New 2010 F150. Is it designed that the headlights may be on, but the dash lights are not? Sometimes my headlights are lit, but the dash lights are not. Is this normal?

 

That depends on the dimmer control. If they're set to come on, they should always come on with the headlights.

 

If your daytime running lights are on, I don't believe the dash lights come on, the only come on when you manually turn the headlights on

 

Stopped by my local Ford dealer and most of them were also stumped. Finally found a tech who had run across this issue before and after many calls to Ford engineers, found out that the headlights and dash lights are on 2 separate sensors. There is no adjustment for either one and there is no way to "link" them together. Also found out that I can have 2 (more ??) different cell phones linked to my Sync system. One would be the primary and a call to it would override someone using the secondary. Ahh, a better idea indeed!

 

i personaly have my dash lights at the lowest setting possible... all the time! (off during the day)

I think that at night they are way to bright..... I would actually like to turn them down even more..... but it won't let me..

 

do what I do....put a hat or other object over the sensor in the middle of the windshield.
Dash lights come on whenever the headlights are on, this way.

 

Where exactly is this sensor located and is it on the inside or outside of the windshield?

 

Should be under the surf board interior piece on the dash. pop it up and unplug it.

 

One solution is to do the reverse of what myself and other have done. Those of us who did not get auto headlights can install the headlight switch that has the auto setting and the sensor, and that gives us auto headlights. Unfortunately, the way it works is that the headlights and dash lights will come on when the sensor reads low light -- as expected. The weird part is if you manually turn on your headlights, the dash lights won't necessarily come on since they are still slaved to the sensor. If it's still bright out, they won't come on.

 

Inside, see attached pics.