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I always dread this time of year when the darker evenings approach, it seems that every vehicle with badly aligned lights comes out of hiding to annoy everyone. Do these vehicles ever get checked? I thought it was part of the MOT to check lights were not only operative but also aligned correctly. Came across one last evening at approx 7.45pm and I thought he was looking for hostile aircraft the way his lights were pointing. Why can't cameras pick these sort of things up? Good old fashioned policing used to deal with this, but what's the answer now? Concrete.
Edited by Pugugly on 03/10/2008 at 19:24
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>but what's the answer now? Concrete.
Yep a lump of concrete will do the job! Sorry, could not resist that one...
I agree with you totally on this one and before someone mentions them - one eyed monsters.
The Old Bill used to nick you once for dodgy lights, not indicating, lights out etc., but now you never ever see a traffic cop being a traffic cop do you?
Too much technology out there being applied wrongly I say!
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Judging by the number of cars that have got one dipped beam set too high I can only assume that the owner has set it high on purpose, probably to compensate for defective vision.
Edited by L'escargot on 03/10/2008 at 17:29
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I'm annoyed by my own lights.
They seem to illuminate those large green signs approaching roundabouts at night.
I dropped both n/s and o/s lights to stop this and can still see where I'm going!.
Come MOT time they said they are out of spec and would fail, he let me tweak them up, using their gauge and passed it.
Dark nights are coming round and the signs are lit up again. (sigh).
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I've noticed marked differences between the efficiency of lights on different cars. For EG the dipped beams on my Mondeo are great but the ( correctly adjusted ) dipped beams on my Signum are fairly poor. Volvo 850 dips were good but Xantia ones were rubbish. Wonder if there are industry standards for this ?
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The Xantia was famous for its poor headlights - particularly the early ones. The XM wasn't much better either. Others which spring to mind known for awful lights are the VW Corrado (Mk II Golf wiring loom with loads of voltage drop) and Omega (so poor the Police insisted on Xenons and then they made most Xenon as standard). A lot of late 90's Audi models seem to have very average lights too.
It doesn't seem to be related to price either. For example, the Halogen dipped beams on the 1996-2001 911 & Boxster are terrible (the Xenon option is fine).
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I put brighter bulbs in the Xantia which helped but they blew fairly quickly. I mean by that sort of every 5k or so.
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I think it's caused by minor bumps that cause little cosmetic damage but damage the light mountings. The lights are made of plastic and the mounting tabs break but the light assemblies stay in situ and the front of cars are very deformable so the metal that the light is mounted onto can easily bend to.
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"The Xantia was famous for its poor headlights - particularly the early ones."
Yes, they were dreadful on dip and I seem to remember lots of questions about them on an early "French Car Forum".
I also seem to remember that one answer given was that Cit had tried to design "the perfect headlight" but it had backfired because the light was concentrated/focussed in a very small area and because there was no spread of light from imperfect reflectors they illuminated too small an area with little peripheral illumination.
Hope you understand what I am getting at!!
The Mk 2 Xantia headlights are much better - but still not top notch!
Phil
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I think one of the new problems appearing now is the number of foreign registered cars on our roads.
I live near Southampton and Polish cars (as in from Poland, not what i do for a living!) are everywhere. I have flicked the main beam at at least two of them in the last couple of weeks, and caught sight of a foreign plate in the dazzle.
On a different note, cars with xenon lights are very prone to appear dazzling at distance, but are okay once you get closer to them. You seem to get a real blue glare at longer range, which then disappears. (No they aren't just dipping them!)
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