Greetings. I bought a beautiful 92 LeSabre Ltd. last week. It'* a wonderful car, but I can't figure out the headlights. It seems they go on automatically when the car is running. Hitting the headlight switch makes no difference, they are still on. Then when I shut off the car, all the lights are on for 10 minutes or so, and then they shut off by themselves. Regardless of what I do with the headlight switch. This morning I went out to a dead battery. Had I left the headlight switch on? How do I know if it'* on, and does it even make any difference? I want to figure this out before I have another dead battery. Thanks in advance!

The only thing that can do what you are describing is the twilight sentinel. The control for this will be to the left of the instrument panel, in the same panel that the interior lighting slider switch is in. It can be slid from off to max. Off disables it, minimum sets the delay to turn light off and on to about 3 seconds, to maximum, in which the delay is 3-5 minutes. There also should be a small white square in the corner of the light push buttons. That is the indicator light. When that is on, it indicates the switch is engaged. Of course, the light is not very bright, so the only time you really could see it is during the night time, and I would assume you also get the dinger if you left the switch on as well.

Thank you so much for your reply, Randall. It appears my sentinal switch isn't working, because my headlights/tail lights/side lights all stay on for about 10 minutes after I turn off the ignition, no matter where the sentinel setting is. Thanks for the heads-up about the little white headlight indicator light! I'll check it out after dark tonight. It is exactly what I needed to know. Cheers.

Oh, and the "dinger" is of no use, because it only dings when the keys are left in the ignition, so you don't know if it'* telling you about the keys, or about the headlights being on.

Hrmmm... I know mine is a quicker ding when the lights are on. Of course, it dings for the keys also, but when you take the keys out, it should switch speeds when the headlights are on.

FYI, it will also ding when there is no power going to the light switches, like in the case of a blown fuse. That one was a fun one that took me a minute to figure out.

I guess my dinger isn't working along with the twilight sentinel switch. I wish I could just disable the twilight sentinel, as have been driving cars without it for 35 years and haven't seen the need. Battery went dead again last night, which it didn't do before I started playing with the headlight switch, trying to figure out which is on and which is off. No little white indicator light anywhere I can find, either. This car is going to start me smoking again, I'm afraid.

Thanks for your help and advice.

The switch should slide to minimum for the twilight sentinel, and then click off, in the same manner that the interior lights clicks the lights on. I can see how a slider goes bad after 20 years, but you should be able to turn it off still at least. Also, the indicator is the white square on the lower right of the headlight push button, lights up orange. I will try and remember to grab pictures tonight when I get off work.

I found that orange headlight indicator light - it didn't come on until I was driving and slammed on the brakes. So I guess I have some electrical connection problems. Now for the big hunt of where I'm losing battery power overnight. The kindly old couple sold me a big fixing problem, I'm afraid. So it goes, when buying used cars out of the newspaper.

If it is an electrical draw, you can usually track that down easy enough. Usually you can hook an ampmeter in line on the positive cable, and watch your battery draw while you start pulling fuses, and tracing down the circuits.

Thanks for the tip. I'll give that a try.