Jay-Three

It seems lately, many oncoming drivers are flashing their brights at me. Last night a guy even waved his arm out the window as if to say "turn those damn things down, I'm blind!" What is going on? I thought these Xenon's were "auto adjusting". Can anyone advise? Thanks!

------------------
Jay
'01 Jet Black/Black Luxury

M5Laser

If I were you I would just flash the real high beams back at them haha
ok maybe thats not a great idea...

sorry I have no answer to your question

1C00lVC

Try something simple. Drive your car up to a garage door or a wall, about 4 feet from it, trun on your light, and see if the are leveled and even. maybe one or both you headlights are pointed too high..

Need4Spd

You can also try parking your car, getting out and then putting yourself at about the same position as an oncoming driver in the opposite lane would see you (you have to remember to squat down a bit as if you were sitting in the oncoming vehicle). You can then decide for yourself if the headlights are mis-aimed (or the auto-level mechanism isn't working) or simply just being their normal bright selves. If the aim is wrong, there are adjusting screws you can easily reach and adjust by opening the hood, or you can have your dealer do an "official" adjustment using the adjustment device that they have. I'd bet it's mostly an ignorance thing; people see the white light and because they are curious and simply believe it's your high beams, will look directly into them. Even regular halogens will blind them if they do that.

Jay-Three

Thanks, I did not know there was a manual adjustment. The auto levelers are working, (I see them move when I turn them on), but they seem a tad high. I'll give it a whirl!

------------------
Jay
'01 Jet Black/Black Luxury

Chris Foote

I don't know what kind of relationship you have with your dealer (whether you hate them or not ), but dealers can adjust the lights accordingly.

Just be aware that the left (drivers side) light is supposed to be aimed lower than the right. It comes this way from the factory so that you won't blind oncoming drivers...but that doesn't seem like its helping in your case

-Chris

bobafett

Mine ate set rather low (too lazy to fix em right now ), but if hey contoniue t flash em at you, there's something else you can flash! (erm, a mirror? )

--Dan

kgk

I spent about five minutes trying to guess what they must be doing.

I ***guess*** as follows:

Problem: Your car hits a bump on the road, the front end goes up, and you shower light on the oncoming traffic, blinding them.

Cure: When the car detects a bump, it points the lights down for a moment.

So it seems to me that some technician has to use a test-target and aim the light properly, and then the system will aim the lights down when you hit a bump.

Have you ever looked in the rear-view mirror as cars go over bumps, like at a rail-road crossings? It gets very bright for a moment there, and most of those characters don't even have xenon HID bulbs.

kgk

Even better, wave a gun at them, that's what I always do. This is my favorite for such purposes:
http://www.remtek.com/arms/imi/pistol/desert/eagle.htm

Louis

You didn't say if your car was a 2000 or a 2001. On the 2000 model the adjusting knobs for the lights have thumbwheels so you can just raise the hood and adjust the headlight aim (up/down and left/right) with your fingers. Pretty easy to do standing in front of your car at night. The knobs are on the back of the headlight assemblies, about 3/4 inches in diameter with a curled edge. The knob near the outboard edge controls the left/right adjustment, the knob near the center of the assemblies controls the up/down adjustment. The 2001 models don't have the thumbwheels, you have to use an allen wrench -- I don't remember what size.

The self-leveling feature is just that, not an automatic aiming feature. The self leveling mechanism keeps the height of the lights at whatever you set them at as the vehicle attitude (up and down movements)change.

Please be kind, the xenon lights, aimed too high, will blind oncoming drivers. And you wouldn't want a head-on collision from someone that couldn't see.

alpywhite

I give people a very brief flash back, as if to say,

"Gee, you're the first person this BLOCK who thinks my high-beams are on..."

Alps

DZeckhausen