in the MINI at least, you do not have to have the auto headlights activated.

In a previous car, if you had the E-brake engaged when you started the car the lights would not come on.

 

I have the auto lights and I have been able to turn off all the lights, while driving. It should be ok. I didn't try this with the e-brake on as I was moving.

 

The drive in theaters around here hand out paper to cover your lights and painters tape. Works great if they don't go off.

 

Our 2000 Camry lets you turn off the lights if they are on or turn them on if they are off. You just fiddle with the headlight switch, I think.

cube is right about the mini, but the I know our camry doesn't have distinct switch positions. It just 'assumes' for you....(and you know what they say)

 

That's a good question as I had the same issue w/ my DRLs at a drive-in a few weeks ago. I left the A/C off and sweated it out.

Also, I didn't start the car at all and left the radio on to listen to the movie ("Cars"). The battery was fine after the 2 hrs and the car started right up (we didn't stay for the 2nd movie but I imagine you could start up the car for a few minutes in between features without ticking anyone off.)

 

Someone posted a list of configurable options that are under the dealteship's control a while back, and I remember seeing that daytime run lights can be set to "OFF". My Mini does not run the lights in the daytime, nor do the headlights come on until I turn them on with how I'm set up, so if you're worried just ask the dealer to configure the lights for you when they set up your car.

 

Uh, why even bother with drive-ins?

 

I know with Vw's you can pull the ebrake, or to turn the DRL's off completely you can pull a fuse. Maybe the same with a MINI

 

Drive Ins are great! You can watch a movie AND still be in your MINI! The one around here closed last year and did not re-open this year.

 

for those interested..
http://www.driveintheater.com/list/nyork.htm

 

I'd be surprised if the drain from your radio, even over 2 hours, would be enough to drain your battery to any meaningful degree. I'd just try that sometime (barring any better solution) and if it doesn't work, well, you're surrounded by people sitting there in their cars, one of them can probably jumpstart you. :-p