I have a one week old 2023 Prius LE. I interpret the manual to say the dash lights should stay in day mode if the tail lights are on and the surrounding area is bright. I like to drive with the headlights on all of the time. When I turn the headlights on during the day time the dash lights go dim. The dimness adjustment buttons will not brighten the dash lights back to a daytime brightness. This seems to contradict the manual. Do any of you have experience with this?
Daytime running lights is an option, but on the LE it's only lower bright headlights, not including the 'claw' lights. The claw lights are only DRL's on the XLE and LTD. The only way to get the Claw Lights on is with the full headlights.
See this, on page 93 of 2023 Prius North American Owner's Manual: No mention of an override, that just pushes the dash to full daytime brightness. That said, on page 184 of (our) 2010 Prius North American Owner's Manual, there's this: Which also makes no mention of such an override, but it exists: you roll the wheel up to the top, and that'll be fairly bright, and get brighter/dimmer dependent on ambient light conditions (sensor in the dash detects light levels). Regardless of the lack of explanation in the manual, the override is there: you roll the wheel to the top, where there's resistance, then push through that resistance, then you're in full brightness, locked. Hopefully this hasn't been overlooked in the '23.
The way I read the manual is the dash should not go into night mode unless the tail lights are on and it is dark outside. What is actually happening is the dash is going into night mode when the tail lights are on and it is full sunshine outside. If there is an override, I can't find it. I have done all but push that little button through the dash to make the dash lights brighter when the tail lights are on. Perhaps this is a shortfall of the LE model.
The manual says the brightness will adjust when the surround area is either bright or dark. So there should be a sensor somewhere but the manual doesn't mention the sensor. So I'm assuming it uses the same sensor for the auto headlights? If the sensor is inside the cab, where would it be?
The sensor appears to be on the dash on the passenger side. I shined two bright led flashlights at the sensor in daylight to see if that did anything and it didn't help. The LE model does not have auto headlights. There may be a software issue. The dealer is not close to me at all. The LE model seems to have a very different approach to headlights and DRL than the higher level models. I am a baby boomer. The screens controls are not intuitive to me at all. Even with the manual in hand I have spent too much time setting up the screens the way I want them and trying to understand the Android Auto interface. A younger person would probably have not trouble figuring it all out.
This is functioning as described on my European mid-spec (XSE equivalent, ish). The headlights and tail lights will come on automatically fairly readily in murky conditions (with the default middle sensitivity of 5 settings), but the dash and multimedia screen will stay in day mode until it gets darker. And I'm not 100% certain, but I think manual headlight activation has also not put it into night mode in the daytime. Checked the original Japanese manual, in case there's anything missing from ours, but it's the same. Sensor would be here: It does rather make sense that if you don't have auto headlights you wouldn't have a light sensor to implement any sort of light-based dash control. In which case omitting a way to get day mode manually would be an error.
