Why are the Screens in my Prius Dimming?

Yes, it is normal. The displays dim when you turn on the headlights. Try it yourself. On cloudy days the auto lights will go on and off as needed.

 

I notice mine goes dull when I drive under a wide overpass, it must think it's night-time and turns the lights on. I've noticed other cars headlights come on and off on a similar pattern.

 

Believe you can go to max on the brightness adjust on the bottom left panel. Should click into the max position.

 

Except on my Three model

Sometimes I manually turn on my headlights during the day... such as when I'm on the crazy freeway, or it's very overcast. All my screens and Nav map stay nice and bright. (Don't ask me how.) The only thing that changes to "night mode", is the Nav, and only at night.

 

You probably have the little wheel that controls the brightness clicked all the way to the top. This locks it at the brightest setting, at least in my gen 3

 

Note to add: Does driving a Prius confuse the heck out of anybody else? Or is it just me?! Maybe it's because I'm a first-time Prius owner. A few days ago, I experimented with turning off all the display screens. I found myself getting distracted by them. I was watching all the pretty little "Eco" functions, and the Nav screen more than I was watching the road!

Now, when I look at the dashboard, all I see on the left screen is the speedometer, gas gauge, and odometer (just like my Camry was.) And the screen just to the right of that, I have set on the compass. (couldn't turn it completely off.) I really don't need all those dancing Hybrid display lines... I can tell just by sound and feel when to back off on the gas pedal, and the car goes into EV.

And of course the large Nav screen was easy to turn off in the settings function. I'm just experimenting; To find out what I need up there, and don't want/ need. I guess I'll always be a simple Camry driver at heart... I just want to start the car, drive the car, and park the car, and not be concerned about (or distracted by) a lot of bells and whistles and gauges and displays and moving lines and graphs, etc.

Yes, I know. I'm not your typical Prius owner. I will ban myself, and turn in my secret decoder ring.

I thought of that. It's not clicked on high. And the screens DO dim at night. I think I also saw a screen-dimming adjustment function when going through the settings. I'll have to check again.

 

There might be a setting in there. Now I'm curious if it's there on my gen 3

 

Works as always.

 

I'm not familiar with "auto dimming headlights", or why it is necessary. Is that something that comes with the Advanced Tech Package? (Living in the city, I never have a need to put my high-beams on.)

And regarding the screens dimming, which screens are we talking about. The 2 small screens up on the top of the dashboard? Or the larger center-stack Nav screen? I just went out to my car at 3am. My Nav screen changes to a black background at night, but doesn't actually get more dim. And the 2 small screens up top never "auto dim", regardless if it's day or night. Adjustment knob is set at medium.

Maybe my car is different because I don't have the ATP. But that's fine, I like everything as simple as possible. (Old-School guy here. Less stress--Less mess--Less repairs.) I can turn on my lights and wipers all by myself, thank you. My opinion isn't worth a nickel, but I think the Prius is much more complicated than it needs to be. All those screens to scroll thru, and settings changes to make, and all the various Eco displays... And now you add in all the cell phone stuff, and texting, Bing, Google, etc,, It's no surprise that distracted driving is now the #1 cause of wrecks.

 

I think TOYOTA has named it wrong. It should be "AUTO LOW BEAM" - because you have to manually select HIGH beam, and then it AUTO turns it to LOW BEAM. OK - it then turns it back to HIGH when there's no traffic around.

 

Found the thread.

Ok had a long trip and the high beams seemed to not click on as they should on a back road. I had just waxed the car and wonder if that could affect it or the moisture in the air? after a couple of hours they worked fine.

However, they need to trip off sooner. Is there an adjustment anywhere for these?

 

I worry about the same things. That's why I don't even try to fiddle with anything once I"m on the road. I do use the hockey stick version of the battery/engine charging picture because it is less entertaining. Oh, and that is in the HUD, right next to the speed limit. When I do my long road trips at night, I'll do what I can to defeat as many of the internal screens as possible. The HUD is pretty much all I need. I do listen to audio books but I set those to play before I get on the freeway and don't mess with the controls until I get off the freeway.

The lane departure alert is beating me up at the moment for being such a lousy driver. It even suggests I take a break and get a cup of coffee. No kidding. I may disable that for most driving scenarios and just use it on freeways. But it is pointing out how loose I am about staying within the lines in my mountain area. I'll leave that on for now until I get used to the other features.

 

Did several drunk test simulations on a back road and it is a great safety feature as it tries to keep you on the road. Wish it worked at 32MPH and below as that is when I get sleepy.

 

I notice the Lane Departure beeps at me when I go past some bus-stops. They often narrow the road and widen a bulge for the bus to stop, meaning that the side marking gets closer to the car. Yes, I've noticed it on mountain roads, and also approaching narrow bridges. But I'd rather leave it on for the time I NEED it to remind me of something.