I rarely drive at night, but last week I was caught out and ended up driving home in the dark. The main beam was ok, but when I went to dipped, it was like someone had put a bag over my head, I couldn't see a bloomin thing! - not the road, kerbs or anything in front. I dove the 40 miles home on main beam (no other option) and it wasn't pleasant! Strange thing I noticed was that no -oncoming traffic was flashing me!
The next day I had my headlights upgraded from Tungsten's to Halogens, this seems to have made the problem worse, now the intensity level between dip and main is alot more marked.
A slightly foggy night has since revealed that my lights do not throw beams, just a general "wash" of light which has no depth or focus.
Googling the problem for solutions, shows that this seems to be a major problem across different ranges of makes (not just my skody!) and although a lot of folk fit extra lights to help main beam, you cant do this for dip as they have to either extinguish or dim when you dip.
Apparently they are classed as "Reflector" lights, and it seems there are 2 choices, upgrade the whole lighting unit to Hideously expensive HID units,or like me, be doomed to getting home before the need to use them!
This is probably why so many folk i see are now driving the 4-eyed monsters!!
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How old are you? Can be a problem of eyesight rather than lights.
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Sometimes uprating headlamps can have insurance implications, and, I believe from sometime later this year, MOT too.
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>> How old are you? Can be a problem of eyesight rather than lights.
That'd be my guess too. There are certainly places I used to feel fine at night on dips where I want to flick full beam on.
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What's your car and how old is it? You say you upgraded from tungsten to halogen, I haven't seen tungsten bulbs or sealed units for thirty-odd years (although halogens are tungsten in an inert gas rather than a vacuum).
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Generally I have found VAG cars to be not very good in the lighting department
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Last few cars:
1. Honda CRV - pretty good on its halogens
2. X1 - nowhere near as good as the Honda on the same
3. 328 - Halogens were pretty good on main and dip
4. T5 - Adaptive Bi Xenons - first class on main and dip
5. 320 Dreadful on dip adequate on main.
6. 335 LED's pretty good on main beam, adequate on dip.
The MX5 has adaptive LEDs which outclass the BMW's in both modes.
I thought the last cars with tungsten bulbs were Morris Oxfords.
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>> Generally I have found VAG cars to be not very good in the lighting department
>>
I agree that Audi and VW (the only ones I have experience of) have average to poor halogen headlights. Audi’s xenon and LED lights in the other hand are, in my experience, very good. The LED headlights on our A3 have a better dipped and main beam pattern than the xenons in the BMW. I imagine BMW LEDs are also better again than the xenons. I do occasionally get flashed in the BMW, but never in the Audi. They do look to be slightly high, but BMW assure me they are correctly aligned...
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The MK5 Golf GTi we had (halogens) was crap.
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Too late to edit my previous post...but halogen lights can be very good; we had a couple of Meganes (the one with big behind) and the standard lights on them were better than the optional (albeit only £250 at the time) xenons on the MINI
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The projector lights in the Roomster are OK on dip and pretty good on main beam. The Berlingo's are just about adequate but going from dip to main you notice the road close in front is poorly lit and there's a temptation to fill the gap using the fog lights as driving lights.
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The dipped on my Almera are poor, nowhere near as good as they were on the Astra. The lens haven't yellowed either, still crystal clear.
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The G31 LED' (non adaptive) are very good on dip, wide even very bright white, main beam only average not much long range penetration
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I don't drive in the dark now but I had to come home from the City in the rush hour last week and I thought the RAV's lights were very poor. There was plenty of light from other cars and the street lights though. Speeds were not fast either. I wouldn't tackle an A road with oncoming traffic now.
The Micra lights seem ok, just been to friends, SWM drove, as ever and she has no problems. The Jowett has 7 inch sealed beams by Joe Lucas, Prince of Darkness, and they live up to their nickname. It doesn't go out in the dark, though.
Most of the problems are mine, post-cataracts and laser treatment. Coupled with over-bright oncoming lights.
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The main beams are housed in small units and look like normal bulbs, the dips are in larger units, but the bulbs? look like Discs with a "silvered" front, similar to them GU4 kitchen bulbs. Would it be possible (or even legal) to try and change them to ones similar to the mains?
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have you adjusted the headlight adjuster down and forgotten to readjust.
maybe take it to the garage for headlight beam alignment
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They were set up on a beam setter when I had them upgraded, but i don't know how cos there's no beams!;-)
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I had to nick Mrs O'Reliant's Liana this morning (Some clot left the interior light on in my Almera for six hours yesterday) and it was immediately noticeable how much better her lights are, both on main and dipped beam.
Bit of a relief really as one begins to wonder if it is not actually the lights that are poor, but one's ageing eyesight.
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At age 60 apparently you need twice the level of light you need at 30 for the same level of vision. I certainly notice this when reading. A really good reading lamp makes a huge difference for example. Sadly the aging process is inescapable. The outlook is dim.
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>> I had to nick Mrs O'Reliant's Liana this morning (Some clot left the interior light
>> on in my Almera for six hours yesterday) and it was immediately noticeable how much
>> better her lights are, both on main and dipped beam.
What age is your Almera? I had a '53 reg which had the headlights replaced at a service, although they weren't recalled. I understand the internal plastic used to melt!
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See this HJ thread: www.honestjohn.co.uk/forum/post/index.htm?t=43586
My headlamps looked like this: tinyurl.com/yd36o78q
It seems it only applied to N16 models. Do you know your model number?
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Mine is an Almera Tino, the lights are different.
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I think sometimes we are selling ourselves short here...
I've noticed with the onset of super bright LEDs becoming more common I'm often blinded (not dazzled) by on-coming vans/SUVs (higher light level) so much so it's unpleasant to drive on some country/urban roads, the lights are so bright that it's like looking into the Sun or a bright lamp where your peripheral vision seems to go completely black, accompany this with the total lack of reflective white lines (what happened to them??) marking the boundary between the road and hedgerow (no more centre-line reflectors) invisible and the two merge together.
No wonder our 'normal' lights don't stand a chance trying to light the way ahead.
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I was stuck behind a Range Rover Sport tonight - abiding to every speed limit - brake lights were horrendously strong. Biking season soon - Lights on the Tiger are very bright, but I know they'll be horribly yellow compared to the two cars. The light on the Scrambler is like a copulating glow worm ...won't be seeing much darkness
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>> I've noticed with the onset of super bright LEDs becoming more common I'm often blinded
>> (not dazzled) by on-coming vans/SUVs (higher light level) so much so it's unpleasant to drive
>> on some country/urban roads, the lights are so bright that it's like looking into the
>> Sun or a bright lamp where your peripheral vision seems to go completely black,
I agree.
Lights seem to be going the "They're good, so more must be better", route. That is not always the case.
Last edited by: VxFan on Wed 14 Feb 18 at 01:48
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Surely the light levels of headlights are mandated by law. Manufacturer is can't just fit what they like. There are certainly badly adjusted and illegal lighting set ups but most cars seem OK to me
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>> Surely the light levels of headlights are mandated by law.
Nope. There are laws about wattage, there are no laws about lumens. Your lights can be as bright as anyone can make them. In 50 years all lights will be adaptive, so will make little black spots to not dazzle oncoming drivers.
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That’s interesting. I always assumed there was a limit to the level of light produced rather than simply how much power the light unit consumed. Perhaps there should be a brightness limit then.
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Watts were sufficient in the old days of Tungsten and Halogen. Xenon and LEDs are a game changer. Power consumption in terms of Watts has become obsolete since LEDs came in.
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headlights - CGNorwich
