Headlight Convertors
Discussion
I'm about to embark on a ski trip to france, and we're going to drive down to the Alps.
I always used to use electrical tape to mask a small area of the headlights, as per the manufactures manual to stop them blinding those who drive on the wrong side of the road.
On a trip with some mates earlier in the year, one of them said that the French police were pulling people who used tape and not the correct headlight convertors. I thought fair enough, I should stop being so stingy and buy some. After £10 or so of my money was releived from me in Halfords, I discovered they were one use only! Seems logical when you think about it, but I had assumed some kind of reusable wichcraft held them in place and they would be serving me well for years to come.
So to my question: can I use tape for the headlights? Or do I need to spend some more money on a pointless bit of sticky plastic which does the same thing?
Thanks!
I always used to use electrical tape to mask a small area of the headlights, as per the manufactures manual to stop them blinding those who drive on the wrong side of the road.
On a trip with some mates earlier in the year, one of them said that the French police were pulling people who used tape and not the correct headlight convertors. I thought fair enough, I should stop being so stingy and buy some. After £10 or so of my money was releived from me in Halfords, I discovered they were one use only! Seems logical when you think about it, but I had assumed some kind of reusable wichcraft held them in place and they would be serving me well for years to come.
So to my question: can I use tape for the headlights? Or do I need to spend some more money on a pointless bit of sticky plastic which does the same thing?
Thanks!
Are your lights projectors or reflectors? If they're projectors, you can usually just swap the little shutter around inside the light unit to switch the beam pattern over.
The law seems to require the lights to "not dazzle oncoming drivers", I can't see anything saying that you have to use a particular method of adjustment. If you use tape, be careful that the resulting beam pattern ends up below the legal requirement for the country you're visiting at all points, though.
The law seems to require the lights to "not dazzle oncoming drivers", I can't see anything saying that you have to use a particular method of adjustment. If you use tape, be careful that the resulting beam pattern ends up below the legal requirement for the country you're visiting at all points, though.
I bought some headlight protectors for my Transit then cut some deflectors from a pattern I found a link to from black vinyl. I didn't want to apply directly to the headlights as the glue can degrade the plastic lenses. As I travel around Europe three or four times a year it made sense for me to do it this way. Takes less than a minute to fit them.
Most German Cars allow you to switch the beam pattern from RHD to LHD on the back of the headlight (Every BMW i've owned had this feature), VAG stuff has a tourist mode too which can be activated via VAGCOM to save using the stupid beam deflector things,
On the Lexus it was a bit more tricky and involved rotating the bulb in the holder to change the beam pattern.
Might be worth seeing if your vehicle has this option before sticking beam deflectors on as they cut light output significantly.
On the Lexus it was a bit more tricky and involved rotating the bulb in the holder to change the beam pattern.
Might be worth seeing if your vehicle has this option before sticking beam deflectors on as they cut light output significantly.
I bought some headlight deflectors for our Jazz before we went to France in 2008 - the damn headlamp covers (plastic glass 
) were too curved for the deflectors and they popped off in a minute with the heat of the headlamp bulb 
!!
So I lined the car up against a wall and noticed that there is a little (2 square mm?) mark on the headlamp cover, and blanking off vertically below and to the right [looking at the headlight unit] of that mark removed the "RHD headlamp kick-up" which headlamp deflectors are meant to diffuse and which will dazzle our continental cousins if the headlamps are left alone.
Carpet tape worked fine for 3000 miles
- but the adhesive was a pain to remove afterwards 
! Also got buttonholed by a couple of people on the ferry, they drove Hondas other than a Jazz and were intrigued that I knew how to place the tape (and as such they hadn't bothered 
)... 
) were too curved for the deflectors and they popped off in a minute with the heat of the headlamp bulb !!So I lined the car up against a wall and noticed that there is a little (2 square mm?) mark on the headlamp cover, and blanking off vertically below and to the right [looking at the headlight unit] of that mark removed the "RHD headlamp kick-up" which headlamp deflectors are meant to diffuse and which will dazzle our continental cousins if the headlamps are left alone.
Carpet tape worked fine for 3000 miles
- but the adhesive was a pain to remove afterwards ! Also got buttonholed by a couple of people on the ferry, they drove Hondas other than a Jazz and were intrigued that I knew how to place the tape (and as such they hadn't bothered )... Slightly off-topic, but I went to change the beam pattern on a Range Rover Evoque (with Xenons) over to LHD mode, so looked in the user guide and it said that LHD and RHD vehicles share the same pattern and there is no need to change it or apply the stickers! Never seen it before - does anyone know of other cars like this? Maybe other Land Rovers?
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