2015 headlight bulb question
Fleet Mechanic
Joined: Nov 2016
Posts: 1,634
Likes: 72
Why do Xenon light beams show a very sharp cut-off on the top? That's not to disturb oncoming vehicles. Also, all of my previous cars had Xenon and I can see it regularly adjusting up and down as I drive up and down hills. My truck doesn't do that because it doesn't have Xenon.
What you are describing is self-leveling headlights. None of the F150’s have that feature, not even the factory LED headlights. The older HID headlights on F150’s May or may not have had a self-leveling function.
Sharp upper cutoffs and self-leveling became prevalent when HID came on the scene, because they were much brighter than halogens. Halogen lights have not changed that much. They are definitely better than they used to be. They just don’t have the luminous output to necessarily require the same level of control (cutoffs) that is needed with LED and HID.
So, it’s not that the halogen lights are designed to scatter light, what is going on is the newer technologies are more tightly controlled to prevent glare.
I hope that makes sense, I’m not always the best at explaining things.
Posting Guru
Joined: Jun 2012
Posts: 1,306
Likes: 32
I looked it up, Europeans require all xenons to be self-leveling while the U.S. requires only bi-directional xenons to be self-adjusting. When I said, "LED's and xenons are angled differently..." I meant to say "LED's and xenons are angled differently than halogens..." as the LED's and xenons are not the same thing. LED's don't produce as much light as xenons and LED's don't bother me much. But the ones with the blue headlights on rice cars, it bothers me way more than others. If it's possible to keep it at that same yellowish tint as the stock bulbs, then I wouldn't have a problem with that.
I drove a 1986 Mercedes-Benz 420SEC from the UK so the headlights pointed to the left, not the right. I was cited by an eagle-eyed sheriff for not having compliant headlights. I was also cited for the rear blinkers since it was supposed to have red reflectors there as well. A lot of the locals had grey-market cars and they all despised him. I replaced the UK headlights with a pair from a Berlin junkyard, so it pointed to the right and still got cited again. "It has to be DOT compliant." I could adjust the headlights with the switch in the dashboard, unlike the American cars that need to be done outside.
I looked into DOT and ECE (Europe) requirements and learned that DOT requires the headlights to be visible to oncoming drivers, but not blinding. That's one of the reasons why none of the cars in the 1990's had lights that received homologation in both U.S. and Europe, it was one or the other.
I drove a 1986 Mercedes-Benz 420SEC from the UK so the headlights pointed to the left, not the right. I was cited by an eagle-eyed sheriff for not having compliant headlights. I was also cited for the rear blinkers since it was supposed to have red reflectors there as well. A lot of the locals had grey-market cars and they all despised him. I replaced the UK headlights with a pair from a Berlin junkyard, so it pointed to the right and still got cited again. "It has to be DOT compliant." I could adjust the headlights with the switch in the dashboard, unlike the American cars that need to be done outside.
I looked into DOT and ECE (Europe) requirements and learned that DOT requires the headlights to be visible to oncoming drivers, but not blinding. That's one of the reasons why none of the cars in the 1990's had lights that received homologation in both U.S. and Europe, it was one or the other.
Thread
Thread Starter
Forum
Replies
Last Post
IndySilverAnny
1997 - 2003 F150
1
Jan 31, 2019 12:53 PM
Goble18
1978 - 1996 Big Bronco
1
Feb 3, 2004 02:50 PM
