I've been getting increasingly dissatisfied with the Xenon headlights on my Scout. I don't do a hugh amount of rural night driving, but on Sunday I decided something must be wrong with the dipped headlight aim. The lights are very bright, as you would expect, but there is a very marked lack of range on the drivers side. I parked the car on a straight and level road and found the range to the horz cut-off was 15m.

Having looked at the MOT requirements, the permitted angle of slope on dipped headlights is -0.5% and -2.0% for lights at 850mm above the road or less. The range for dipped lights higher than 850mm is between -1.25% and -2.75% i.e. higher lights have to aim more steeply down.

I measured the Scout's headlight centre to be 0.74m above the road, so with a range of 15m, the slope is -4.9% so I have booked the car in to get them checked. Does that sound right, or have I misunderstood the MOT requirements.

I can drive at 70mph with my lights on dipped, I don't know how far out the throw goes or strictly whether they will pass MOT but I dont' get flashed and I can see out a long way. I adjusted my lights myself.

If the lights are set too short you get hit by a double whammy, firstly and more obviously because the range of the lights is reduced but then secondly, and more insidiously, because the very strong reflection from the road near to you will blind you from seeing the spill further out. That is the reason why HID replacement kits generally give far worse vision than the halogens they replace; they throw out lots of light but without an optimized beam pattern they actually worsen vision.

Sounds right to me - using the measured height of the lights and the slope defined by the MOT, the range should be between 37 and 148m - a bit better than 15m! I agree the bright reflection up close creates a black hole beyond the cut-off where nothing is visible.

Very pleased with the work done yesterday by Elmside Skoda to reaim the headlights on my Scout - much better range - and still MOT compliant. And they completed a campaign steering ECU upgrade - reference 91E6.

What I've learnt from this is not to assume the lights have been set up properly on PDI.

Edited 20 December, 201114 yr by London Les

Very pleased with the work done yesterday by Elmside Skoda to reaim the headlights on my Scout - much better range - and still MOT compliant. And they completed a campaign steering ECU upgrade - reference 91E6.

What I've learnt from this is not to assume the lights have been set up properly on PDI.

We had the same issue on our Scout, dealer sorted it. Im not sure setting up lights is part of the PDi, they should come correctly set from the factory

What was the steering upgrade for, I dont want my ECU played with unless absolutely neccesary, the car is going to well at the moment

Edited 20 December, 201114 yr by Stuart_J

I found some stuff on a german website, after googling the campaign number, and found that it updates the steering ECU to prevent intermittent horn and cruise control failures. One forum member claimed the steering felt heavier and more direct afterwards, but I suspect that was placebo. The update should be done automatically on service, when the dealer plugs in to check for error codes. Elmside needed to do this to calibrate the xenons.