I was showing my car to someone today and he turned on one of the map lights and forgot to turn it off. A couple of hours later I noticed that my car had a light inside...

i thought the car was suppose to shut off the light automatically incase you accidently leave them on?

 

normally that would only be for the DOME light the big light on the roof... when you say map light it makes me thing it is a small light from one of the visors or something

 

the ones top of the rear view mirror. aren't those the only lights. i'm not sure if i have a dome light? is it behind the sunroof?

 

Yes the dome light is behind the sunroof and it will automatically shut off but I don't think that the map lights do. Haven't tried it myself .

 

hi meeh,
I left my map light on for 12 hours. Fortunately the battery did not die. I was surprised it stayed on also.

If the a door is not closed properly, the interior lights stay on, but will turn off automatically after 5 minutes. Apparently (as you and I have experienced) if you intentionally turn on one of the two map lights using the map light switches, then it will stay on until the battery dies .

regards,
rx8cited

 

Oh, wonder why didn't have the map light also do the same as a dome. I recall my old car auto shutting down the map lights. Oh well...