Headlights too low

[TheJoker]

Guys,

When I got the car back, I noticed that the headlights were installed wrongly - in fact the guy who did it also noticed that, but apparently he's taken them out and tried to fix it.

What's happened is that the headlights (both high and low) seem to point about 1 meter in front of the car, rather than the normal "near the horizon" level.

Has anyone had their headlights wrongly installed before? Any tips on where to find the fault..? 

[Anders Dinsen]

This is odd, but here's a few things to check:

- Is high beam the same, or normal?
- Have the bulbs been installed properly? They are difficult to get right in there.
- Is the adjustment mechanism and motor working?

I think you need to take the headlights out again and carefully inspect them for anything that's wrong. They are a pain to work with, unfortunately, as there's virtually no space around them. I think you need to remove the trim between the headlights to get access to the screws, and possibly also the front bumper.

Good luck with it!!

- Anders

[TheJoker]

Thanks Anders,

Yes, both high and low beam are pointing close to the car.
I don't know about the bulbs, but as they're separate and it's both high and low beams that are affected, I'm thinking that something else has been fitted the wrong way.
Adjustment mechanism is working just fine.

I know these things can be so easy to get wrong... Typically these things have an adjuster bolt and one doesn't know if the attachment to the adjustment should go in front or behind,... 

Ahwell, I'm sure it gets fixed...

[Martin Tyas]

Does your car have Xenon headlights?
If so then the problem could well be with the potentiometer on the rear axle.

Because they are so much brighter than halogen bulbs all Xenon headlights have to be self levelling so they fit a potentimeter on the rear axle to electrically measure the load and adjust the headlights accordingly. So that the headlights are not re-adjusting themselves constantly due to road undulation the system has built in "damping" in that the axle loading has to be constant for more a period of time (30 seconds I think on the Espace) before they willl self adjust.

The self adjustment is very noticeable when you start a Xenon equipped car at night when parked facing a wall or the garage door because shortly after turning on the lights the beams will rise slightly after the system has sensed the rear axle load.

With your car having been parked up for quite some time whilst the belt tensioner problem was being fixed the potentiometer may be sticking so the headlights no longer self adjust..... just a thought as that would affect both high and low beam.

Martin

[TheJoker]

Martin, I didn't know that about the xenon lights. Blimey! They stick electrickery into EVERYTHING these days. But I'm glad to say my car doesn't have the xenon lights... *phew*

The problem seemed to that the adjuster inside the headlight on the left hand side (looking forward) wasn't working correctly. This was fixed with a bit of rubber band - not 100% ideal, but it works just fine now!