General > General Technical Chat

Insane overengineering of a car headlight

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janoc:

--- Quote from: coppice on February 18, 2022, 06:26:09 pm ---
--- Quote from: TheWelly888 on February 18, 2022, 05:00:46 pm ---I hate changing headlight bulbs in the cold dark and wet, fiddling with sharp pieces of stamped steel. My next car will have LED headlights!

--- End quote ---
What makes them real fun to change is when you have a model that requires replacement of the bulbs though the mud encrusted wheel arch.

--- End quote ---

*cough* Renault Megane ... *cough* ....



Also some models of Renault Clio are a major pain because unless your hands are child-sized, there is literally no way to get at the bulb on the left front side because there is the AC unit in the way. The official procedure is to dismantle the entire front of the car to get at the headlight assembly ...

coppice:

--- Quote from: janoc on February 18, 2022, 07:37:19 pm ---Also some models of Renault Clio are a major pain because unless your hands are child-sized, there is literally no way to get at the bulb on the left front side because there is the AC unit in the way. The official procedure is to dismantle the entire front of the car to get at the headlight assembly ...

--- End quote ---
There are many cars where things like an AC or power steering pump were obviously not part of the original plan, and obstruct things badly. There are also quite a few cars where the designers were apparently unaware that many people drive on the other side of the road, and the car would be sold in those markets.

Monkeh:
Quite a lot of vehicles cannot have their main beams serviced without removing the headlight assembly and/or the bumper and other front structure.. They simply don't care - the lamps are reliable enough that the number of failures they have to deal with at their expense are noise, and they love it when you come pay labour for them to do it for you.

janoc:

--- Quote from: Monkeh on February 18, 2022, 07:53:04 pm ---Quite a lot of vehicles cannot have their main beams serviced without removing the headlight assembly and/or the bumper and other front structure.. They simply don't care - the lamps are reliable enough that the number of failures they have to deal with at their expense are noise, and they love it when you come pay labour for them to do it for you.

--- End quote ---

That's maybe true for the modern HID or LED headlights but certainly wasn't the case for the above-mentioned Renaults and isn't the case for many especially small city cars (but not only). Both Clio & Megane used normal halogen bulbs and both were quite well known for blowing them often due to the "classic Renault" (i.e. glitchy and unreliable) electric system. I have owned a Clio and my colleague had a Megane - both great cars. When the electrics worked.

The electric glitches you could get there were absolutely crazy - dashboard and radio that didn't work in the cold until you reset the radio and the computer by pulling a fuse or disconnecting the battery (and you couldn't even turn the car off either until you did so - it just remained on), doors unlocking while moving, doors refusing to unlock, rear hatch unlocking and flying open while I was going 130 on the motorway, the infamous keyless ignition system, many of these cars having shorts in the various wiring harnesses due to water ingress, making them blink like christmas trees whenever the turn indicators were turned on ... Most of this was due to poor quality wiring harnesses and moisture getting where it shouldn't have.


--- Quote from: coppice on February 18, 2022, 07:51:19 pm ---There are many cars where things like an AC or power steering pump were obviously not part of the original plan, and obstruct things badly. There are also quite a few cars where the designers were apparently unaware that many people drive on the other side of the road, and the car would be sold in those markets.

--- End quote ---

Yes, that was very much the case for at least the Clio - the base model didn't have AC and there was no problem with bulb access. Later models got the AC but the engine compartment under the hood remained more-or-less the same, only the external shape of the body panels has been tweaked between facelifts a little. So between the AC unit and the battery there was no space left for fitting an average sized hand to replace a blown bulb. And given that this was on the left (driver) side, if you blew it while on the road, the car was illegal to drive like that ...

Newer Megane (without the "broken back" rear door) doesn't have this wheel well circus-level bulb access anymore but then has "acquired" this uber-cramped engine compartment in exchange ...

Refrigerator:
I sometimes find the brightness of the halogens in my old SAAB to be a bit dim.
And feel a bit jealous when i see some newer car with LED's as they light up the road much better.
Had to change the H4's in the headlights and, fortunately, it is super easy in this car.
I just took the dust cap off the housing and the bulb was right there ready to be pulled out.
One big advantage my halogens have over LED's is that they generate enough heat to melt the snow and ice off the headlight during winter   :box:

My biggest problem with newer headlights is the sharp cut-off, because as newer cars go over bumps the beam jumps up and down and as a result can seem like they're flashing their high beams.
And since flashing high beams is a part of the way drivers communicate on the road it can be a distraction.

Halogen headlights tend to be pretty big. The headlights in my SAAB are absolutely huge, yet most of the space inside is taken up by air.
An advantage i see for the LED's is that they can be made to be much more compact.

Newer high-tech headlights (what we locally call "projectors" or "lasers") are often very pricey and a popular item to have stolen, especially if you drive a BMW.

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