Interior Lights - First Ever Road Trip

Hi,

Just got back from Strata Florida where we spent the weekend off roading and camping. our first off roading trip in our S2 TD5. a fantastic place and full of fun and games and a great time was had by all.

However, I have a question about the interior lights...

Are the interior lights on a S2 TD5 disco clever?

At night while camping they seemed to go into a strange state... Having the tail gate open for any length of time, going in and out of the rear doors for stuff, they would go out and refuse to come back on unless you override them with the switches.

Is this supposed to happen?

I played about with setting the alarm and unsetting the alarm and the switches to try to bring them around but didnt run the engine.

I assume that this is a built in feature by Land Rover to stop you accidentally leaving them on and flattening your battery? Because In the morning when the engine fired and we set off they seemed to return to normal, working again perfectly off the door pillar switches.

Am I right in thinking that LR actually put some thought into this, or do I have an electrical gremlin???

Yes they will do this, they have done for some time, my 300 tdi does this, there are switches on all the doors, as far as the LR is concerned, there is a door open, it could be them all or just one. So you don't run off and leave your interior lights on it will only stay on for a certain time. To reset them you need to close all the doors, and open one again.

I was away with guys who had a 110 and an old Rangy and a toyota and they were all not too sure. I was impressed to think that LR actually had thought about this and built in a battery saver circuit, but on the other hand and in the back of my mind, was thinking maybe that water ingress from the sunroof was playing it all up!

Thanks for your reply.