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Hey Dan, light question for you
https://slantsix.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=26254		 Page 2 of 2
Author:  Wizard [ Tue Dec 18, 2007 2:19 pm ]
Post subject:  Caravan's almost useless headlights...
Even I used the legal DOT or E-code headlights round or square retrofitted to the caravan with extremely poor headlight performance aero plastic style (1987) will there be issues with cops hassling with me if go anywhere?

Mine simply floods the road with dim light with marginally hot spot to right in my lane on low beams. And doesn't help at all to illimate the area close to the vehicle front end especially rain/heavy rain. Yes both are clear still which is remarkable for a 20 year old caravan. :)

Advices would be nice for certain headlights assemblies that I can use?

Cheers, Wizard
Author:  SlantSixDan [ Tue Dec 18, 2007 2:45 pm ]
Post subject: 
Wizard, your '87 Caravan can rather easily and cleanly be retrofitted with good headlamps that won't get you in trouble with the law, but please send me an e-mail ( dastern "åt" torque "døt" net ) to discuss it; I'd rather not get commercial on the board here.
Author:  supton [ Wed Dec 19, 2007 5:15 am ]
Post subject: 
My experience, your milage may vary--but despite missing the DOT mark of approval on mine, I haven't had issues with the local garage at inspection time. Maybe if I took it to the dealer I would ("Another sucker just came in. Easy money!"). As for the cops, I honestly don't think they'd hassle you for that. They've got better things to do.

But if Dan has a more legal solution, I'd go with that, and sleep better at night.
Author:  SlantSixDan [ Wed Dec 19, 2007 8:36 am ]
Post subject: 
Unfortunately, the US lighting regulations are so lax that there's no 1:1 linkage between a headlamp's legality in the US and its safety performance. There are good legal headlamps (not enough of those), bad legal headlamps (too many of those), bad illegal headlamps (way too many of those) and good illegal headlamps. The whole regulatory situation is pretty nonsensical; the good-illegal headlamps are those that are required almost everywhere else in the drive-on-the-right-side-of-the-road world. You have to pick your lamps carefully and with full information, because it's much easier to find and buy bad headlamps than it is to find and buy good ones, and even among the good ones there's a very large range of safety performance. And what's more, there's more BS and hyped-up handwaving in the automotive lighting market than in the engine oil additive market, so it's very easy to get taken in by pseudoscientific claims with no basis in fact. :-(

That said, if your good headlamps are for the correct side of the road, are equipped with a bulb of proper colour, are aimed correctly and are used correctly, there's no reason a cop would notice your lamps and pull you over for a closer inspection. Likewise, even those few states that still inspect headlamps have mostly stopped checking for anything other than on/off, high/low beam, and aimed neither on the bumper nor on the trees.

On the other hand, if you put a blue bulb or "HID kit" in your headlamps, if they're for the wrong side of the road, if they're aimed incorrectly or used incorrectly (high beams or "driving lights" in traffic), then you can, could, and should get a ticket or flunk inspection.
Author:  Joshie225 [ Wed Dec 19, 2007 12:57 pm ]
Post subject: 
Quote:
You would be much further ahead to install two pairs (2x low beam + 2x high beam) of the Hella 90mm modular optics, which are available in numerous varieties (four different kinds of halogen, two different kinds of Xenon HID, only some of which are shown here):

Image
Dan,

Dare I ask what four of those 90mm lamps cost?
Author:  SlantSixDan [ Wed Dec 19, 2007 1:41 pm ]
Post subject: 
Roughly ~$60 apiece for the DOT halogen low or high beam version, ~$100 apiece for the ECE halogen low or high beam version, considerably higher than that for the DOT or ECE Xenon version.
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