Replica Xenon Headlight Quality?

Quads I worked on for a caddy - 15 hours total time build.






All 4 work at the same time, they all flash at the same time. They are pretty impressive I must say

Trups

t8ups said:

Going to set up another one in the next 2 weeks if anyone wants some.

Trups

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What will be the price to made mine one ?
Cheers

t8ups said:

Going on that, my friend has a brand new E Class with adaptive LED headlights, no Washer system fitted to the headlights at all.

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Mercedes have found another loophole - UK law actually says that all HID and LED headlights are illegal BUT one of the conditions of our EU membership means that if a car is legal in one EU country then it MUST be legal in ALL EU countries (which is the loophole that all manufacturers use), but Mercedes have had their lawyers reading the German law carefully and found that they don't actually need to fit washers to comply with German law.

What a stupid ? if you have a HID you shoud have a whasher .... What for ? What is the different with washers and without ?
May be i'm not clever enought but ... does't make ANY sense for me !

nansi_2005 said:

What a stupid ? if you have a HID you shoud have a whasher .... What for ? What is the different with washers and without ?
May be i'm not clever enought but ... does't make ANY sense for me !

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The case for headlight washers is that a dirty headlight can disperse the beam of light and cause it to dazzle other drivers. Try it out yourself by looking at your HIDs in the dark with a dirty headlight housing and then again after giving them a clean.

PetrolDave said:

In the UK you do NOT have to have either headlight levelling or headlight washers to pass the MOT if you have HIDs, but if either of them are fitted they MUST work.

If you don't believe me read Section 1.7 of the latest edition of the MOT Inspection Manual where it says:


My daily drive, a Citroen C1, passed it's MOT with 55W aftermarket HIDs last month - if there had been any question I would have shown the tester the Guidelines - and gone to appeal if necessary (it wasn't).

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PetrolDave, the majority of MOT testers aren't even aware of the rules. It is, after all, a fairly recent rule (2012 sometime IIRC).

dpaz said:

The case for headlight washers is that a dirty headlight can disperse the beam of light and cause it to dazzle other drivers. Try it out yourself by looking at your HIDs in the dark with a dirty headlight housing and then again after giving them a clean.

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my car always is preety clean so ....

dpaz said:

PetrolDave, the majority of MOT testers aren't even aware of the rules. It is, after all, a fairly recent rule (2012 sometime IIRC).

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I'm sorry but IMHO if they're not aware of the rules then they don't have the information they need to carry out MOT tests. With the ease of finding the information on Google (direct from the VOSA website) there is no excuse for an MOT tester not knowing the both the rules and the guidelines.

I recently contacted my MP (who has subsequently written to the Minister) when I saw on another website that people were removing the drivers airbags from their cars and passing the MOT test because testers didn't understand the requirements to be a "modified" car. The information is clearly set out in the MOT guidelines, so there's no excuse for ignorance by any MOT tester.

Your exactly right there is no excuse, but this is the industry and regulation in its current form.

It's a classic example of British law; a group of politicians and lords have come up with fairly decent laws and regs but the application and enforcement is **** poor.

I have played the game myself, I owned a Nissan Silvia S15 when I was in my early 20's and removed the CAT. Upon MOT time I used to leave the cat in the boot and tell my friendly MOT tester if he really wanted to he could remove the de-cat pipe and re-fit the cat himself. Surprise, surprise he never bothered and instead passed it for emissions using another car.

dpaz said:

PetrolDave, the majority of MOT testers aren't even aware of the rules. It is, after all, a fairly recent rule (2012 sometime IIRC).

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I'm a tester and as far as I'm aware if they are fitted they must be tested but if they are not then you can't test them.

Inspection manual 1.7

Vehicles equipped with High Intensity Discharge (HID) or LED dipped beam headlamps may be fitted with headlamp washers and a suspension or headlamp self levelling system. Where such systems are fitted, they must work; however, it is accepted that it may not be possible to readily determine the functioning of self levelling systems. In such cases, the benefit of the doubt must be given.

"MAY be fitted"

I have seen some new cars without head lamp washers and I asked VOSA last time and he said because the lumens are lower then x amount and they don't need them.

Trups, count me in!

PetrolDave said:

I recently contacted my MP (who has subsequently written to the Minister) when I saw on another website that people were removing the drivers airbags from their cars and passing the MOT test because testers didn't understand the requirements to be a "modified" car. The information is clearly set out in the MOT guidelines, so there's no excuse for ignorance by any MOT tester.

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If it's not there it is missing the. It's a failure but I remember somewhere that it says if it's a rally car or something they they can be removed. As well as abs systems it's a grey area. If the whole system has been removed. Servo, sensors ect then it's technically a pass but let's not Get into that.

We had a 2008 land rover defender in. No abs or esp or anything just a servo to test. If I remember correctly any car past 2003 must have abs from factory. But I asked VOSA and they said it's classed as a MPV so therefore it does not need ABS.

dpaz said:

I have played the game myself, I owned a Nissan Silvia S15 when I was in my early 20's and removed the CAT. Upon MOT time I used to leave the cat in the boot and tell my friendly MOT tester if he really wanted to he could remove the de-cat pipe and re-fit the cat himself. Surprise, surprise he never bothered and instead passed it for emissions using another car.

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Its down to the tester at the end of the day. If he wants to play that game he can but I'm not. If VOSA rocked up it will cost him his licence and possibly his mot station. A mot station costs Aprox £30-40k so for the sake of 30 mins it can cost him 30k. Not being funny but I would of charged you 1/2 hour labour to remove and refit it or the car can fail for all I care it's my job to enforce the law not abuse it.


My daily drive, a Citroen C1, passed it's MOT with 55W aftermarket HIDs last month - if there had been any question I would have shown the tester the Guidelines - and gone to appeal if necessary (it wasn't).

Providing it passed the beam test I don't see a problem.

Very perverse setup with the MOT vs the law right now: as Darren has stated, the MOT testers are NOT breaking the law. Suppplying them is also legal, but anybody who fits HIDS without the auto-levelling and washers is very explicitly breaking the law, as is anybody who drives a car with HID's without the washers + auto-levellers fitted.

This is very clear and has been so since the late 1980's.

Technically the MOT testers aren't breaking the law if they pass HID lights without auto-levellers and without washers because the guidelines were softened from the original Sept 2012 proposals*, where the MOT tesers would be required to check the functionality of both: so the actual 2013 MOT checks that went live, in regard to HID headlights is that only IF the auto-levellers / washers are fitted and obviously faulty, then the car fails the MOT. Utterly perversely, if those components are completely missing (i.e. never fitted because the the HID's are retrofitted), then the car can still pass the MOT. The car will not be legal for road use and as an intentional modification it will mean that it will be uninsured for 99% of insurers, but it will still pass the MOT.

*there were apparently too many complaints from MOT testers: one example that I saw that made some sense was something about needing to test the beam pattern to test the effectivenes of the washers and that some garages did not have the necessary drainage to deal with run-off from the headlight washer systems at the same location as the beam pattern test.

Gamble if you want to, but don't kid yourselves that scraping through an MOT test on a technicality means your car is road legal, therefore insured or that you can't be prosecuted for it if you cause an accident and anything to do with lighting is part of the cause.

The only car I know of that has hid's from factory without head lamp washers are
Nissan fairlady z33 (import)
Acura/Honda euro R (import)

As you have mentioned mot standard are bare minimum and does not mean it's safe on the road for 12 months. I have known a coil spring to snap on our car park. (When the car was parked) we heard bang and thought what the hell was that and we only realised when we come to move the car it was stances on the front lol.


Some classic examples

Rear coil spring broken on Audi A4 or BMW 3 series. You can't really see them so you can't fail it. You are allowed to use a inspection mirror now but before you could not use a mirror just due to the fact it was not VSI approved.

Brake pads worn down. If you can't see them you can't fail it. Some cars with hub caps that block the whole view from outer and from the other side the carrier hides the brake pad.

Wheel bolts missing with hub caps. You can't see it again.

Aftermarket alloy wheels without spiggot rings providing you have the centre cap I can't see the spiggot rings so therefore I can't fail it but if the centre caps were missing then I can fail it.

We had a customer come in with his car on a low loader as his wheel shot down the street snapping 2 wheel studs as he never had spiggot rings fitted. If we put a mot on that car and that happened I bet the customer would of said well you just mot'ed it and it was not safe to drive and reported us to VOSA. Even though the car had passed a mot and we could not have done anything about it.

Bmw's let's say with a hidden brake fluid reservoir as most BMW do hide them I can't see if the fluid is low or not so if the fluid is at is bare minimum then I can't even fail it.

Last but not lease. Slight play in wheel bearings. I put a mot on a Merc E65 amg and advised slight play in front wheel bearings. As he was a trader he kicked off. He said the car had been only just serviced by merc. I told him if there is play, there is play. If there was no play I would not have advised it. They all have play on the front of merc's.Also engine covers and under trays. It was like as if I was making it up.

Also when you go to buy a car and don't see engine covers and under trays, ask why as they should be on there. I even advised my own car on a mot.

Also service standards and mot standards are 2 different standards. Just because you just mot'ed it does not mean it is service standard. Play in bushes let's say. It will pass a mot with slight play but on a service the bush should not have any play.

Brake pads I advise brake pads on a mot when they are Aprox 2-3mm as to fail them they are less than 1.5mm. Service standards are at least 4mm if not more. My mate at lambo / Bentley advise brake pads at about 5-6mm as this is what lambo and Bentley say to advise them. Or let's say Audi q7 the brake pads should be at least 5mm for them to last 10k miles as it's a heavy car.

The best one that cracks me up is.
You just serviced my car last week and now my abs light is on or some other light. Sorry but a sensor can go at ANYTIME. You would not Change parts in your tv till it broken right? So why would we replace a sensor when the car was not indicating a fault. "Well it was working last week before the service"

Fair enough go back to the garage and let them check it out but don't blame them. This really does people's head in and will get you no where at the end of the day. If they are a decent garage they should do it at a discounted fee or at least diagnose it for you and then tell you what's wrong.

Sorry to rant but I hope this has educated some of you guys on the mot and service.

Darren - although it's fine to pass those imports at an MOT, it is still illegal to sell the cars in the UK. You can buy one abroad and then import it yourself, but if a company was selling them, then they would be illegal. Either way imported / purchased from an importer, MOT'd or not, it's still not roadworthy, so even if insurance was purchased, the insurance company could wriggle out of it if you had an accident and they almost certainly would if lighting was brought into question.

Sorry to bring an old thread up but I have an offer on projectors - http://www.audi-sport.net/xf/threads/offers-section.225774/