White dashboard lighting too dim all of a sudden?

I hope this is a false alarm, but I thought my white daytime dash (I have the extended one) was not as white and bright as it usually is, but much more dimmed. Don't confuse that with nighttime orange lighting please. I've tried the dash light intensity knob to no avail (in fact it did not change the intensity of the white lighting at all, does yours?? I'd appreciate a quick check.)

Am I seeing things, are something happened to my dash? I could swear they were visibility more white and bright before. Last night was the first time I left the car unlocked overnight in the garage so I hope this is in no way related.

Anyone?

You're probably just getting used to it. Crazy how that happens.

It helps to have a beater lying around that reminds you as to how vibrant the lighting in your 5 might be in comparison when you get in it.

For the standard dash white has no illumination for daytime if you drive under bridge,garage ect. and lights are not set to auto dash will be dark
phone

As far as I know there is no back lighting for the instruments when in daytime mode.

I have the extended dash (black panel) which lights up when you get into the car. This morning, to my relief, the dash is nice and bright white once again. I am dead certain it was too dim yesterday morning. I don't think I was seeing things (or not seeing them for that matter). I've also noticed that the dimmer works (surprise) with a delay! You turn it and it gradually changes the orange intensity (at night), not immediately. I have not tried the dimmer in daylight with white illumination, but I presume maybe my setting was down yesterday (not sure how though, I never touched it) when I saw the dimmed white panel, and when I turned the intesity up, I did not patiently wait long enough (about 1s) to see the effect?? It seems alright today after I messed with the dimmer last night, so whew, what a sigh of relief...

Originally Posted by PsychDoc1

As far as I know there is no back lighting for the instruments when in daytime mode.

Extended black panel does.

I don't know if this is applicable to the F10, but the panel in my some of my previous VW and Audi vehicles were backlit during the day and the intensity of the backlighting was controlled with an ambient light sensor. When I swapped the instrument cluster in my VW CC for a European version with a color multifunction display I at first thought I did something wrong with coding or otherwise. If it was cloudy, or I drove through a dark spot (tunnel, etc) without my headlights in auto mode, the panel would completely fade to black leaving only the needles illuminated.

When I queried VW they said to me that it's normal and is a safety feature to a certain extent. If you can't see the markings you'll hopefully realize you need to turn your headlights on.

Was it cloudy yesterday?

Originally Posted by wdimagineer

I don't know if this is applicable to the F10, but the panel in my some of my previous VW and Audi vehicles were backlit during the day and the intensity of the backlighting was controlled with an ambient light sensor. When I swapped the instrument cluster in my VW CC for a European version with a color multifunction display I at first thought I did something wrong with coding or otherwise. If it was cloudy, or I drove through a dark spot (tunnel, etc) without my headlights in auto mode, the panel would completely fade to black leaving only the needles illuminated.

I don't remember and it wouldn't matter as I've had the car for 6 months now and things were fine - BUT I was thinking the same thing.... That some external light sensor got dirty and fooled the computer into dimming my illuminated dash. I just have to see if the dimmer affects the white daytime dash. If so, mine was probably on the lowest setting and I didn't wait when I turned it up. If while dash is not dimmable, though, then we might have ourselves a problem... (potentially if it persisted on a random basis). I hope it was the dimmer though.

Originally Posted by wdimagineer

I don't know if this is applicable to the F10, but the panel in my some of my previous VW and Audi vehicles were backlit during the day and the intensity of the backlighting was controlled with an ambient light sensor. When I swapped the instrument cluster in my VW CC for a European version with a color multifunction display I at first thought I did something wrong with coding or otherwise. If it was cloudy, or I drove through a dark spot (tunnel, etc) without my headlights in auto mode, the panel would completely fade to black leaving only the needles illuminated.

When I queried VW they said to me that it's normal and is a safety feature to a certain extent. If you can't see the markings you'll hopefully realize you need to turn your headlights on.

Was it cloudy yesterday?

There have been a couple of threads addressing this issue. Refer to http://www.bimmerfest.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=577227

I find it interesting that the issue of "automatic variable daytime white backlighting" on the instrument panel continues to resurface on the forum. It is particularly relevant to those who purchased F10's (and similarly equipped vehicles) with the partial black panel display. The over-riding safety concern, imo, is maintaining the legibility of the entire instrument display/gauges in all types of ambient daylight conditions, and not so much a reminder to turn-on headlights only when it is difficult or impossible to read the instrument numbers in dim or dark conditions. On vehicles equipped with sentinel lighting, the external headlights normally will engage, anyway, under diminished ambient lighting conditions. The issue, here, is also to have legible daytime white backlighing engage on the instrument panel under these conditions. The amber backlighting on the display, however, works very well at nighttime and under very dark ambient light conditions.

I've confirmed this twice more in the recent weeks (my original post). Sometimes when I pull out of my garage in the morning and it's cloudy, the computer will somehow mistakenly dim the white dash lights (extended) into a barely visible, darker tone of gray, making the dash look not only less clear but very unattractive and "dead" in a way (or like it's dying). The red temperature display on the climate control on the central console is also much darker and almost invisible.

When I go to my car at lunch and start it up, things ususally return to normal but a simple ingnition off and on does not quickly fix it.

This is a problem, I've observed it three times by now - anyone else noticed that? Adjusting the illumination knob does not help (and why would it, since I did not change my settings to begin with).


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Originally Posted by yogi799

I've confirmed this twice more in the recent weeks (my original post). Sometimes when I pull out of my garage in the morning and it's cloudy, the computer will somehow mistakenly dim the white dash lights (extended) into a barely visible, darker tone of gray, making the dash look not only less clear but very unattractive and "dead" in a way (or like it's dying). The red temperature display on the climate control on the central console is also much darker and almost invisible.

When I go to my car at lunch and start it up, things ususally return to normal but a simple ingnition off and on does not quickly fix it.

This is a problem, I've observed it three times by now - anyone else noticed that? Adjusting the illumination knob does not help (and why would it, since I did not change my settings to begin with).


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My 2012 did it yesterday - I'm not sure what "White lights" you are referring to, but in my case it appeared that everything that would dim at night went into the night time (head lights on) mode. I could hardly read the navigation or any information under the gauges. I was actually driving into a very bright sunlight. It seemed to fix itself after a few miles. This is the first time it's done it (car has about 1600 miles on it now).

Mine did this for the first time this past weekend.

Bright sunny SoCal day, and everything on the dash (analog gauge needles and LED stuff) went into a dim gray. It stayed that way throughout the drive, unresponsive to any brightness controls. Problem went away on its own after the car was parked for a couple hours. It was a dim enough gray that it was pretty hard to see anything without taking my eyes off the road and staring at the display.

My car: Feb 2012 build 550i w/HUD (black panel), about 3200 miles.

The only other glitch the car has had was also with the display: all odometer info disappeared during one drive last month. It returned later that day and has stayed since.

Ok, so it's not just me. By "white lighting" obviously I meant the illumination of all the white elements on the dash. It does not seem to go in the night mode 'cos night would be orange, just this weird gray that makes it very faint and almost hard to read. Same with the red temp displays (climate control). Hmmm... If Feb 2012 build does that, it means that a software update is of no use to me... Mine is July/Aug '11.

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Just happened again, this time a morning on a sunny day, car was parked in the garage. OK, that's too much.... And why is the illumination knob completely non-responsive?

Happening to me as well, and I do not have the black panel. Just had the car detailed so wonder if they put something on the sensor, although that does not make much sense to me. Any idea where it might be located.

Here are some screenshots (1: problem, 2: OK). In reality the darker tone is really much darker, looks so faint like it's about to die, you can see a bit from the pics. Happened 4-5 times in the last 8 months, 2 of which in the same week.