And the culprit is?
 

So I'm out on a hot date, minding my own business last night and driving down a dark road when another car approaches. I flip off the hi beams and the headlights turn OFF.

Between turning the light switch and maybe hitting the hi/lo they come back on. Can't really remember what I did in that "oh ****************" moment, but I'm not interested in reliving the experience. So, what to do?

First thing...did you get any last night? :dance:

most likely culprit... headlight switch

second likely culprit... ignition switch but my $ is on the above

both are common failures and easy DIR R&R jobs. Search on either here and you will get lots of info.

Good luck :)

Don’t know what model year you have but I looked at the schematics for model year 2001 and a couple of areas you need to look at are the hi/low switch and the on/off switch. I would exercise the hi/low switch to see if you can recreate the same problem again.

Well, the ignition switch has been giving me grief - not recognizing that I've removed the key, for example. I reinsert it and remove it again and it stops dinging.

this happens to my 01 basically i start the car and the key isnt going back to the on position and therefore makes the lights not work. I start my car then manually put the key to the on position by moving it to the left a little til it clicks. Doing this usually helps when i take the key out you hear the clicking sound and the radio goes off. Sometimes i have to put the key back in and hear the click then remove.