OK, maybe it's been happening all along and I just notice it more.

I usually keep my headlight **** on the auto setting with daytime running lights or headlights on at all times. But in dim daylight (dusk, cloudy afternoons, etc) the red dash LEDs and needles come on brightly as soon as I turn on the car, but the white gauge lighting doesn't come on at all for several minutes. This sometimes makes the gauges hard to read. If it's dark enough for headlights to come on right at ignition, the problem doesn't occur.

software issue?
sensor issue?
working as designed?

I'm taking my car in for service in a week but I'm not sure if it's something that even needs to be looked at.

 

Its actually by design. Automatic headlights or not, there's a light sensor and when its dark outside, but not dark enough to trigger the auto headlights to turn on, the car will dim the dash lighting making it hard to see. This is to convince you to turn on the headlights. Its mentioned in the manual. My car does the exact same thing, and it is kinda annoying that the autohealights aren't in sync with this 'feature'. Once the headlights turn on the dash lighting gets brighter again.(unless you have your brightness **** turned down low like I do)

 

I saw that in the manual, but I wasn't sure if it was by design since one would assume 1) it would sync up with the headlights, and 2) the needles and numbers would light up at the same time/intensity.

Sorta defeats the purpose of having the auto setting, eh? No biggie to me, though. During all 3 test drives I took last year, each around dusk, I noticed the headlights were turned to 'on' every time...didn't see this back then with the gauges because of that.

Thanks for answering!