MOT "fail" - headlamps too low.

[Rory101]

Took our 1.2S to the local village garage for its 5yr old MOT - after last years effort at the dealer where I'm convinced they created a couple of hundred pounds worth of work.

It passed but the garage had initially failed it due to the headlamp aim being too low. They tweaked them up at no charge then passed it.

The front has never been touched, and the elec adjuster works OK and was at its highest setting.

I'm bemused by this - the garage owner said it could be that the front suspension has dropped a little with age. Is that likely??

 

[Brummy]

if the suspension was going, surely that would be an mot failure in itself? methinks they were pulling your plonker , dude... (they possibly didnt even realise that there was an adjuster in the car

 

[Cupra Kid]

If someones done some work under the bonnet there are manual adjusters under there, if they've knocked them it would of sent them out of alignment. The internal adjuster adjusts both at the same time and is for when you are towing to lower the beam back down to the floor, not each head light independantly.

I had to move mine when it had its bump and then move it back after it had been repaired.

 

[Rory101]

The internal adjuster was set to its highest and, looking at the adjusters on the headlamps themselves I don't think anyone woud be able to knock them out of position.

Anyway, the guy said they were both a bit low - they line them up to some mark in the beam checker. he adjusted them for free, so no question of any kind of scam. Maybe the front tyres need blowing up a bit!

I don't know, perhaps the springs do settle a bit over time?

 

[Nath.]

I have heard of cars that are lowered that fail for headlamp aim too low. One of mine failed for this reason some years ago.

 

[techathy]

My Panda's front springs settled by about 5mm more than the rear & when it came to the first MOT they were borderline for being to low, that said the Panda settled a stupid amount, 20/15mm, over 10k or so miles then stayed at that level. I'd assume the same thing could happen with the Ibiza

 

[antnee]

I have heard of cars that are lowered that fail for headlamp aim too low. One of mine failed for this reason some years ago.

Ive never heard of this! it doesn't matter how high or low the car is, if its got rake or reverse rake (front or back end high) it would effect it, but you would adjust it anyway in that case

 

[techathy]

I have, typically caused by spring rates being a little out there on certain setups to keep the car front bottoming out under load & the fact the headlight pattern test is done with the person out of the car. Always on very light cars though not stuff much over 800kg, certainly not above the 1 ton marker.

 

[Fl@pper]

The front has never been touched, and the elec adjuster works OK and was at its highest setting.

has it been tested or mot'd there before ?

maybe it's fine and the setup the beam checker too high ?

i blame the speed bumps and the Kinetically Enhanced Rabbits

 

[Nath.]

Ive never heard of this! it doesn't matter how high or low the car is,

Of course it does. An Audi q7 and a Caterham both have to cast light up the road to the same point even though the headlamps are mounted at very different heights, the height of the headlamps makes a difference to the angle needed to atain the correct cast of light up the road.

I'm sure that if you were to lower a stock car by say 100mm then the headlights would not shine as far up the road. if you were to jack a stock car up by 100mm the headlights would shine further up the road. This is because they are set at an angle pointing downwards.

 

[techathy]

Which is why there are 2 headlight height bands for MOT purposes. However the headlight pattern test is looking at the cut off location of the light compared to the source centre, as long as you're not taking the car from the higher band to the lower the pattern is only effected by the rake of the car.

 

[Fl@pper]

here ya go - read this if ya bored

http://www.dvtani.gov.uk/uploads/customerservices/Headlampleaflet.pdf

note the beam pattern for those usign hid's - it's the only thing my morettes are good at to be honest

 

[Rory101]

has it been tested or mot'd there before ?

maybe it's fine and the setup the beam checker too high ?

It hasn't been tested there before and it did occur to me that maybe the beam setter was a bit out, although I assume all MOT test equip gets calibrated every now and then. Perhaps the Ibiza's aim has always been a bit marginal.


It's had both previous MOTs at a SEAT dealer, but at the 4yr one (last year) it failed miserably on all sorts of stuff. I reckon the dealer was just creating work and I'm still sore about. I paid full price for this MOT in our village garage even though the SEAT dealer would do it free (but then stiff me for several hundred pounds worth of other work).