Short answer, first place is to check the fuse. A battery being low will not stop the lights coming on, unless it's really flat - in which case it wouldn't crank the car. Be aware that the lights that come on with the door open are the Daylight Running Lights, not the parking lights...

 

Parking lights are usually activated by switching the ignition off and moving the indicator switch down for left parking light or up for right parking light. You get a small beep to let you know it's activated but who uses parking lights these days. You have a choice of one side or the other. You may have the option on the light switch for both sides but mine just stays on auto and have never looked at it since I set it to auto 2 years ago.

The lights that stay on when you stop, get out and lock the doors are the DRL's as mentioned above. You have some adjustments for these in your menu settings from the left steering wheel control. If I remember the settings are off, 30 seconds and 60 seconds. I would need to go and look but it's minus 2 outside.

The stop start system as discussed before is a flawed system on the Kuga. The word flawed is used because it would be perceived by most that this function would work all the time and not just when certain parameters are met. It does not work all the time irrespective of whether your battery is fully charged. I can do an hour's run, come home and it doesn't work. I can make a 10 minute journey and it works. Contrary to what others may say it only works when it's warm is BS. Mine will work when it wants to down to zero degrees. The only good thing about stop start is it makes you keep a check on your battery, but more important on a diesel, it makes me check my instant MPG, to ensure its reading 0.1/0.2 gallons per hour. Any higher would mean it's performing a dpf regeneration.

 

The lights that stay on when you stop, get out and lock the doors are the DRL's as mentioned above. You have some adjustments for these in your menu settings from the left steering wheel control. If I remember the settings are off, 30 seconds and 60 seconds. I would need to go and look but it's minus 2 outside.

The lights that come on when you open the door are your sidelights & tail lights. On the cars with HID & LED DRL, then it would be these lights that light up but on the dim setting which is the sidelight part. I wonder if that's where the confusion comes in with the DRL.

The lights that stay on when you've been driving, stop and get out are your headlights, these are what you have the option in the menu for.

 

Ok I’ve just had another play this morning. I may be getting mixed up by side lights DTRL and parking light then.

So lets assume I want to leave my side lights on when the car is locked. I have found that If I just open the door after entering from outside, I put the switch into the position in the photo.

The side lights do not work. To get them to work and stay on ,there seems to be a sequence that I have to do.
1 start the car engine and let it run a while.
2 put the light sw into the position in the photo.
3 stop the engine
4 get out and lock the car

Doing this usually makes the side lights stay on. But it’s a bit hit n miss, sometimes it does and sometimes it doesn’t ......am I doing something wrong.

When it does work I notice that the green light on symbol is lit on the dash , if I open the drivers door there’s the usual audible ( lights left on alarm sound). I close the door, lock the door, the lights on the dash stay on dim and the green light on the dash stays on.

When it doesn’t , ...work with the switch in the on position The green light on the dash is not illuminated, the alarm sounds when the door is open to warn that I’ve left the switch on, but when I close and lock the door.....nothing !

So to sum it all up, I have to start the engine, switch on side lights, switch off engine, lock the car and it usually works.

Im bamboosled

 

Years ago before all this modern technology my dad had one of these. It fitted to the top of the door glass and could be the answer to your problems lol. I will go and check to see what mine does at lunch. Hopefully I can get the switch to move from the "A" symbol.

I think f your battery is in not a very good state then the car will shut certain systems down to protect the battery. It may be a good idea to get a cheap multimeter, they are less than a tenner which will give you the voltage of the battery.

 

Hahahaha.....yes I remember those clip on lights too....my dad also had on on his old mini van....he’d put it on for a while...only to come back to find his battery was flat lol.

Going back to the battery voltage.....I do have a multimeter...what voltage should I be looking for at the terminals with the engine stood ?

 

Ok so checked the battery volts and 12.03.
Tried the side lights and they work. I left them on for 10 minutes along with the radio playing. When the voltage got down to around 11.7 v I turned off the lights...tried to put them on again and they won’t come back on.

Ive put the charger back on to see what happens.

it’s looking like the battery to me

 

My 80ah battery would be the same after 10 min with radio on, you're wasting your money imho.

 

That's a small battery. Is your car petrol.

The BMS battery monitoring system can be easily reset but one of our members posted quite recently that it would reset itself.

 

Yes my car is 1.5 petrol eco boost .

So can the BMS be reset by myself if I was to fit a new battery . Is any special scan tool required...I do have one of those ELM FSCAN plug in WiFi tools and Forscan app on my iPad.

edit:- I’ve just found on another thread the sequence of buttons to press to reset bms
Ignition on
press Fog light button x5
press hazard button x3
the battery indicator on the dash flashes three times then it’s reset

Is this the usual method ?

The guy also says after a charge or fitment of a new battery, that the car should then be locked up and left alone to sleep on it for 8 hours to relearn the bms

 

I think you have as much info on the BMS as I have with regards to the procedure although I would be doing the reset with Forscan. It's worth to see if button sequence works first.

 

Can you just clear up, are you in the car with the door closed. Is this when you are putting the switch to the sidelight position? If so, then the lights will go off, it's part of the 'not leaving the lights on to flatten the battery'

If you want to leave the lights on, you will need to open the door after you've turned the ignition off, then switch to the sidelight position. It's then a conscious decision to leave them on.

Can you confirm if the above is what you're doing?

 

I can confirm that if I am in the car..normally I can put the sidelights ON, then exit the car (alarm sounds when opening door) , then I lock the door and sidelights stay on.
However this has not been happening for me.
Even if I unlock the car and then put the sidelight switch on without ignition on, the sidelights will not come on.

But putting some charge into the battery seems to clear up this problem.
I can only think that the system is trying to preserve the battery if it thinks it’s in a low state of charge.

 

Well....the cars been on a smart charger for nearly 4 hours and completed.
Tried the sidelights and all seems good, soI think I can say the battery is on its way out.
Its not as if I don’t use the car....I’m a key worker and drive 24 miles to work and back so that ought to keep the battery in good nick.

Its less than 3 years old....I’m NOT even going to try and get it done under Ford warranty....I’d sooner do battle with Spartacus. My Ford dealer has an excuse book thicker than a telephone directory .

 

I've never tried it to be honest but I was going off, if the headlights are on then they go off when you lock the car. By on I mean not in the Auto position.

Battery issue aside, why do you want them to stay on? I've never felt the need myself.

 

Well if you park your car on any road that exceeds 30 mph speed limit I though it was law in the UK to have them on.

Have a read of this.

Parking lights - what are they? | RAC Drive

The law says parking at night without leaving on your sidelights is illegal in some circumstances. So when exactly do you need to use your parking lights?

www.rac.co.uk

 

I don't need you to be throwing legislation at me!

Given that nearly all residential areas are 30mph, or some now even lower at 20mph. How often are you going to be parking on a road that exceeds 30mph? I know I'm certainly not going to be.

 

I wasn’t trying to be funny with you mate....sorry if I came across that way. I just want my lights working as they should be, more so for the MOT that’ll be coming up soon...they’ll need to work right for that at least. You asked why I wanted them to be on...I wasn’t throwing legislation at you , just saying that they need to work to be legal.

Shall I get my coat ?

 

No need for your coat, just trying to keep it light hearted that's all.

I would say MOT would be fine, as they would test them when the engine is running anyway and you said they're working fine like that.

Hopefully the battery charge will get them back to normal.

 

Just Checked mine out.... Car not running

With indicator on

 

Any excuse to show some more pics eh @andspenka

Keep them coming @balders

Oops I got my DRLs mixed up with dipped beam when you get out the car.

I must say that I did wonder why you would require parking lights in this day and age but we do have some 40 limits near me that are residential. I thought that law had died years ago with the parking light I posted. Most have off street parking but not all and nobody leaves their sidelights on. Police are too busy anyway knocking on doors breaking up parties and raves lol

 

Any excuse to show some more pics eh @andspenka

Keep them coming @balders

Oops I got my DRLs mixed up with dipped beam when you get out the car.

I must say that I did wonder why you would require parking lights in this day and age but we do have some 40 limits near me that are residential. I thought that law had died years ago with the parking light I posted. Most have off street parking but not all and nobody leaves their sidelights on. Police are too busy anyway knocking on doors breaking up parties and raves lol

😂😂

 

Yep, any excuse!

You got no snow? Mind ours looked like that at half 12 today, by half 1 it was white!

 

No snow at my side of the city.

 

Thanks to everyone for your replies and advice. As long as I get an MOT pass and the battery does get me through the winter without any further issues I’m happy. It’s just that I haven’t had the car long, paid good money for it and just like to have everything working as it’s supposed to...I’ve always taken good care of my motors.
I recently got rid of a Mk3 Mondeo Ghia that I’d had for 18 good years...and everything still worked on it, it was like new. In some ways I wish I’d still got it, but 18 years is far too long to own a Mondeo.

You've all talked me into “ hanging fire” and that I’m whittling over nowt .
So If I break down with a flat battery and I can’t get my side lights to work when I’m stuck on a 60 mph road.....then I’ll curse you lot .....lol.

Thanks again

 

So If I break down with a flat battery and I can’t get my side lights to work when I’m stuck on a 60 mph road.....then I’ll curse you lot .....lol.

Thanks again

Hopefully, you'll only breakdown during the day 🤪

 

Buy some heavy duty jump leads just in case. A proper drop test would indicate what state the battery is in. Last car mine was at 70% and still ran it for another year before replacing it. I would only replace if it started to let me down.

 

So I braved the cold again*, to try out for you all, what I call 'parking lights'; as in one side of the car's lights remain on while parked.

If you want to enable them:

1. Make sure your lights are set to the 'A' auto position:

2. Select the left or right side of the car using the indicator stalk.
I used right in this example and you'll hear a confirmation sound:

3. Get out of the car (no warning sounds) and lock it 😃

* @andspenka this is blamed on you again 🥶

 

Thank you mate for the check. After the battery being charged yesterday and being stood all night in freezing temps, I tried as you did in your photos and everything is working as yours....so all back to normal.
It does just go to show though, that if the battery capacity does start to get low it will disable the side lighting.....problem solved . I wonder what else gets disabled too With further drainage.

So I’m now blaming the mrs for always having the climate heating & heated seats on full burn and tiring the battery out.

 

I get the blame for everything round here!

I blame you for me buying a K&N off you! 😂😂

 

That was a bargain, especially for you

Thank you mate for the check. After the battery being charged yesterday and being stood all night in freezing temps, I tried as you did in your photos and everything is working as yours....so all back to normal.
It does just go to show though, that if the battery capacity does start to get low it will disable the side lighting.....problem solved . I wonder what else gets disabled too With further drainage.

So I’m now blaming the mrs for always having the climate heating & heated seats on full burn and tiring the battery out.

Glad you're all sorted

I bet most modern cars have all kinds of battery monitoring and power saving things going on in the background - better than a flat battery though

Definitely sounds like the Mrs' fault

 

It's called load shedding.

 

I found it one day when I was cleaning the windscreen and something kept beeping then I realised. I thought parking lights on one side had died a death years ago.

 

Its not a problem. I was actually pulling your leg, not trying to bite it lol I have a plentiful supply of words so it doesn't matter if I waste one or two now and then. You posted a very informative procedure of how to perform a function that after me owning the car for two years, I only found out a couple of months ago that it had a feature from the 70's.

 

I only found out a couple of months ago that it had a feature from the 70's.

Which was?

 

I had a Golf GTi that had them and a Cavalier and 2 Vectra's. I would imagine your Mokka also has them.

 

I will check. This is only second vauxhall we have owned for any considerable time. Mazda didn't have it and am sure I would have noticed it on other cars as they way we turn into our drive and park could mean the indicator hasn't cancelled which would have left the light on and we have lived here 21 years.

 

Many years ago, you'd see them in use quite a bit, but rarely do nowadays