I have an 03 Pontiac Vibe. First one sold in my town. In the last 2 or 3 years, in the wintertime with temps going well below freezing, at night only, my headlights will come on and of course run the battery down. I cannot turn off my lights during the day when the car is running, never have, just figured it was the way of the vibe.
Day time headlights are DRLs That is daytime running lights. They are doing what they are suppose to do. Coming on at night is a second problem. It is likely a switch or maybe the clock spring Do you know if they are the brights that come on at night?
I don’t think they’d run headlight power through the clock spring, would they? Not only because it’s pretty thin, but the switch isn’t in the steering wheel so it doesn’t have to rotate.
I’d say this is a case of weak contacts in a relay or switch. If it’s something that can be fairly reliably replicated, a shop should be able to narrow down the problem simply by probing the headlight switch and high/low dimmer.