amoung my many list of problems to sort out with my new s3 the headlights are one. on dipped beam the xenons are pants and you cant see a great deal in front of you. even full beam isnt great, seems too high. its a facelift. any ideas?
rubbish headlights
- Thread starter brys3
- Start date
You think its a Bulb/xenon problem rather than alignment ?.
Mine point quite low to be fair to....
Mine point quite low to be fair to....
A agree, the facelift lights are just plain rubbish. I've manually adjusted mine to point upward just that little bit more. Does make it easier to see while driving at night, but now because the designers at Audi made the lights with the projector on the inside edge everyone thinks I've got my full beam on. lol.!!
My advice would be to Upgrade your bulbs & ballasts to 55w. There are various other kits which actually start at 60w and go right up to 100w, variable!!! Great idea I think but might end up tooo bright.
I'm going to be doing this before the summer hits. Makes a much better light due to added wattage, change the colour of the bulbs slightly 6000k i'm going for. (friends got the 55w 6000k conversion on an integra, much better light output)
Will be posting up pictures before and after as soon as they are done.
G
My advice would be to Upgrade your bulbs & ballasts to 55w. There are various other kits which actually start at 60w and go right up to 100w, variable!!! Great idea I think but might end up tooo bright.
I'm going to be doing this before the summer hits. Makes a much better light due to added wattage, change the colour of the bulbs slightly 6000k i'm going for. (friends got the 55w 6000k conversion on an integra, much better light output)
Will be posting up pictures before and after as soon as they are done.
G
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Hi there,
I had a similar problem with my lights too. I think there's actually a problem with your headlight, as dipped beam is usually pretty bright with facelift xenons. I get flashed occasionally by passing traffic because they think I'm using my main beam now.
Anyway, I had 2 problems with mine. Firstly the motor in the nearside headlight had packed up. Sometimes it would work, and other times it would just hit the ground.
Backdraft dis-mantled it to try and fix it when I had some other major work done, They didn't think it was the motor. But this did not fix the problem, in fact I think it made my light point even lower which I weren't too happy about, as they charged me £65 for it. Anyway....
So I installed a new motor in the headlight, and it still was no good.
In the end I had to take it to my local dealer, who spotted the problem. The headlight internals were not fitted back properly the last time it was dis-mantled. Turned out it was just a faulty motor, but headlight was not refitted properly.
This resulted in the dipped beam being adjusted to it's highest position, and still being way too low, whereas the main beam would be pointing at the sky.
The only way to spot if this has happened to your lights is by looking at the side profile of the headlight. If the inner section where the xenon bulb fits into is not near parallel to the rest of the casing, then that is likely to be the problem. It's a subtle one, and took the dealer a few hours to figure out. It is probable that a lot of people are suffering this without realising and so think the lights are rubbish.
In the end, the dealer refitted the headlight again and fixed this. Now lights are fantastic.
You can check your motors are working either by jacking the front of your car up when the lights are on, and see if it moves the beam (while it is pointing at a wall or something). Alternatively if you got vagcom you can do an alignment test on it to see if the motors move the lights. If it does move the lights, then it's not your motors.
Hope this helps.
cheers,
glen
I had a similar problem with my lights too. I think there's actually a problem with your headlight, as dipped beam is usually pretty bright with facelift xenons. I get flashed occasionally by passing traffic because they think I'm using my main beam now.
Anyway, I had 2 problems with mine. Firstly the motor in the nearside headlight had packed up. Sometimes it would work, and other times it would just hit the ground.
Backdraft dis-mantled it to try and fix it when I had some other major work done, They didn't think it was the motor. But this did not fix the problem, in fact I think it made my light point even lower which I weren't too happy about, as they charged me £65 for it. Anyway....
So I installed a new motor in the headlight, and it still was no good.
In the end I had to take it to my local dealer, who spotted the problem. The headlight internals were not fitted back properly the last time it was dis-mantled. Turned out it was just a faulty motor, but headlight was not refitted properly.
This resulted in the dipped beam being adjusted to it's highest position, and still being way too low, whereas the main beam would be pointing at the sky.
The only way to spot if this has happened to your lights is by looking at the side profile of the headlight. If the inner section where the xenon bulb fits into is not near parallel to the rest of the casing, then that is likely to be the problem. It's a subtle one, and took the dealer a few hours to figure out. It is probable that a lot of people are suffering this without realising and so think the lights are rubbish.
In the end, the dealer refitted the headlight again and fixed this. Now lights are fantastic.
You can check your motors are working either by jacking the front of your car up when the lights are on, and see if it moves the beam (while it is pointing at a wall or something). Alternatively if you got vagcom you can do an alignment test on it to see if the motors move the lights. If it does move the lights, then it's not your motors.
Hope this helps.
cheers,
glen
