Yes. You need to twist the headlight stalk every time you want the active high beams activated or they will cancel themselves every time you turn-off/turn-on the vehicle. You will see a beam icon pop up on your tach screen when you twist the knob, and it turns blue when the active high beams are actually in operation.

 

Also if you have active high beams on and you manually flip the high beams on that also will deactivate them.

 

That's correct. You can make adjustments to their sensitivity, but they do require engagement for each drive if you want to use em. Here in our area they really don't work well with so many twists and dips in the road I always feel like I'm blinding someone using them. Has been the case from 2016 with the SPA/CMA cars.

 

Huh, interesting. Does anyone know why this is the case?

I just upgraded from a Mazda CX-5 and "auto" included auto high-beam control and it was pretty seamless to the point where I never didn't want it on. It was convenient to never have to "think" about whether or not I wanted high or low beams.

 

I cannot think of a reason why this feature won't be a "turn on once and forget" feature, but being an (almost) everyday user of the active high beam function, it has become second nature to twist the knob everytime I see the headlights turn on while driving, so it doesn't bother me anymore. I can't imagine it being a safety feature, but then again, I might be short-sighted.

 

I went back to the product guide for '16 for clues.... they show a September 2015 "Removal of Active High Beam with gradual dimming" as not on cars with US specification. I think that's the system though that dims certain areas of the light pattern to keep high beams on but not blind others. A good deal of US automotive design and style through the decades goes to US light code (which frankly often is behind the times of the available technology of the time). I believe that law has been changed, but honestly it's hard to keep up with.

It might have to do with liability... if the system isn't perfect (it's not) and a motorist has their high beam lights on closer than is allowed by law, and the system defaults to on, then the manufacturer is liable for the infraction. If the customer turns them on then it's the customers responsibility if they aren't turned off at the right time. That's just my speculation though.

 

There is a lot of confusing terminology.

What you describe is what many other manufacturers call matrix lights. Those are available elsewhere in the world since 2010, but not yet in the USA. I think Canada now allows them (it is a recent change... perhaps 9 months ago or about). I had a 2016 XC90 D5 in Italy with matrix lights and it was a delight.

In the USA, we get those "auto high beams" that Volvo calls in many ways ("auto" and "active" seem to be both used in their marketing material, which is confusing, because in Europe they call matrix lights "Active"). To go back to the OP's point, they do not stay on. Frankly, I don't see how that would be desirable - I am sure everyone's experience varies, but I do not find them responsive, or precise enough to leave always on.

US legislators need to really wake up on those matrix lights. But, as long as it helps European car manufacturers more than American ones, I would not hold my breath... I think there is a lot of protectionism, behind some of these "safety" rulings.

 

Thanks for the replies. Yeah, I think the liability argument is bull**** (because most other manufacturers default to auto = auto high beam control) but Volvo has always been on the more conservative side of issues like that, so I suppose it's viable.

 

Not true, maybe for Japanese or US cars
Audi and BMW have to be activated in a similar way as on Volvo

 

The active high beams will also cancel if you have them on and you flip the high beams manually, say if an oncoming car has his high beams on and doesn't have the curtesy to dim his.

 

The general philosophy of volvo is to turn off a lot of features each time you get out of the car. At times, it is a bit annoying and counter intuitive.

Ideally, you'd like to have so this as options in SENSUS.

The main advantage of the current setup is that the switching on and off of the brights can be annoying and confusing to the eyes under some circumstances. With the setup now, I tend to enable it under very specific circumstances (like driving in a dark side road in the mountains). Essentials, I use that switch mostly in circumstances what I might otherwise use the brights.

Part of the vehicle's general quirkiness, which I admittedly enjoy.

 

So I am unclear on this active highbeam feature. In my new car when I first got it, I set it to have the high and low beams go on and off automatically depending on traffic. Are you saying that I need to set up this feature every time I drive?

It has been so long since I enabled it, I have forgotten how I did it.


Nora in Florida
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So I am unclear on this active highbeam feature. In my new car when I first got it, I set it to have the high and low beams go on and off automatically depending on traffic. Are you saying that I need to set up this feature every time I drive?

It has been so long since I enabled it, I have forgotten how I did it.

Nora in Florida
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If you have your lights set to auto that really just means your running lights area always on and when it gets dark the low beams will turn on. The high beams will never turn on by themselves in any mode. You have to either manually turn them on by pressing forward on the light stalk or rotating the light selector up to auto high beams. When you turn the auto high beams on, the rotator will rebound back to the auto setting but you'll see a white high beam light in your dash with an "A".... if conditions were already right for high beams, or after those conditions are met the icon will be blue and the high beams will be on.

 

Yes you have to turn on the auto high/low beams every time you start the car. On the left hand steering wheel stalk, just rotate the light switch....it will spring back to the auto position.

 

Thank you countryguy and DFrantz. I appreciate the information. The salesman gave me the wrong info. I have been driving around for eight weeks thinking I had the high beams in auto mode.


Nora in Florida
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Thank you countryguy and DFrantz. I appreciate the information. The salesman gave me the wrong info. I have been driving around for eight weeks thinking I had the high beams in auto mode.

Nora in Florida
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One of the many reasons this is silly! I wonder how many people are driving around after coming from US/Japanese manufacturers without ever using their high beams.

 

Thank you all so much. I’ll add this to the list of things I do every time I drive. Activate individual mode, activate pilot assist, and now activate auto highbeam.


Nora in Florida
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Thank you all so much. I'll add this to the list of things I do every time I drive. Activate individual mode, activate pilot assist, and now activate auto highbeam.

Nora in Florida
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Why in the world are you activating pilot assist every single time you start the car? Ditto individual mode.

As for the auto highbeam, my honest opinion is that it is best to leave it off. The XC60 is aggressive about switching to high beam. So, when I use it on normal city streets, its like going to a dance club with a strobe light. I keep it off except for when I really need my brights.

 

It bothers me more that every time I park the vehicle in the garage I must move the left-hand stalk switch forward toward the instrument panel and release.
All the others have implemented it via the light sensor, only in the main menu you select the time how long the lights will work: 10, 20, 30, 40 s

 

Well, there has been some serious change to lighting regulations, because Audi brought the new RS6 Avant in with laser headlights. A few manufacturers had been waiting on this in past years.

 

Thank you Walkabout and Afrosheen. Yes I definitely need some more sessions at the dealer. I have had two so far. It is a steep learning curve for me. I am 70 years old and I have been driving a 1996 Volvo. So everything is brand new. The salesman is very willing to meet with me as many times as I want. And the service department has been excellent. I have seen them twice since purchasing the car, once for the Polestar tune and the other time to fix the drivers door handle. For both visits I had very nice loaner cars. The first visit I actually had a 2021 S 90 R design with HC audio.

I don’t turn on pilot assist every single time I drive. But since it is a new feature I do use it whenever I can to practice. Same with individual mode. I ordered the Polestar tune and I am enjoying driving in different modes to compare fuel economy and driving performance.

I will have to see how I like the Active headlight mode. I had assumed it was automatically on all the time. So apparently I have been driving for two months continuously in low beam. From what you guys say I may not even need highbeams. I will just have to test it out here and see. I certainly don’t want to blind oncoming traffic, but some of the roads I drive on regularly in the early morning do not have street lights and do not have good markings at all. And I need to learn the new terminology for low beam and highbeam. I can’t recall it right now but I’m going to look it up in the manual.


Nora in Florida
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Thank you Walkabout and Afrosheen. Yes I definitely need some more sessions at the dealer. I have had two so far. It is a steep learning curve for me. I am 70 years old and I have been driving a 1996 Volvo. So everything is brand new. The salesman is very willing to meet with me as many times as I want. And the service department has been excellent. I have seen them twice since purchasing the car, once for the Polestar tune and the other time to fix the drivers door handle. For both visits I had very nice loaner cars. The first visit I actually had a 2021 S 90 R design with HC audio.

I don't turn on pilot assist every single time I drive. But since it is a new feature I do use it whenever I can to practice. Same with individual mode. I ordered the Polestar tune and I am enjoying driving in different modes to compare fuel economy and driving performance.

I will have to see how I like the Active headlight mode. I had assumed it was automatically on all the time. So apparently I have been driving for two months continuously in low beam. From what you guys say I may not even need highbeams. I will just have to test it out here and see. I certainly don't want to blind oncoming traffic, but some of the roads I drive on regularly in the early morning do not have street lights and do not have good markings at all. And I need to learn the new terminology for low beam and highbeam. I can't recall it right now but I'm going to look it up in the manual.

Nora in Florida
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Nora - I always enjoy your posts about car features. Forces me to think and I can also see you're having fun with your new ride. I hope you keep those posts coming.

 

I have a question, hopefully it's okay to ask it here and not start another thread about it:

I do NOT have the active bending headlamps, but like every XC60 I'm sure, when I start the car, the headlamps do their little dance, where they aim down and then back up into their static position.

My question is, why? What does that accomplish, and why is it necessary?

 

I always thought the start-up (up and down) dance was a part of the start check procedure for active bending headlights. I very well might be wrong.

When you say, you do not have the active bending lights option, do you specifically mean, you did not select that option when spec'ing your vehicle or because they do not move side to side when turning?

Depending on what it is, it might mean that either the start-up procedure has nothing to do with active-bending lights (which seems to be the case, from what you say), or the active bending lights might not be working correctly in your vehicle.

There is also a activate/deactivate active bending lights option on your Sensus screen. Can you check if you have that option and it is deactivated for some reason?

 

The up down light dance is just for leveling the lights in case the vehicle shifted positions while it was off. My 2013 Lexus GS350 did this and the headlights only moved on the Y axis, they didn't pivot and bend. Lots of cars actually have auto levelling lights, especially if they are HID projectors or super bright LED's like ours.

 

Is there any way to "code" the auto high beams to turn on when we start our cars? Similar to Audis and BMWs, you can code certain functions to operate differently than OEM.I'd be curious to understand if this is possible, along with other features to turn on or always have on. Just picked up my 2023 XC40 Ultimate last week - truly enjoy it after being in Audis for 10 years - different but in a good way. Any suggestions would be welcome!

 

Volvo doesn't have the same enthusiast following that BMW and Audi does so a lot of things like this that probably are possible given enough research, time and effort just don't get done. The official programming (eg used by service techs) is VIDA DICE. You need to buy a DICE device (cheap ripoffs on Amazon mostly work) and a VIDA subscription but afaik there is no toggle for an always-on auto high beam function.

Honestly still one of my biggest gripes about my car.

 

Pretty interesting because i set it to auto and toggled to auto high beam once and it stays on forever. Even if i use the high beam manually (momentarily) it switches back to auto and works flawlessly. When i start the car in the morning it shows the auto high beam icon automatically and controls the lights all day depending on the conditions.

I have a MY23 XC60 B5 and probably this is only a EU spec thing.

 

I'm sorry, but the Volvo manual says something else, or you have a unique model

XC60 Aktív távolsági fényszóró | Volvo Support HU

Volvo támogatás: XC60 Aktív távolsági fényszóró | Az aktív távolsági fényszóró a szélvédő felső szélén található kameraérzékelőt használja. A kameraérzékelő érzékeli a szembejövők fényszóróit vagy az elöl haladó járművek hátsó lámpáit, és távolsági fényről tompított fényre vált.

www.volvocars.com

 

I've had two XC60s (T6 and now a T8) and neither acted this way. So, I'd guess that you are right and it is an EU spec thing. Would suggest thought that there is some way of making that change at a later time.

 

On my '21 T6 Momentum, the auto high beams have to be activated every time the vehicle is started. There is no menu option to have them activate automatically when the vehicle is started.

 

I've got the B4 MY22 (UK) and 95% of the time, my auto high beams remember they are on between starts. This includes days in-between drives and hard restarts of the AAOS system.

My understanding was that even in Europe it's not supposed to stay on. Wouldn't surprise me if this was a Volvo software bug, that remembers things it's not supposed to.

I've also noticed that is I use the heated seats and don't manually turn them off, they also auto start with the car, even though the settings for auto start are off.

 

I've got the B4 MY22 (UK) and 95% of the time, my auto high beams remember they are on between starts. This includes days in-between drives and hard restarts of the AAOS system.

My understanding was that even in Europe it's not supposed to stay on. Wouldn't surprise me if this was a Volvo software bug, that remembers things it's not supposed to.

I've also noticed that is I use the heated seats and don't manually turn them off, they also auto start with the car, even though the settings for auto start are off.

The heated seat memory thing is not a bug it's a feature and even my old 2009 XC60 did that. The auto start is only relevant when you didn't use the heated seat in the past but now the weather is cold.
I quite like these features for example the rain sensor memory (remembers the previous on state after restart) or the auto high beam. function.

 

You answered your own question; you had that feature on a Mazda. Volvo apparently chose Not to have that feature. Why? Not a clue what goes on inside engineering minds. 240 era fuel caps had a built in holder on the fuel door. New models come with a cheap plastic retainer cord that breaks after 6-9 months. The simple hinge slot / keeper need not have changed but it did. WHY? Not a clue.

 

I know this is an old post but for my 2022 XC90 I was able to recode using Orbit to not only activate "matrix" headlight functionality on my USA model, but also change to ROW Type B which kept the setting after restart. So you can set this by recoding a USA car to EURO setting.

(Green = original setting / Yellow = new coding)