Headlights on the right.
In the old days I used to stick a bit of black plastic on my headlights when going overseas. I've now got a Ford with these clever self dipping headlights. Can anyone tell me if they work automatically on the right or do I have to modify them?
Comments
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Does it not say in your car handbook?
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There,s no info in the handbook. Does Mondeo man know the answer?
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So many Mondeo models, so many years of manufacture, and so many types of headlights, but on recent Ford variants the settings control on the left hand side of the steering wheel allows you to switch the lights over. Google told me this
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We have a Mondeo estate, 62 plates, and ours has 'self-dipping' headlights. We no longer bother with black tape. However, I don't think they're as good as doing it yoursefl, and we sometimes get flashed by other drivers, so OH was going to get around to
looking at them during our next French holiday to see if he could improve the settings.0 -
I've just asked him and actually I was wrong. The 'dip setting' is apparently set so that it doesn't dazzle oncoming drivers on whatever side - so he just dips the beams. However, he does agree that the setting isn't quite correct, which was why he has
to adjust them.So, he looked this up - and found the following:
http://www.talkford.com/community/topic/240748-headlight-adjustment-for-europe/
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I've just found the Kuga Onwers Club website. Apparently Ford are saying you can't stick beam benders on the glass, it could cause the lamp to overheat. They say you would need to change the whole headlight if you were exporting the car, For a few weeks
on the continent just leave it as the beam is fairly flat. A lot of Kuga owners aren't very happy!0 -
You think you have hassle, us with our Volvo v70 and xenon headlamps have to take the whole headlamp unit out of the car, open up the back of the headlamp unit and flick a lever to convert and then of course put the whole thing back and reverse the operation
on our return to England, what a pain in the derriere that is. Oh for the days of beam deflectors!!!!!0 -
The intelligent lighting on my Merc adjusts for RH driving. But it doesn't know where it is. You have to select it on a menu, quite simple and very effective.
But have travelled frequently in Europe in simpler cars for years and never bothered with anything. just set the lights to lowest setting and never had a problem. Just carry a set of stick on beam deflectors in the glove box. The ones I have must be ten
years old now, never used.0 -
The handbook for our new Discovery HSE tells us to go through the vehicle setup menu to find the section dealing with headlight dipping for driving on left or right. This software option does not exist on this car so I took it back to the dealer, Farnells,
who wern't sure so they put the vehicle on their light testing rig and found we had flat beam dip so we need no adjustment. Handbooks are not always the best source of information.0 -
Normaly on diped headlights there is a part of the beam to eluminate the pavement/ferge on the left. If you drive in Europe it needs to be changed to the right. Putting tape on or ajusting the beam down is still wrong. The lights need changeing or ajusting
through the car managment system, if you are lucky to have that option, For the past 40 years Duck Tape has worked so stick to the tape.0 -
There are cars from Latvia, Poland and Romania in my local Tesco car park - none of them have bits of sticky backed plastic tape stuck on their headlights. There are Dutch tourists at the B&B just down the road - they don't either. But the Brits who go
abroad feel they absolutely must. Memories of watching Blue Peter in days gone by I suppose.0 -
You think you have hassle, us with our Volvo v70 and xenon headlamps have to take the whole headlamp unit out of the car, open up the back of the headlamp unit and flick a lever to convert and then of course put the whole thing back and reverse the operation
on our return to England, what a pain in the derriere that is. Oh for the days of beam deflectors!!!!Xenon headlights are non directional so do not require any adjustment. BMW told me this when I was trying to offset the headlights.
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The Xenon headlights on our BMW have an adjuster for continental driving. Takes about a minute to flip them over.
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As I stated earlier, on my BMW there is no means of adjusting the headlights and after taking the car to the main dealer in Shrewsbury they confirmed Xenon headlights are non directional. I have driven all over France and have never had any problem with
oncoming vehicles flashing me inluding city driving at night.On earlier models of BMW I have switched the headlamps over but certainly not from 2010 onwards.
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There are cars from Latvia, Poland and Romania in my local Tesco car park - none of them have bits of sticky backed plastic tape stuck on their headlights. There are Dutch tourists at the B&B just down the road - they don't either. But the Brits who go
abroad feel they absolutely must. Memories of watching Blue Peter in days gone by I suppose.Could have symmetrical headlights ie a flat beam or they couldn't be 4r$ed like some of the rest of the posters here that just lower their headlights on the rotary dial on the dash
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.... and after taking the car to the main dealer in Shrewsbury they confirmed Xenon headlights are non directional. .....
That might be true of BMWs of around the age & type of your car, but the High Intensity Discharge lights of my last car certainly
were 'directional' ie asymmetrical ..... there was a lever in each of them to cut off the RHD upsweep of the beams (as there is my my current car's projector headlights)0 -
Normaly on diped headlights there is a part of the beam to eluminate the pavement/ferge on the left. If you drive in Europe it needs to be changed to the right. .....
You're just cutting the upsweep off .... levers etc just make a RHD headlight flat, not giving an upsweep to the right, you'd need specific LHD head lamps to do that
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We have a Mondeo estate, 62 plates, and ours has 'self-dipping' headlights. We no longer bother with black tape. However, I don't think they're as good as doing it yoursefl, and we sometimes get flashed by other drivers, so OH was going to get around to
looking at them during our next French holiday to see if he could improve the settings.Auto dipping and continental beams are two different things Val
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I've just found the Kuga Onwers Club website. Apparently Ford are saying you can't stick beam benders on the glass, it could cause the lamp to overheat. They say you would need to change the whole headlight if you were exporting the car, For a few weeks
on the continent just leave it as the beam is fairly flat. A lot of Kuga owners aren't very happy!Plastic headlamps, whether they're Ford's GM's Merc's etc etc don't like things stuck to them, Kuga owners are in the same boat as everyone else so not sure why they're not happy
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You do not need to change the headlights to dip to the right while in Europe. You don't need floresent vests(one per passenger seat, ie 5 in most cars, not 2). You do not need triangles, vignetts or even recovery/health insurance, UNTILL you get stoped and the police do their checks, or you need help and have no insurance. I have been stoped in Germany, Italy and Switezland because my Vaxhall Insignia keeps going too fast, or that's what I tell the wife. In Switzerland and Germany I was on a tourist route and the police where targetting motorhomes/caravans. I paid the speeding fine on a hand held visa m/c. The young German couple in the line(there were 5 outfits being processed at the time) in front of me also had to pay a fine for lights, tyres and other small infringments. So no need to follow any of the petty rules and regs just pay up if your caught. Oh! the Italian police just had a chat and let me go.
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You do not need to change the headlights to dip to the right while in Europe.
You may not need them but it seems to me only common courtesy as well as improving safety to avoid dazzling people. I fail to see why people seem to take such exception to taking reasonable actions when visiting other countries.
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You do not need to change the headlights to dip to the right while in Europe. You don't need floresent vests(one per passenger seat, ie 5 in most cars, not 2). You do not need triangles, vignetts or even recovery/health insurance, UNTILL you get stoped and
the police do their checks, or you need help and have no insurance. I have been stoped in Germany, Italy and Switezland because my Vaxhall Insignia keeps going too fast, or that's what I tell the wife. In Switzerland and Germany I was on a tourist route and
the police where targetting motorhomes/caravans. I paid the speeding fine on a hand held visa m/c. The young German couple in the line(there were 5 outfits being processed at the time) in front of me also had to pay a fine for lights, tyres and other small
infringments. So no need to follow any of the petty rules and regs just pay up if your caught. Oh! the Italian police just had a chat and let me go.I am hoping this is a wind up!
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I hasn't thought about this before this trip as apart from tunnels I rarely drive in the dark but unlike my last car where it was a mechanical operation with a lever in the light cluster this one has it as a menu item and so I have just done it to be
on the safe sideIf you are in a single lane tunnel, not having correctly dipped headlight makes this even worse for the on coming traffic.
Like I said you do not need to do anything because everyone keeps telling you how they have traveled all over Europe for the past 50 years without this item or that item. You then have an acident and the other driver claims your headlights dazeled him. You
haven't bothered with full recovery/personel insurance (because your E111 will cover that) Your car insurance won't cover you fully because you did not have a safe car! Of course this will never happen, BUT if it did????0
