I tried, but when I played it back , I had buggered it up! The end of the stalk has four positions it can be rotated to. From top to bottom, off , auto, sidelights , headlights. The last three , you can turn to and they will stay there. However, when you rotate it up from auto to off , you can feel a spring. You can reach 'off' but when you release it, it springs back to auto and stays there. Hope this helps!

 

When you first start the vehicle at night, look to the front and you will see the headlight beam sweep side to side. That is the range of motion of the adaptive lighting system.

 

First off, what country are you in; what year is your vehicle; and what trim level do you have?
When you turn it to off and it springs back, do the lights stay off until you start the vehicle again or does it immediately go back into auto mode? If the former, this might be a feature, but, if the latter, you might have a bad switch on the stalk. If a feature, it may be (probably is) trim and/or country dependent.

 

Canada and it's the very base model. We have only had the vehicle a short time and haven't driven it at night, but when it gets dark, I can go out and check what it does and let you know. Start the car, stalk is in auto, dipped headlights come on, twist stalk up to off and lights go off, I'm assuming the rear lights too, but stalk springs back to auto, but lights do NOT come back on. Go into reverse, back up lights and camera come on but no headlights, into drive and as soon as I move forward lights come on. Stop, twist stalk to off, lights go off. Switch off engine, all lights go off. Start car again and as stalk always goes back to auto, the lights come back on. It would seem that the only reason we can think of a reason why the off switch is there, is if it was dark, the engine was running and you wanted the lights to be off. like if you were a spy!

 

Being that it's Canada and you probably have worse granny bureaucrats than even we do, it may well be a way to keep you from turning your lights off and forgetting about it, but it sure doesn't sound right. If, at night, the lights come right back on when it kicks back into auto mode, my money would be on a bad switch.

 

I don't think all CX-5's have this feature though. It is for the higher end models

 

First of all, why wouldn't you just put it on "auto" and forget about it? That way you don't have to worry about it again. I use the auto high beams the same way. Just leave it on and you get high beams without needing to touch anything.

But, if for some reason you don't want to use the auto feature, just do a test yourself. Turn it to the different positions and walk around the car to see what is lit up. Pretty easy.

 

Mine does not do this. It stays where I put it.

 

So does mine and every other one I've seen. That's why I asked the questions. So, it's Canada and that might be different. It might be a new feature, but he hasn't tested how it operates at night yet.

 

Mine in Canada will stay where I put it in Auto, side lights, headlights. It will NOT stay in the OFF position, even though the lights go off and stay off. It will spring back to the auto position. I assume that yours can be turned to the OFF position and it stays there?