Engine off, lights on
 

Hey everybody,

My 09 370z has started this behavior where I turn the car off, everything is shut down, I lock it up and leave it for a while. When I come back to my car, the tail lights and day time running lights are on.

It doesn't seem like the lights are on for long periods of time, since this issue has yet to drain the battery, but it seems like the lights are possibly triggered by proximity with the key fob.

What's weird is I've had my Z now for just over a year, and this has only started happening as of last week.

Does anybody know what's causing this or if I can disable it?

Thanks for the help.

If you can figure out how to turn this function on that would be awesome. I would love it if my car would light up when I get close to it. Esp at night.

As far as I know there is no option to change that. I liked other vehicles where you hit the unlock button on the fob and the headlights would illuminate for a set period of time, but no dice on that part. I think you can only really change the lights flashing and the horn sounding.

So I'm not 100% convinced it's triggered by proximity. I have yet to prove that. It's just a theory at this point.

However, the biggest issue I have with this is that the lights don't turn off. For example, last night, the car has been parked in my garage and the lights were on all night. It's still not enough to drain the battery, but I'm worried that if I were to leave the car for a few days, that it would drain the battery.

I think I might take it to the dealership today and ask them what's up.

Headlight set to auto?

Sounds like your lights are set to running rather than auto.

The main light switch is set to off, not auto. And the headlights aren't on, just the daytime running lights and the tail lights.

The 370 has daytime running lights? Mine doesn't have them.

required by canadian law

Ya, I was required by law to install them after market. Luckily Nissan dealerships in Canada commonly install them into cars that come from the states.

So just to tie things up here, looks like the DRLs are malfunctioning (or the install was botched). Unfortunately, this didn't start happening until 1 year after they were installed, so the DRL warranty is up.

I've disabled the DRL module by disconnecting it from the battery. I'll re-enable when I need to pass safety, and in the meantime, hope I don't get pulled over for not having them on.

Have you tried disconnecting the battery for a few minutes? You will lose radio presets and will probably have to reset the windows, but it may clear up the problem.

Just drive with your lights on all the time. That is what I do. They turn off after a set period of time once the car is turned off, same with the cabin lights. Then like you said enable it when you get inspected and disable it when you get home. Then go back to driving with your lights on all the time. I do it for the shear safety reason, not that I am required to.