richard_leeds wrote:I should have phrased my post better. It was a good feature in principle, and it worked on my father in law's 9-5, but on our 9-3 the aircon and radio panels stayed illuminated, and couldn't be dimmed to zero either. We tested this with a couple of other cars of the same model at the dealer and they were the same.
I find the VW blue to be easy on the eye.
Funny - I had the same complaint with my C900, but didn't have that problem with the 9-3. Maybe a different year, or different US spec?
It's also funny how personal tastes differ with things like the interior lights. Can't stand blue myself - seems harsh and hard to focus on. To be honest, I can't even find definitive info on what
should be the best light. Some say the BMW red preserves night vision. (It's actually orange for color blind folks, or so I'm told.) But I've also read that the night vision argument is bogus, and that even the military is switching from it. Those people argue that the best light is one that mimics daylight, but at a very low level. I've read on the one hand that blue prevents drowsiness by blocking melatonin in the brain, and on the other that blue light is easily scattered, which makes it distracting, especially when the eyes are dilated, and would be why to me it appears blurry. Finally, I've read that green, or slightly blue-green is the easiest to focus on and the least distracting.
My own experience is that green is my favorite. Actually, one of the things I liked about the Saabs was that the displays weren't uniform - mostly green, but with some info in contrasting colors. It made it very easy to quickly glance at what you needed to see, rather than hunting around like I find myself doing in the bimmer on occasion.
