Hello everyone,

Just out of interest, we had to have our dealer re-aline our Fabia vRS xenon's.The car is 2 months old & the xenons were a factory fit order..

At first when we went back to our dealer & explained that they were incorrectly set up, they said that xenons 'self-aline' when driving & the alignment alters to the type of road, ie going up hill etc & suggested that it was this that made us think they were not set up properly, also xenons could not be adjusted as they were set at the factory & if they were wrong then new ones would have to be ordered in!!..I have never heard or read of Fabia Xenons being self-aligning..We left the car with the dealer for 1 hour who was able to adjust them & said that they were incorrect after all!

We can only think that there seems to be a 'grey area' in knowledge (at our dealer anyway) on xenon headlight issues...

Anyone else had anything similar..

charles & julie.

I read on the Hella site that Xenons self adjust as you drive...

They would need to be set up first, as they are not THAT bloody clever!

Regards, JT

I believe they can be self-levelled with VAG-COM and a screwdriver/spanner! They do adjust themselves as you drive along I think, and adjust their height based on the compressions of the rear suspension (to compensate for uneven surfaces, etc)...

Chris

I understand its a legal requirment foir Xeons to level for load variances.

Xeons probably have an initial setting that is set by factory dealer and then the level sensors vary the bean fron this point. My Superb Xeons self level you see then adjust when they are initially switched on. You will notiec the lack of a manual control inside the car. Headlight washers are also a legal requirenment for Xeons.

John

AFAIK, xenons can be "set up" - settings are in ECU and can be vagcommed Certain people have required readjusting xenons after some slight suspension tweaking

Also, occasionaly, the xenon alignment process can get its knickers in a twist. I had a problem on mine and a couple of faults were logged on the ECU. Once cleared and reset, lights then played up once more, but that was it. Been fine ever since.

So, I'd be interested to find out if th dealer just cleared codes or did a rebalance with vag1551 or whatever they have.

why are headlight washers a legal requirement?

The initial aim of the Xenons on my Furby was awful - pointed about 30 feet in front of the car. I had the dealer re-aim them.

Some time later, I asked the dealer to fit new main beam bulbs, for which they decided to remove the front bumper. When it was replaced, the Xenons were back at their 30-foot setting. I went through the Vag-Com setting procedure and found that the self-levelling mechanism had remembered its higher setting but the procedure hadn't been completed. I finished the procedure off with Vag-Com and everything is now fine.

I think Furby Xenons are sufficiently rare for dealers not to have much experience with them, and they don't do their PDI test runs in darkness so they may be unaware of poor Xenon aim. Chivvy them till they get it right - it's worth it.

why are headlight washers a legal requirement?

I'm guessing here, but I think it's because the area of polycarbonate lense the light beam shines through is a lot smaller compared to a traditional halogen bulb with reflector at the back.

Because of this, the beam pattern is much more susceptible to distortion caused by dirt on the polycarb headlight lense, so theory is that the washers will keep them clean to produce clean, correctly-aligned light.

Just a guess though :P