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| Insane overengineering of a car headlight |
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| tom66:
Since when have dipped-beam lamps been optional? I am sure that is applicable to *extra lamps* that owners may have fitted to their vehicles as an aftermarket accessory (e.g. offroading vehicles often have these) Matrix lamps are definitely legal in the UK. This is because they are legal in the EU and despite Brexit we still remain aligned in many respects. There is absolutely no chance the big marques would be producing lamps that are knowingly illegal for UK vehicles. |
| AndyC_772:
That's certainly how HIDs were made available on UK cars. The construction & use regs never referred to them, but DVLA could not refuse to register a vehicle that met the applicable EU regulations. |
| G7PSK:
I think the "optional" refers to cars with for headlights and only two may be dipped beam. How long before Mr plod or someone else wakes up that we are out of the EU and the CU regs. are different from the EU ones. Government needs to do something to either bring them in line with EU regs or rule EU one out, as it is its a mess to say the least, with the DVSA registering EU compliant cars but the possibility that the same vehicle could fail the MOT for non compliance with CU regs. |
| Bassman59:
--- Quote from: james_s on February 15, 2022, 09:20:32 pm --- --- Quote from: SilverSolder on February 14, 2022, 08:27:51 pm ---US collision rate is 1.5 collisions per 1M vehicle miles. Assuming a well taken care of vehicle can last 200,000 miles, it is expected to be involved in 0.3 collisions in its life. If the replacement cost of 2 headlamps is $2000, the mathematical expectation for the owner of the fancy lights is $600! Do the same math for every other over-engineered and overpriced part in your car, and you begin to see the outline of a cost explosion... - if you are a shareholder, then 8) .... if not, then :( --- End quote --- The biggest problem is the demise of bumpers. Cars used to have sturdy bumpers to absorb minor impacts and protect the expensive painted bodywork, lights and other stuff. Now the entire front and rear end of cars is a sacrificial structure and there is absolutely nothing to protect the expensive bits. What would have been a minor fender bender now results in a total loss. You cannot even buy a simple, rugged maintainable car anymore. --- End quote --- There's a reason for this. The cars are sacrificed to save the life and limbs of the drivers and passengers in the cars, which are the real "expensive bits." Those big steel bumpers we remember on our grandfathers' cars? They transferred the energy of the impact to the driver and passengers. Sure, the paint job was spared, but passengers were injured. Design changes like this is one reason why deaths per capita have gone down while the number of miles driven every year keeps going up. Drivers surely aren't better drivers. |
| andy2000:
--- Quote from: tooki on February 15, 2022, 10:04:48 am ---Except that you’re just plain… wrong. Look at the actual beam patterns of modern adaptive lights, and they light the edges better. Old headlamps had to limit their wide-pattern brightness to avoid blinding oncoming traffic. Adaptive ones solve that a different way and thus can have a wider throw. --- End quote --- It's true that well designed modern headlights are better, but there are plenty of poorly designed headlights on the road that are worse than basic halogen lights. I've read report a few years ago about just how bad some modern headlights were. Hopefully things have improved since then. I drove a new Dodge rental car about 5 years ago, and I couldn't believe how bad the headlights were. They were HID and had a very sharp cutoff. The problem was the cutoff was too close to the car, and the light directly in front of the car was too bright. I could see absolutely nothing until it entered the illuminated area, and by then it would have been too late to react. It felt very unsafe compared to my own car with halogen lights, or other cars I've driven with well designed HID lights. I ended up swapping for a different car as soon as I could. |
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