Corsa C dipped beam lethal

hardkore · 27 Jul 2018 at 22:59

Hey all.

Bought myself a cheap little hack for shifting the bikes around on and commuting to work when the weather becomes dreadful.

Its a 2005 Corsa C sxi which is the facelift model with projector headlights. I just took it out for a drive for the first time at night and I can honestly say it was the most scariest thing I've ever driven at night.

You can literally see about 5 feet in front of you and that's it! Headlights are correctly aligned, clean and set to the highest point via the in car adjuster wheel.

I've been doing a bit of reading and it appears i'm not the only one. I'm contemplating buying some nightbreakers for it tomorrow but is it a futile gesture? I'll have to remove both headlights and bumper to do it so I don't want to waste my time if it'll make no difference.

Most common "solution" online is to just fit a HID kit but that opens the door to all sorts of questionable beam patterns and mot failures.

Such a common car I thought this would have an easy answer but I really can't drive this damn thing at night in the current condition.

Thanks

hardkore · 27 Jul 2018 at 23:17

To be honest having a candle in each headlight would be and improvement.

I'll either have to drive round with my full beam on or be "that guy" who uses his foglights.

hardkore · 27 Jul 2018 at 23:35

Will have a good look tomorrow. Its sods law the weather here isnt looking too good but i need to sort it.

hardkore · 27 Jul 2018 at 23:58

kindai said:
Thats the distance most drivers look in front of the cars mate

And people wonder why we have crashes.

Shhh

Armageus said:
Had the same on a 2001 Audi A4 (B5 facelift) - stupid projector lights, look nice but unusable with halogen bulbs (probably fine on the xenon equipped models). Don't think it was nightbreakers I tried, but I did end up with uprated bulbs, which made things a little better, but still dangerous imo.

I'll try a new set of bulbs then. Any improvement is better than nothing.

hardkore · 28 Jul 2018 at 18:41

I'm back!

Luckily the dipped beam bulbs could be changed without having to rip the front end off so that saved some ball-ache! On removing the bulbs that were there, they were possibly the cheapest looking blue bulbs i've ever seen. Even the pained end on the end of the bulb was flaking off.

Those must be the "xenon" bulbs the guy who sold it to me said about haha. Put in a pair of fresh nightbreakers and will see what they're like tonight.

hardkore · 30 Jul 2018 at 14:10

Just reporting back, the nightbreakers are vastly better than what was in the car when I got it. I can actually see road markings now.