Welcome (officially) to CL. Glad to have you. (I fixed your quote for you). And you gave us some useful info.

 

Interesting that those were used on the 02-06 Camry, my 03 ES300 did not have them.

I think you hit on the cause, these are parts bin visors and mirrors. The model they chose for certain applications happened to have the dimming lights.

 

Yeah, it's weird as to why the RX had it while the LS (possibility of rummaging through the parts bin as mentioned above).

That's why only quote your portion as to "why they stop offering that".

Lexus sometimes do weird thing, so they leave us scratching our head

 

Looking at that photo. I am wondering if that is not an adjustable switch more more of an off/on switch.

(edited) Just looked up a manual for this model, yes it was adjustable.

 

Few Lexus things to ponder.

2001 LS430 had air filters for the air conditioned seats.
The very first breed of Lexus models had a dash light that warned if the brake light bulbs were out.
Very fist LS had a battery pen light in the rear trunk for emergency use
The very first ES250 had key locks for the folding rear seats in case you wanted complete lock out of trunk

Pretty cool stuff coming from Lexus.

 

Getting rid of that was probably just cost-cutting. I had a 1984 Mazda GLC that cost less than $8000, brand-new, with that bulb-out feature. Came in handy a number of times, as I kept that car for 100,000 miles, which is longer than I usually do....and that car was simple enough that I could easily change the light-bulb myself.

Yep....can't always trust those Valets.

 

I've had many cars with lights for burned out brake lights...

 

Now, Lexus uses a dummy light that just says a bulb is out, right? They dont have a specific message displayed that says "check right rear lamp"

 

My 2007 RX has taillight bulb out warning, Not just for the brake lights, but the running taillights as well. One time the light came on, and I went to the tailgate saw the light that was out, knocked on the lens with my fist, and the light came back on! Problem solved, and bulb never went out again.

 

I do this too! same problem on my 04 RX and 11RX. Very weird. Its not the brake light but the inside tailgate light

 

The new Caddy CT-6 still has these, though they are small little LEDs. it's the 2 little leds in the lower corner at the bottom of the waterfall LED DRL:

 

By far one of my favourite features. I think the new RX has cornering lights as well.

 

All my volvos had them and they were always on....the BMW behaves like that too only it has a code telling which bulb--the first time I got it, it was like Minority Report where you're being warned it's gonna fail ahead of time (because all bulbs function when you first see the code, and when you replace said working bulb, the code goes away--a way to prove is to move the said bulb to the other side, it works, and the code changes)......so one could argue at least with BMW, you can replace a bulb that is gonna fail soon....they don't do this with GM cars because there are always bulbs out and they don't want to distract the driver (what is it, they don't use LL bulbs at GM is my guess, a good % of new GM cars have bulbs out, for real)

 

I actually didn't notice on the '16 loaner that I had for months if they still do it, but my 2007 BMW has them. Even though it looks like it has 4 round lights (going back to the early 70's), the outers are bi-xenon, and the inside are cornering. they light up when the car is set to auto and the steering wheel is turned so many degrees to one direction, independent of the turn signal.....and they light up for some interval then fade away...

 

Nice thing is my LS460 has all LEDs now so bulb failures are a thing of the past lol