Thanks everyone. I will play around with that setting tomorrow. I was certain the headlights were also coming on but I got close enough to the car in front of my while going under an overpass and sure enough the head lights didn't change from the day running lights but the dash changed.

 

I've seen it too. It doesn't bother me in the slightest. However, I don't believe that it's just the dash. If the truck thinks that it is dark enough for night time mode, it is also switching on the parking lights.

I personally like that it's handling the change for me. I also like that it almost seems too aggressive in switching to night mode. It's a safety feature. A better term might be low-light mode. As an example, on a bright day, if I go into a dark area of a road and someone else is following me I don't want them to have trouble seeing my current position. I'm sure that the manual describes all of this clearly. My wife's Infiniti does this also. There is a dash brightness adjustment to the right of the main headlight control. One way to trigger the behavior intentionally is to drive under something like a bridge.

The switch occurs while driving and I haven't stopped the truck to get out and confirm my suspicions about the parking lights. Yet, now I'm going to dig through the manual.

 

Mine does it too... I've just gotten used to it. In the fall, it must have been where the sun was at my usual morning commute time, but it could be a sunny day, and if I'd drive by a line of trees shading the sun, it would trigger the lights, and they'd turn off as soon as I got back in the sun. Really sensitive and a lot of back and forth.

Not sure if I've just gotten completely used to them, or the level of sun is that different this time of year in the morning, but I don't notice them really any more.

 

I guess I need to dig into the manual as well. One more question, are the daytime running lights the same as night when your dial is set to auto? I've turned it from auto to on and I don't see any change in the intensity of the headlights. Are the daytime running lights the same intensity as night? I think Shake N Bake has a good point too, you'll know the headlights are on when the orange parking lights come on with the headlights. Next time it starts on and off I'll try to see if I can see them come on in a reflection from a car in front of me.