jgalvin

Hi

I'm off to France in a few days and I need to adjust my xenon headlights so that they don't dazzle when I switch over to driving
on the right. (Here in Ireland, we drive on the left.)

Reading the manual, you remove a circular cover on the headlamp assembly and move a lever towards the edge of the car. I found
what looked to be a lever like to diagram in the manual, but it wouldn't budge. There's another lever, though, which lifts up and down.
I think its normal position is up, so i should move this down before I hit France.
My problem is that the plastic is delicate and I broke one. It's a public holiday here on Monday, so I may not be able to get a dealer
before I leave on Wednesday.
It looks like three or four bolts will take out the light assembly - is that correct? Is it then likely that I'll be able to manually
adjust the broken lever, or indeed, repair it. I presume that this lever is the one I want, even though it doesn't look like the one
in the manual.

TIA

Darron.Lowe

I didn't think you had to adjust Xenon's because they give off a flat illumination with no slant! I'll be interested in the outcome of this one as i plan to drive to France later this year...

jgalvin

No, I'm quite sure you need to adjust them. Check your manual and you'll see that
the procedure is detailed there.

Regards

BLooD

Yes you do, there's a plug cap on the top of the light assembly, pull this out and there's a lever inside. move the lever over to the left or right, can`t remember which.
Move back to the middle when driving on the left. I am driving 1600 mile across Europe at the end of July.

Darron.Lowe

Well you learn something new everyday! glad i keep an eye on these forums, as i would have dazzled some French drivers later this year!

jgalvin

I had a go at the car in the dark and I can confirm that the little plastic yoke is the adjuster for driving on the right. Lifting
the lever places a mask into the left hand side of the headlamp beam, preventing dazzle.
I could see the broken part of the lever on the other light, but I couldn't adjust it. At the moment, it's set up for LHD so I'm OK
for now. When I return, I'll talk to my dealer and see if anything can be done. I didn't bother taking out the lamp unit as it
looks like it wouldn't give me any greater access to the broken part, although I may be wrong about that.
Be *very* careful when adjusting the lights. I'm not ham-fisted and as far as I'm concerned, the plastic is very fragile.

BTW - I see you have 19" non runflats. I'm only waiting for a set of Eagle F1s to come in to my tyre dealer to do
the same - how are you finding conventional tyres?

Regards

Darron.Lowe

I had a 2005 SE with 17" RFT and found the ride to be harsh, jarring and fairly noisy. The change to a 2007 with 19" normal tyres is a substantial improvement in all areas!

The road noise is very quiet in comparison, the ride is smooth and the bumps do not require a visit to the dentist to have the fillings re-attached to your teeth! The handling is reported to be improved also by other members on this forum, but moving from an SE to a sport suspension its difficult to say how much the tires affect the ride - this car does grip extremely well.

If you are looking for new tires anyway, then there is no reason not to go for the non-RFT tyres (except for a blow-out and convenience) as the improvement is... well, look at the other posts for the enthusiastic comments on the improvement it makes - there are a few to choose from ;-)