HID kit for CLC200

[Triv]

I think there's some confusion here.
Having RFL, insurance, MoT and a driving licence, does not make your vehicle road legal. It means you have complied with the law allowing you to drive the vehicle on the road. The car is assumed to be road legal because when it left the manufacturer it complied with type approval regulations and VOSA have not been informed of any modification to the vehicle. Therefore they assume that it still meets type approval.
If you modify it, you may well negate aspects of it's construction that require type approval and so it becomes an illegal vehicle on the road.

Two scenarios to help explain this:

There was a thread recently where ECP were asking for testers for coloured light bulbs. The bulbs come with a certificate to carry in the glove box, to show police officers who stop the driver that the bulbs are actually legal and comply with type approval. This suggests to me that the police know their stuff and realise that it's not just the colouring of the bulbs that make them dodgy.
Why do anything to your car that's going to make the police stop you? Madness.

A friend of mine builds cars. Not normal ones, ones that turn heads.
He bought a Fiat Panda Bisley, set it out, dismantled it, built a shortened stainless tubular spaceframe, stuck a winch on it (it could hide up trees!) and put it back on the road, taxed, as a Fiat Panda Bisley. Few aspects of it met type approval for a Fiat Panda but after lots of inspections it was declared road legal. And bl**dy good fun!
He also built a Mazda 2000 pickup with a jet engine on the back. That met with full type approval. The jet engine was only connected to the pickup bed and chassis. It had some proper wheel bearings on it too. It could be driven to a runway, run for just a few seconds and driven home again (in new underwear).
One vehicle was altered and needed inspection to ensure compliance. The other vehicle wasn't altered, it just had something in the back at MoT time. It was designed to carry stuff in the back.

If you alter your vehicle beyond it's manufactured spec, in any way, it won't matter how much insurance you have. You will more than likely be driving a non road legal car.

 

[toby1]

I've never understood the need for headlamp wash with xenons. They're as much use as a one-legged man in an arse-kicking competition.

 

[aj200]

I think there's some confusion here.
Having RFL, insurance, MoT and a driving licence, does not make your vehicle road legal. It means you have complied with the law allowing you to drive the vehicle on the road. The car is assumed to be road legal because when it left the manufacturer it complied with type approval regulations and VOSA have not been informed of any modification to the vehicle. Therefore they assume that it still meets type approval.
If you modify it, you may well negate aspects of it's construction that require type approval and so it becomes an illegal vehicle on the road.

Two scenarios to help explain this:

There was a thread recently where ECP were asking for testers for coloured light bulbs. The bulbs come with a certificate to carry in the glove box, to show police officers who stop the driver that the bulbs are actually legal and comply with type approval. This suggests to me that the police know their stuff and realise that it's not just the colouring of the bulbs that make them dodgy.
Why do anything to your car that's going to make the police stop you? Madness.

A friend of mine builds cars. Not normal ones, ones that turn heads.
He bought a Fiat Panda Bisley, set it out, dismantled it, built a shortened stainless tubular spaceframe, stuck a winch on it (it could hide up trees!) and put it back on the road, taxed, as a Fiat Panda Bisley. Few aspects of it met type approval for a Fiat Panda but after lots of inspections it was declared road legal. And bl**dy good fun!
He also built a Mazda 2000 pickup with a jet engine on the back. That met with full type approval. The jet engine was only connected to the pickup bed and chassis. It had some proper wheel bearings on it too. It could be driven to a runway, run for just a few seconds and driven home again (in new underwear).
One vehicle was altered and needed inspection to ensure compliance. The other vehicle wasn't altered, it just had something in the back at MoT time. It was designed to carry stuff in the back.

If you alter your vehicle beyond it's manufactured spec, in any way, it won't matter how much insurance you have. You will more than likely be driving a non road legal car.

The Fiat Panda didn't meet type approval but was still road legal... That's curious as your opening statement reads
If you modify it, you may well negate aspects of it's construction that require type approval and so it becomes an illegal vehicle on the road.

Type approval relates to European car manufacturing standards of new cars hence the DRLs being fitted to most new cars at present. If type approval was applied to cars already on the road then they would all require updating to meet an ever changing set of standards, which would be ridiculous.

 

[Triv]

Vehicle Type Approval is the confirmation that production samples of a design will meet specified performance standards.

It would be impossible to make it backward compatible.

It does mean however, that fitting something new into an old design, designed for something else, would mean that the contraption did not meet type approval.

I can see here that I'm pi$$ing in the wind.

Good luck with your conversion. I hope it all works out well for you and everyone else.

 

[aj200]

I always understood Vehicle Type Approval to apply to new vehicles, once they leave the production line surely they will not pass through type approval again unless of course heavily modified. The way I interpret your comments is that modifying a car voids the type approval but if the car will never be subjected to type approval where does the problem lye?

 

[Triv]

This is an old document. I don't know if it's still in force or if it's been updated but I refer you to it posted up in link 7.
I stand corrected if the regs have changed in the last 4 years but if they haven't, there is no argument. At all. End of.
Everything else is just 'Yeah but's.

http://www.dft.gov.uk/pgr/roadsafety/drs/hidheadlamps

 

[aj200]

So how hard is it to come by OEM xenons for a CLC and are they plug and play?