It really would though . You can turn your lights on during the day , when the car is running or just the ignition turned on and the dash lights will not come on and they wont come on until the ambient light sensor thinks its dark enuff for them too ....then thru the BCM , the dash lights are enabled with a relay on the circuit board . If u disabled the auto headlights by tricking the ambient sensor with a resistor or a false light signal shining on it , your dash lights would not come on whenever the ignition was turned on . The light switch on the stalk only has full control over the dash lights when the key is turned off completely .

The best of all potential situations here is to find a dealer that will be willing to disable them thru the PCM with their Tech2 scanner . Its all just programming thru the BCM , you can order fleet Cobalts without DRL's or auto headlights enabled directly from GM . In the US disabling wouldnt be an issue , in Canada I can see a dealer not doing it because its a law .

GL

 

Us S10 drivers have known about using a resistor to trick the vehicle into thinking that its always daytime

 

Count me in the "I can turn the damn lights on myself thank you!" camp.

I park in a garage and every morning when I start up, this is what happens:

- Key in, turn, drl's come on until key hits start...drl's go off...starts....drl's come back on.
- Release the e-brake, and the auto headlights come on, low beam.
- Back out of garage...if it is light enough out, the auto headlights go off and the drl's come back on.

Bottom line, my high beams are getting 2 or 3 on/off cycles every time I start the car and the low beams could be getting 2 cycles....this is not the best for bulb life.

The resistor trick should work from what I have seen on other sites but my question is this.....how do you get at it? I assume it comes out the bottom, or is it snapped (like so many parts of our cars) into the dash from the top? Would make dicking with it much easier.

Gonna test SilverSS/SC's idea about the dash lights not working if the sensor is "tricked"....I'm guessing thats not the case but....will report back tomorrow.

 

There's an easy solution for guys that are really concerned about the life of their HID's or whatever, and want to retain automatic control of the dash lights which you will lose if you go tampering with that sensor. Just run your own wires and switch for the headlights and have the sunroof fuse or something trigger a relay so you won't forget them on. Complete manual control, no momentary power as you're starting the car, hell you can add another relay to the stock headlight wire so you could relinquish control to the ambient sensor at the flick of a switch.

If you want something done properly, you've got to do it yourself; switches and relays make it easy/cheap.

Now that I think about it... I wonder how easy it would be to get into the wires that actually go to the dash lights. Just run those directly to the running lamps and they'd come on when your running lamps are on regardless of it actually being dark enough. I'll finally have a Cobalt in a month or two and I'll **** around with the wiring to see what I can come up with.

 

Here is the link to my post about how to disable the auto headlights if you guys are still wanting to do this............
https://www.cobaltss.net/forums/electronics-audio-video-49/canadian-auto-headlights-bypass-solution-154636/

 

Or use the personalization menu in your driver info center.. the same way you reset your oil life, you can also set a bunch of goofy crap in there and i think one of them are the DRL's

 

Not on Canadian cars.

 

Reading > you

 

jump the terminals with a 1k ohm 1/2watt resistor and it will trick the car into thinking it is daillight all the time

this is weird, i have had no issues in my cobalt for the past year but when i did this mod to a vette the interior lights would never come on (car figured it was daylight and you dont need interior lights to come on) both were 07s

 

i dont know if this would help
i have hid in my car without high beams and when i push the light stick all the way to lock it down on high beams only the side orange lights come on and i will have no other light on
so what i did is i took a wire and connected it between the fuse for the fog lights and the drl fuse under my engine bay
so now my fogs are on all the time , and when u push the light stick all the way to lock it on high beams i will have only fogs and orange side lights on without any other lights at night
btw i live in canada