this post was submitted on 29 Sep 2024
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With halfway decent power stabilization, and the appropriate about of directionality in the lights, plus the lights being somewhere below the typical sedans window frame, the only time headlights should bother you, is when you're on a hill, regardless if they're LED or not.
IMO, one of two things is very wrong if you're getting blinded by anyone's headlights (highbeams not withstanding): either the designers and engineers that worked on the car are idiots, and placed headlights in a location that was going to blind people, or they used crap optics, etc.... Or, the owner of the car can't be arsed to have their headlights properly adjusted.
Honestly, it's a little of A and a little of B... Depending on the car and the circumstance.
One the person I knew actually had self adjusting headlights, which somehow were damaged and would not adjust properly anymore. They drove around like that for years before retiring the vehicle.
Can't fix stupid.
LEDs legally have to be self-adjustable at least in EU. Your mandatory inspection will usually catch it if that system doesn't work.
The bigger problem is people throwing LEDs in halogen housings. It's not the LED's fault. The other big problem in the US at least I reckon, is having vehicles that are way too tall, so their headlights, while hopefully dipped properly, are above a normal driver's eye level.
It's not uncommon to see massive trucks with insanely bright LED lights (a certain personality type), which puts the lights just about windshield level on a sedan.
What's extra fun is now the lights also blind drivers going the same direction as the truck, as every mirror in the sedan is filled with light.
Not really, I have factory LED headlights on my 2023 Toyota Yaris and those are manually adjusted the same way halogen headlights used to be. Mind you I don’t have the LED matrix technology.
When it comes to people throwing LEDs in halogen housing, it doesn’t have to be bad. I used to use a pair of OSRAM LEDs instead of halogens in my Citroen Berlingo 2006, but those were homologated for road use with the same lumen rating as homologated halogens. They were not cheap, but the light pattern was the same as with halogens and they blinded oncoming traffic a lot less than halogens (I tested that with my friends and colleagues). Of course using cheap illegal LEDs in halogen housing is a bad idea, but you can’t throw illegal solutions in one bag with legal and sensible solutions.
P.S. I live in the EU
Interesting. I couldn't legally drive a car with high output headlights without it having both automatic adjustment and headlamp washers. It's simply mandatory
Maybe you mean that it's manually adjustable in addition to having auto-leveling? I think that's the case for nearly all cars. Or maybe your car manages to stay below some sort of light output limit despite having LEDs.
What you’re talking about aren’t LED headlamps, these regulations (auto-leveling and washers) are mandatory for xenon headlights. LEDs don’t fall in the same category as xenon headlamps. What is interesting is that halogens have maximum allowed lumen rating which is a lot lower than what xenon headlamps can have and LEDs can have even more.
So it's based on the lumens and it's hard to make HIDs that don't exceed the limit, but easier with LEDs. I just assumed that your LEDs were bright.
Well, your first point is great except we don't have yearly inspections on vehicles in North America or anything. Inspections happen when cars are registered, then never again until ownership changes hands and it needs to be registered by a new owner.
Add that to the fact that inspections are done by mechanics, and they don't generally give a shit about it, and it's a recipe for failure. Last time I got a used car inspected, the mechanic looked at the car through the window and said "is that it?" I replied "yeah", and he went through the list and checked all the normal stuff without glancing at the car again. So most inspections here are void from the get go.
The second point is valid and a design problem which I covered previously.
I can say that, at least in Texas, we require annual inspections as a condition of yearly vehicle registration. We just don't test for the impact of headlights on incoming traffic, because... TxDOT (and the Texas legislature/governor by extension) doesn't consider it worth regulating.
Mechanics test what is on the regulatory code. Add headlight brightness to the list and they'll test for that, too. This isn't an unsolvable problem by any stretch.
Well, Texas DID requre annual inspections. This is the last year. On Jan 2025, annual inspections will no longer be required, although, some counties will still require emissions testing, and you still have to pay the fee.
Well if you like your mechanic then keep quiet about it, because what you just described is a felony, which carries a fine and loss of inspector's license. And vehicle inspections are dependent on the state and county in question. Most US states require vehicle inspections. Some don't.
Oh, I wouldn't rat anyone out over it. I'm just saying that it happens. I'm also in Canada, but I think the same applies (felony/fines/loss of license for inspection).
I'm a bit of an amateur mechanic, I've done a lot to cars in my time. I'm nowhere near the skill of an actual mechanic, but I know enough to know when something isn't safe. I see significant rust/rot, I'm probably not going to even try to get it certified/registered until I'm happy that it's safe enough for me.... I know that many are not as knowledge/discerning. They're not my concern though. I wouldn't bring it to a mechanic to be inspected unless I felt safe in the vehicle.
That said, that was a former "beater" vehicle that I no longer have. I kind of killed the motor on it... I think that's the one that the motor died on me. I was pushing the old beater well past what I normally would because I was in a rush. I got well over the speed limit on the highway. When I came to a stop, the poor thing stalled and would not start again. I never found out what actually went wrong, and the vehicle went to the scrap pile soon after afaik.
I currently drive an off-lease vehicle, it was about 2 years old when I acquired it and I've kept my eye on its condition since then, about 10 years now. I do regular maintenance, and all the things I need to in order to keep it in good condition. There's a little rust now, but it's pretty limited. Nothing that concerns me. I don't have a desire to replace it, as the car market is nuts. How is my 12+ year old car still worth like $9k? It's a civic!
Anyways. I don't have any desire to make anyone's life harder than it needs to be. I knew the car was safe, so I didn't have a problem with it. My only concern is that others that don't know better are going to end up driving around in unsafe vehicles because their mechanic can't be bothered to actually inspect the cars during an inspection certification.
I don't know why he did it, maybe he just knows that vehicle doesn't really have the problems that would cause it to fail an inspection? I have no idea. I think that one was an older accord. Maybe he knew that car specifically? IDK. I didn't ask. I took the win and went on my way to register the car. I was a broke college student/grad at the time (I can't remember if I had graduated at that point or not).
Where was that? In Europe this should have been spotted during the mandatory inspection.
Canada. Our inspections are basically a funny joke.
We have them for cars, but unless your car is basically rust with wheels, someone will sign the inspection to say it's roadworthy.