Judging by the number of cars that have one dipped beam set dazzlingly high I can only assume that some people tamper with the alignment after they've had the car MOTd. I wouldn't have thought that under normal circumstances headlight alignment would alter significantly betwen one MOT and the next.
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L\'escargot.
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I've noticed (to my annoyance!) this too, it seems especially prevalent amongst older cars.
My theory is that it's a mixture of people adjusting their dipped beams (on older cars over many years & different owners) to be parallel, rather than asymetric. My dipped beams hit the ground hit the ground about 10-15 metres further along on the nearside than the offside - how it should be I believe. This, coupled with (older?) cars with no adjustment for load tilt
front-to-rear & the increasing cambers on some roads due to lazy or cost-cutting LA road maintenance programmes contributes to the 'blazing one-eyed ' look some cars exhibit.
Other theories welcome!
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newer cars seem to be more out of alignment in my opinion ,the rot starts with the robot that fitted them and it gets progressively worse as the local car wash bashes them every sunday morning at exactly 10.32 am as dave the rep sits in his car and peruses the dollies in the sunday smut
At 2 years 11 months and 29 days the car goes for its first mot and because bob the mot man is not used to these type of headlights and the way of the world in general (remember computers were something from tommorrows world when he used to watch his dads decca 14 inch black and white telly with the heavy gloss wooden cabinet and 6x4 semi eliptical speaker made by goodmans on a live chassis) that projector lights to him are things that came with the talkies and back rows of the cinema and kiora pop
im going to sit down now
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Dear bell boy
I'm auditioning for a new TV series called "Grumpy Old Motorists". Would you like a spot?
On second thoughts, maybe you are just too grumpy.
Regards
Hawkeye
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Stranger in a strange land
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Marvellous that you're getting a career in TV HE - but have you got any opinions on the thread question?
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he used to watch his dads decca 14 inch black and white telly with the heavy gloss wooden cabinet...
Of course, that 14in was increased to 32in with the 'Pana-View (TM)' TV magnifier that stood in front of the screen on legs. So magnified in fact that even Bruce Forsyth's smile, on Sunday Night at the London Palladium, fell between the scanning lines . Ah happy days!
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Back to the (ahem) topic:
my theory is that one headlight bulb goes, it gets replaced but isn't seated properly - a bad DIY job? I've certainly noticed quite a lot of cars with this problem.
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That's a good theory - I guess even more so as the car ages & the bulbholder becomes progressively more 'enlarged', hence more scope for mis-alignment.
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Or a bulb is replaced with a cheap poor quality one were the filament is not in alignment.
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SQ and some strange arrows
I thought this a few years ago when i was getting lots of mot failures and not being able to align the headlight beams properly,it was finally traced to two factors
1....replacement headlights that although were marked as eu approved were obviously of poor quality in the glass that gives the pattern
2.... more importantly a lot of cheap bulbs were on the market and the photo below shows that the actual locating disc on a lot of bulbs are spot welded on,the welding was correct but the disc was slightly out of alignment and this gave the idea that the filament was at fault
tinyurl.com/2glp54
Edited by Pugugly {P} on 27/10/2007 at 16:52
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The MoT test has improved this noticeably. In the old days the fittings for headlights used to seize and then get broken by owners, who propped the light back in place with a bit of folded cigarette packet. People's headlights used to point all over the place. Now they seldom do, although those glittery ornamental multicoloured Italian headlights still flash in one's rv mirror on bumpy roads.
In New York in the 1970s about half the cars had one or more of their (often four) headlights hanging out of the front of the car on bits of wire. Missing door skins were often to be seen too.
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