Brightness/ alignment of new cars/ LEDS head lamps

Hagar said:
Rarely do I drive on main beam at night. It would have to be right out in the sticks to do so. Just drive more slowly and dip the rear view mirror.

I am back on my major beef. Dip switches used to be on the floor. Under your clutch foot. So eminently sensible that I am surprised it went on a stalk.
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There's plenty of 'sticks' near me.

Obviously in well lit towns and cities you don't need them anyway.
 
Nasher said:
And this somehow makes them immune to going faulty?
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Just means less fun when you talk about replacing than you initially guessed ;)

I really miss Matrix in current IPACE, being able to still the verge when off for approaching cars is a total difference.
 
Jonnycoupe said:
Just means less fun when you talk about replacing than you initially guessed ;)

I really miss Matrix in current IPACE, being able to still the verge when off for approaching cars is a total difference.
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At the cost of the oncoming car not being able to see it as clearly and increasing the risk of them hitting you.
 
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Nasher said:
At the cost of the oncoming car not being able to see it as clearly and increasing the risk of them hitting you.
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If you're at risk of hitting oncoming cars if their matrix lights are illuminating the verge on the opposite side of the road to you, you should probably get an emergency optician appointment and stop driving at night in the mean time.
 
Drove home in the dark last night along some B roads.

Had no issues with newer cars with LED/Xenons, but had several people with halogen reflectors who clearly couldn’t see with just dipped beams, so they left their full beams and fogs on constantly while driving towards me.


Few of the LED cars had auto high beam/matrix and found their full beams to turn off quickly enough.

My auto high beams are sometimes a little slow (especially if I can see headlight reflection/glare around a corner first), but more often than not in normal conditions it’s just as quick as me.
 
MrRockliffe said:
The issue isn't factory-fitted LEDs. By law, anything with an output over 2000 lumens needs auto headlight levelling.


The issue is putting LEDs into halogen projector, or worse - reflector, housings. Beam patterns aren't often correct, and you can end up with light bleed at the edges.



Auto high beam is a little annoying but I wouldn't say it's any worse than people that just forget to turn it off anyway.



Personally I don't have an issue with LEDs/high output headlights in cars. I can see better with them on and I'm not impacted by other road users enough for it to be a problem.
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Exactly this. Replacement LED bulbs inside headlight housing designed for halogen bulbs are very unlikely to project the same pattern. I’m pretty sure the replacement LED bulbs I saw in my local car accessory shop were marked “Not for EU road use” which is utterly ridiculous considering 99% of said shop’s customers are not rally drivers nor racers.
 
Terminal_Boy said:
Exactly this. Replacement LED bulbs inside headlight housing designed for halogen bulbs are very unlikely to project the same pattern. I’m pretty sure the replacement LED bulbs I saw in my local car accessory shop were marked “Not for EU road use” which is utterly ridiculous considering 99% of said shop’s customers are not rally drivers nor racers.
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Halfords do them here in the UK. They put them under a specific section of “non road legal bulbs”.
 
Nasher said:
Nope, see what it looks like in fog and heavy rain. The light scatters like crazy and it's just a flood light pointing at you.
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The system is not designed to be used in fog and other low visibility conditions - my user manual specifically tells you this.

So, complaining about the performance of the system in conditions it is not designed to be used in is like complaining that the interior of your convertible fills with water if you drive it in the rain with the roof lowered.
 
Nasher said:
Nope, see what it looks like in fog and heavy rain. The light scatters like crazy and it's just a flood light pointing at you.
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Guess what happens when you turn the rear fog light on.... the adaptive beam feature turns off.

Its almost like drivers are responsible for using their car.

My F type has pixel lights too. What does your car have? or is that new startup car, the Masher Conjecture Type T?
 
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I was always amazed how accurate the BMW X3 adaptive LED headlights were, I used to commute twice a week through Oxford to Cheltenham and found them invaluable, and I'm very wary of not wanting to blind oncoming traffic and got more confident in it the more I used it.

The ID.3 we have now is also excellent for this, no real complaints either.. they just work and the increased visibility of the road edge is a definite safety improvement.. it even lights up the verge for the car in front sometimes.. it blocks them out so you aren't blinding them and projects up their left side which is improving their visibililty.

By far the most common blinding I get is simply people with manual main beam forgetting to turn it off..

When Xenons came along we had people saying they were dangerous, then LED, next it'll be Laser.. I'm getting luddite vibes.. ;)
 
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[TW]Fox said:
The system is not designed to be used in fog and other low visibility conditions - my user manual specifically tells you this.

So, complaining about the performance of the system in conditions it is not designed to be used in is like complaining that the interior of your convertible fills with water if you drive it in the rain with the roof lowered.
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Yea because ever owner reads the manual and uses car features properly...
 
Nasher said:
Yea because ever owner reads the manual and uses car features properly...
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In that case lets complain about cars with 400bhp because some people don't use them properly and cause problems for others.

The system works well if used correctly and its your responsibility as the driver to understand how to use it correctly. The manufacturer providers you with a detailed set of instructions to help with this, you can even get it on your phone in an app now.

I find the headlights on my car to be one of the most impressive and useful features it has - I really value the extra lighting performance it offers and have had no problems with the system.
 
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alexp999 said:
In terms of LEDs, for some reason I seem to find Tesla's the worse of all, even on "dipped" beam the driver's side cluster seems blinding when they are oncoming.

But it's not even just LEDs, so many vehicles have such high fronts because of this SUV fad, even when they are halogen they can be blinding just because of how high up the headlights are and I'm still sitting at car level. It's even worse sat in something like an MX-5.
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That will be the lights being mis-aligned, quickly fixed by performing the light re-alignment (plus fine tuning - each light independently across the X/Y axis*) when parked on a flat surface.

*At a guess a few you have seen may be fine on the height but the drivers side is angled too far to the right - possibly a scenario where the car performed the auto re-alignment but was parked with the Drivers side front at a higher angle than the rest of the car.
 
Nasher said:
Yea because ever owner reads the manual and uses car features properly...
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So it's not really matrix lights or LEDs that are the issue, it's just people misusing their lights, something they've done forever and plenty will do with standard high beams.

I'd much rather be facing a car with matrix LEDs on in the rain that are at least attempting not to blind me compared to someone leaving regular high beams on that just indiscriminately blind everyone oncoming.
 
My "rant" is more with the rear cluster designs nowadays. Indicators that are teeny tiny and have a brake light surronding them, so you can't clearly see the indicator flashing if the brake has been applied. I much prefer the indicator being underneath for example on Audi's with the nice sequential pattern. Dead easy to see it. To be honest the use of indicators in general seems to be getting worse. Oh god... I must be getting old. :D
 
Firegod said:
My "rant" is more with the rear cluster designs nowadays. Indicators that are teeny tiny and have a brake light surronding them, so you can't clearly see the indicator flashing if the brake has been applied. I much prefer the indicator being underneath for example on Audi's with the nice sequential pattern. Dead easy to see it. To be honest the use of indicators in general seems to be getting worse. Oh god... I must be getting old. :D
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That's a drawback to some of the LED headlights as well, they've still got the only front indicator nestled in next to the portable sun making it quite difficult to see in some cases.
I can foresee there possibly becoming the need to regulate an extra indicator out on the wing mirror, a minimum distance for the indicator from the main headlamp or similar.
 
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