Goodbye to these car headlights

I bought a 1976 BMW 2002 and ran it for over a decade. Back then in California quite a few people operated cars with fancy European headlights. I actually stopped in an auto shop and looked at some. The first thing the salesman said to me was more or less "by the way you know these are illegal to use on the road".

On my '69 Volvo I ran Cibié headlights. While they were indeed illegal I believe that they weren't unsafe or even annoying. While I lived in Md I swapped them out for the standard 1930s (?) design headlights just for the 6 month (?) vehicle inspection.

….in a liberal state. I served time in the Army in Massachusetts in the late ‘60’s & early’70’s. They were kind of weird back in those days but nothing like they are now. I would love to go back and visit some of my old hangouts but I refuse to go back there because of some of their laws.

I don't know if these are the lights you are talking about but there ares some cars that have headlinghts that have massive glare and re blinding when they pass you. It is almost as if they had their high beams on. The other pet peeve I have is the big SUVs and trucks that have headlights that hit right at the windshield level - temporarily blinding the other driver. There should be a standard height.

Yes indeed, Cibié headlights.

I guess I can't drive thru MA any more.
I'll have to spend my money in VT and NH

of our cars had Xenon HID headlamps. The 2011 is in a salvage yard as I type. 2/3 are adaptive.

None of them glared into oncoming traffic.

Today? Hondas and Subarus are the worst from the factory. Our friend's mom went off the road when she was blinded by one of them. If I'm not mistaken, the LED headlights from the factory here in the USA, they would not be legal in Europe.

Our new car got a refresh and the LEDs still blind oncoming traffic from what I've read (2025 Tahoe), but it isn't as bad as 2021-2024. GM moved most of the leds lower/mid-grille.

I feel like we are always 20-50 years behind the rest of the world. Why? Who even knows and we're not going to live long enough to be able to do anything about it.

But I'll hang on to the 2006 and 2007 with adaptive xenon. They used a little more energy than LED, but have bright focused light that doesn't bother other drivers. Plus they have cool electrocution stick figure stickers that say 25,000 volts which I like.

I think the problem has more to do with ailment of the lights than the lights themselves in a lot of cases. I have aftermarket LEDs on my Jeep, the OEM lights weren't bright enough to light a dark road and IMHO were more dangerous than a few seconds of glare.

I've had the same pair of aftermarket lights for about 10 years now and have never been 'flashed' because my lights were too bright because they are aligned properly. I can tell you the different between them and the OEM lights are literally night and day.

car makers may be over compensating for complaints about bright headlights by reducing light output. The high beams on my new Buick don't adequately light a dark road. I leave them on all the time and I get no "flashing" from oncoming traffic. They throw far less light than the vehicle I traded.

I talked to the dealer about installing brighter bulbs but they won't do it. I would do it myself but it seems you have to dismantle half the front end to get to the headlights.

I upgraded my 2017 Highlander with LEDs.
I don't get any flashes about them if they are on low beam. On high beam, passing a yellow road sign, they light up the edge of the road so much, the reflection from the sign turns the high beams off.

I almost did the same thing. Had a 1974 BMW 2002 that I ran for 18 years until the rust monster took over. Asked about the headlights, told they were not legal and dropped the idea.

My car came with LED's from the factory. On day 1 I had to adjust them higher to actually be able to drive the car safely at night. Otherwise, it just illuminated directly in front and not much distance. Definitely not enough for 60mph highway driving in the dark.

My previous car had factory HID's (xenon). These too required some adjustment but were much better in overall brightness compared to the LED.

Progress - 1 step forward, 2 steps back!

With the new car after adjustment, no one has flashed me, so either tolerable or not blinding. I'm not up to date on headlight technology, but would seem the goal should be to improve visibility foremost, not reduce costs.

Previous car was a '12 G37, new car 2022 Stinger GTline.

Gone are the days of simplicity when it comes to DYI (what used to be) small things like changing a bulb. I think they do it on purpose to keep the mechanics in business.

My 2023 Tesla model 3 came with matrix LED headlights which have a quite sharply defined upper cutoff.

The car won't enable high beams, even to manual switching, if you are under 25 mph. But my neighborhood road with a 20 mph speed limit has some dips. The factory low beam setting stopped me seeing ahead enough to be at all safe for part of each dip.

So I adjusted. Naturally on the Tesla this is something you do on the control screen, not something you do by twisting screws.

If here is an up/down motor perhaps there is a left/right motor. Maybe elsewhere the headlights turn and dip with he road??

Like Soberbyker, our old Jeep had terrible factory headlights. I replaced them with street legal DOT approved LED headlights that were a huge improvement. Never got flashed by anyone. Then one burned out after a few years, and the replacement cost for a new pair was $400. I replaced them with $12.99 old fashioned sealed beam Sylvania halogen headlights from Walmart. Not as good as LED, but better than the original factory headlights, and way more affordable.

Before abandoning the idea of replacing my own headlights, I asked at the auto parts store about these aftermarket bulbs. The guy I spoke to, candidly said he felt many of these bulbs were way over priced and needed frequent replacement. Although they are brighter and questionably legal, he personally considered many, in effect, to be a scam.

It was kind of refreshing to hear something like this from a salesman.

My tesla model 3 has the matrix LED lights. From the beginning we were told that the eventual intention was to selectively dim some of the LEDs in order to create a dim spot for oncoming traffic while preserving higher light where there were no eyes to be disturbed.

I think getting regulatory approval has been more difficult than the technical problems of delivering on this promise. Only a few weeks ago I loaded a software update which supposedly enabled this function for me but I've not yet detected it in action.

I misunderstood you at first. I was imagining the swivel headlights of the '67 Citroën DS.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citro%C3%ABn_DS#Series_3_%E2%8...

On our GM, it had regular 3157 bulbs for DRL's (2011). There was a TSB dating back to 1994 where if 3157s burn out use 4114s.
That doesn't respect v=ir.

Increasing wattage to overcome bulbs burning out, well, this resulted in burned out sockets, not bulbs. On a GMC Acadia with xenon headlamps, this was well over $1,000 since the DRL was in that housing.

At any rate, I would get LED 3157's from amazon, about 10 for $18. These LEDs worked fine--eventually flickered as leds fell off of the unit and into the housing, and I'd simply change them again.

They drew 3.7 watts instead of 27 watts, stopping the burned out sockets.

That was a really dumb TSB, so what are we doing as I type? Waiting for a new GM.

It is amazing though to try to work around the issue from 1994-2014, when all along, it had to do with dirty voltage to the DRL circuit. i.e voltage spikes.

The banned lights cause dangerous glare that blind oncoming drivers. In many cases the banned lights were never DOT safety legal in the first place . Which is saying something because the DOT glare allowances are quite …liberal.
Blinding incoming drivers is never a good safety strategy.

My Arteon has Dynamic Light Assist and it adjusts for oncoming traffic.
Had to do a little coding to enable on the 21 but my 23 had it activated. https://www.volkswagen-newsroom.com/en/dynamic-main-beam-con...

2 cars have headlamps that swivel and level. 2006 and 2007 cars.

It would seem this has been done away with solely for cost reasons, not safety, not courtesy.

The German car has the left and right headlamp swivel at different angles.

The Japanese cars has them swivel in unison.

The former makes sense--they've gone exponentially further, to not blind oncoming traffic, where the left headlight swivels to a lesser extent than the right. This assumes the vehicle is a left hand drive.

If we want to know how not to design a vehicle with LED headlamps, look to Subaru and Honda. imho the worst.

It may not be the lights..

Some cars have the headlights recessed so far under the hood / body, the vertical lift of the light is cut off.

Worse, there's no way to adjust the light to get the vertical light to come up.

I've a new 24 car, and I too drive around with the high-beams on all the time and rarely anyone bothers me.

Think of it like this..

Take some lights, place them back behind the bill of a ball cap and try to light a stop sign.. y'cant

My headlights are so abysmal in parking lots at night, the headlights barely luminate 1/2 the way up the calf of an adults leg at 20 feet distance.

What is all

Always liked Buicks back to my 20's. never got one until my 40's. I still would love a 1996 Roadmaster wagon as I type. I care about engines and it had the LT1 standard. That's why on our ordered car it has a L87.

At any rate I see GM moving headlights down to the mid grille area and I don't know if it helps, I rather doubt it. I joined some forums, and headlights are still a problem blinding others.

If it were up to me, either put dim halogens on, or, put HID xenon at added expense. don't put cheap LEDs that blind others, it makes no sense.

I once thought a turn signal was out on our Enclave and if that were the case it would be a major hassle. Dunno what made the fronts last, when the rears went many, many, times over 13 years. I heard GM had dirty voltage.

As a side joke, it's kinda funny, and not, to see people with the car we're waiting for, on their third engine, or, someone saying check engine went on again with 2300 miles. We're fanboys GM. You keep making them, we'll keep buying them. Local 276 y'all! It's all good!

LED>halogen>incandescent

power consumption, yes, and the cost of LED is blinding oncoming traffic.

HID xenon > LED, but the reason they went away is cost.

No different than say electric power steering, it can't feel like hydraulic. But when enough time goes past, people don't remember and the new way is all most people know. Progress lol

Progress is one step forward, 2 steps back. Seems this apply to many things.

I see 2025 Toytotas like the new 4Runner, costing nearly $70k, with a prop rod to hold the hood open, rather than struts, as it did in 1996. It makes me wonder, how many types of cheaping out does society simply accept? Land Cruiser, Camry, Grand Highlander, all prop rods.

LEDs that blind oncoming traffic is not a small matter. It's gotten attention. Yet nothing seems to change.

My dad said hood struts are a sign of quality, so I adopted his thinking. How much is saved by using a rod rather than 2 struts....$30 per vehicle? Multiplied by x vehicles etc.

LED's are just an alternate light source. I wonder why we think they are inherently prone to blinding oncomers?

At the beginning did the suppliers take advantage of the power conversion efficiency advantage to make them brighter?

Or is the usual installation different in directionality?

Or ...

I think its the light color that's more distracting as it's more white and less yellow?

I don't know about issues with OEM LEDs but I do believe that there has been an issue with aftermarket LEDs made to fit in incandescent light housings. When the "point" source of an incandescent filament is replaced with multiple "point" sources perhaps one (or less) of which is located at the "focus" of the reflector, the lamp as a whole can't possibly perform as originally designed. What happens is that a designed lamp is replaced with a bright lamp.

I switch my fog lights out seasonally between halogen and LED. I prefer the LEDs in the summer, but in winter the color makes them all but useless when snow is on the ground. The bulbs have the same base no matter what tech I use so it didn't involve a kit or even need a cooling fan like headlight LED replacements do.

I hope it doesn't get picked up on. Probably won't; I see plenty of vehicles with different lighting tech between fogs and headlights. It wouldn't be a big deal to stop it, but I appreciate the slight gain in visibility and the fogs aren't bothering anyone like aftermarket headlight kits tend to.