Subaru Outback Forums banner

Approach Light

13K views 17 replies 12 participants last post by  lastlamb 
#1 ·
Does anyone know if there is a way to disable the approach lights in the side mirror and to blank out the dash indicating that the hatch is open? Not sure if it eventually times out or what, but don't want to wake up with a dead car battery.

I am going camping and we have a hatch tent that requires the hatch to be open all night.

I did see a setting in the infotainment console to turn it off, did that but no luck.
I also tired looking for the door sensor for the hatch to see if I could do something with that, but couldn't find it.
 
#2 ·
Good question; I usually have the hatch open for long periods during the weekend if I'm outside and wondered the same thing though didn't really look into it
I'm assuming the setting you're talking about is for the lighting: I thought by disabling it it would work but wonder if locking the doors will work?
As for the display, isn't there a setting with the paddles at the 7 o'clock position to black out the display?
I haven't had a chance to play with it too much as the wife usually has it and our schedules don't coincide much
 
#3 ·
I think there is a position that blanks out the center display. Not sure how you'd turn off the approach lights. Have you tried to see if they go off after a while when the hatch is open? They're LEDs so I doubt seriously it would drain your battery overnight. even if it didn't, it would be a little aggravating though to have them on all night.
 
#4 ·
The approach light connector is behind the glass which is very easy to remove...both sides would take less than three minutes.
 
#5 ·
Yup I tried scrolling through the menu on the steering wheel, basically turn off all the screen notifications, no luck.

I waited for about 10 min to see if it would time out but no luck either.

The instructions to physically disable the wire in the mirror looks easy enough, I could do that but was still hoping to blank out the centre screen
 
#7 ·
I wonder if there's a fuse which is easy to access and take less than 3 minutes? Where exactly is this 'behind the glass' connector--on the mirror? How do you pull that easily?

They are frustrating when camping, nice pretty much all other times. Odd for an outdoorsy car. Has anyone tried asking Subaru (a dealer or the main company)?




They are controlled by the doors being open or the car being unlocked. There's no proximity test for the normal keyed remote. (Dunno about the keyless one.)
 
#10 ·
So I think I found the answer to this mystery.

The sensor is in the hatch lock mechanism.

On page 2-37 and 2-38 of the manual it suggests that you manual engaged the hatch lock with a screw driver to test the manual trunk release from inside the trunk, it suggests you do this twice a year.

When you manually engage the lock with a flathead screw driver it thinks the hatch is closed and the approach light and dash screen message thinks the hatch is closed, so you safety leave the hatch open all night and no fear of killing your battery.
 
#12 ·
Fool the hatch lock in order not to drain your battery when camping



I tried it and it works fine except you should open the inside plastic door to reach the unlock lever needed to un engage the locking mechanism plus you need to request many times the door to close if you have a power activated hatch. The positioning sensor needs to be reprogrammed thinking it was at the close position when reset at the top. Otherwise I think there is no better way to do it !
 
#14 ·
You are right it works with the remote and the dash button but it doesn't with the closing down button on the hatch of my limited...may be the computer think it's already close...anyway this is a very good news and also good to know there is a manual lever just in case !
By the way it takes about 7 to 8 remote push on the remote to complete the closing ...nothing problematic. Thanks again for the logical solution you found, this is going to be a very popular thread this summer !
 
#16 ·
If anybody is still following this thread and looking for a solution to the "lights on when parked for extended periods of time" issue, I think I've cracked that one finally.

Like some of the other posters in this thread, I camp out of my car and like to leave the hatch open for extended periods of time. Sometimes because I am "docked" with a screen tent and sometimes because I am in and out of the hatch/doors 100 times over an hour doing food prep or whatever. I also have 12V power, and pressurized water in the back so I;m in an out quite a bit. Regardless, I am always wary of battery drain (regardless of how minute), and the constant on and off of the approach lights in a camping environment is irritating to me as well.

After a lot of searching, I was finally able to track down and analyze comprehensive wiring diagrams for my '15 OB and if you pull fuse #26 from the interior fuse box it kills all of the interior lights, the side lights and as an added bonus, it also kills the "hatch open" indicator on the instrument panel when the rear hatch is up. The panel will still show "hatch open" when you have one of the front doors ajar, but for whatever wiring wizardry reason, neither the rear passenger doors, nor the hatch will fire off the dashboard indicator when fuse 26 is pulled. So that works well for me.

For reference, #26 is in the inside panel (by your left kneecap when sitting in the car), is a 10 Amp fuse and starting from the lower left corner looking at the fuse box, it is two over and three up. On the inside of the fuse box door it's called "Backup" which is odd to me, but that's what they call it.

If anyone is really feeling frisky, I can shoot you the wiring diagrams for the involved systems ("Interior Light System" and "Remote Control Mirror System") and you could chase down the wires and install a secondary switch if you wanted to kill individual lights I suppose. For me, popping the fuse out and getting all of the accessory lights dead while I am camping meets all of my needs and is a tiny inconvenience, so I won't be messing with the factory wiring on this one.
 
#17 ·
I asked my dealer service department if there was a fuse I could pull to disable the mirror approach lights, but no one knew the answer. The tech tried removed numerous fuses, but none of them disabled the approach lights. When camping, it is important to be able to open the door without those lights that light up the night and annoy other campers and me. Has anyone identified the fuse on a 2016 Subaru Outback for the approach lights?
 
#18 ·
Fuse #26, as stated by shawnhayes, worked just fine on my 2018 Outback 2.5i Premium. Just be aware that in my testing, pulling that fuse also disabled the lock & unlock functionality of the remote key fob/keychain. (FYI, I do not have remote start or push button start.)

Thank you, shawnhayes, for your post. Very helpful!
 
  • Like
Reactions: shawnhayes
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top