RearView Mirror AutoLight ?!?

[foxglove]

My new (to me) 2000 Explorer Sport has an elaborate rear view mirror with a wire attached to it. This is totally different from the simple Night/Regular mirror in my old Explorer. There's a sliding switch on the front of it that says Autolight or something, and the slider says Minimum - Maximum. As I slide the slider, it goes easily from left to right, and at the right a green light is lit, and I hear a switch or click over on the left where the dimmer wheel is. I see no difference in the mirror view however. What is this thing? What is it supposed to be doing? Can I just get a simple Night/Regular mirror? The glare from headlights behind me bugs me. I just want a normal mirror.

[Dr98]

Hello.

What you have is a " Auto Lamp Delay" mirror. You can set it to turn on headlights at night, shut them off automatically in the day and keep them on for up to 3 minutes after the key is turned off.

To set them-

1) Headlight switch is turned off-
2) Turn the ignition on or start the vehicle-
3) Move the slider all the way to the left-
4) The farther you move the slider to the right the longer the headlights will stay on after the ignition is turned off.
5) The autolamp automatically turns the lamps on and off. The indicator light will light up when the lamps are on.

Automatic dimmming feature-

The automatic dimming feature darkens the inside rear view mirror whenever the front ambient light sensor detects low outside light and glare reaches the light sensor (photocell), located inside the mirror. The electrochromic inside rear view mirror starts to return to the normal view once glare goes away.




1998 owners manual.

Dr98

[foxglove]

Well... what will they think of next? Thanks for this - I don't know if I would have figured this out on my own!

[Dr98]

Your welcome!

I think they over engineered a simple rear view mirror.


Dean