Intelligent light system inoperative

ajlsl600

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Most of us just want to be able to see the road in front us when it's dark.

xactly that! i 60 and been getting around corners with incident for 40yr i sure of one thing if these damn lights were an option over the stadard they would not be selling many. most buy the cars without knowing how complex and ****** expensive these gismo,s are . not for me .... a five min job, 4 quid bulb is wot i after.
 

rf065

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xactly that! i 60 and been getting around corners with incident for 40yr i sure of one thing if these damn lights were an option over the stadard they would not be selling many. most buy the cars without knowing how complex and ****** expensive these gismo,s are . not for me .... a five min job, 4 quid bulb is wot i after.

They are an option and selling like hot cakes, once you try them there's no going back. They don't just see round corners, you can leave full beam on permanently at night and watch how a little black square stops you blinding the car in front but still sends light along each side of it and the beam constantly alters to not blind cars coming towards you. I think they're the best invention for cars since ABS became standard, these will be standard too given time.

Russ
 

Craiglxviii

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xactly that! i 60 and been getting around corners with incident for 40yr i sure of one thing if these damn lights were an option over the stadard they would not be selling many. most buy the cars without knowing how complex and ****** expensive these gismo,s are . not for me .... a five min job, 4 quid bulb is wot i after.
Right at the mo, MB are selling 40% of cars with ILS. They’re proving themselves to be extremely good (superb lighting performance) and the reliability is similarly excellent- they’re literally thousands of times more reliable than traditional lighting systems. They’re unfortunately not service items (yet, they may become so) thus not maintainable, and at the same time more expensive to replace than a bulb- in- a- box.

I know we will never agree on this, but your argument is highly simplistic. You may have been driving for 40 years without incident, but the hundreds of thousands of drivers who have had collisions due to poor headlamp performance or being dazzled would beg to differ. Actually they wouldn’t beg, they’d demand that the industry does something to improve the 7” sealed beam lamp. Which it did, to halogen then HiD then LED, each of which represents a significant improvement in light output, beam density and homogeonity, and controllability.

So stop being a Luddite. If you want simple lamps, go back to an Escort Mk.1 ;)
 

ajlsl600

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respect yr view. but i not buying it. halogen plenty good enough for me. thers no way i am getting involved in any kind of light that can cost me hundreds to sort out. i think my present lights pretty good my experience tells me that when anything "intellegent" is fitted to a modern car and becomes unintellegent its often a big headache such that even the dealers have issues working it out , never mind the chances for joe bloggs on his drive and probrably on his pension .as mentioned previously i have spent my whole career in construction and have seen the undenialbe march of tech there as well and almost without fail when theres a problem its related to that same tech. so 20 yr ago you had a linkage rod fall off you opened the hood saw it ,fixed it went back to work , now there is some brain a solenoid and resistors .and one needs a laptop to interview it . not easy in the desert,third world and no where near a replacement of any of those , so i dont see it as a step forward .
 

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I didn’t realise France was the “third world”.
 

Craiglxviii

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respect yr view. but i not buying it. halogen plenty good enough for me. thers no way i am getting involved in any kind of light that can cost me hundreds to sort out. i think my present lights pretty good my experience tells me that when anything "intellegent" is fitted to a modern car and becomes unintellegent its often a big headache such that even the dealers have issues working it out , never mind the chances for joe bloggs on his drive and probrably on his pension .as mentioned previously i have spent my whole career in construction and have seen the undenialbe march of tech there as well and almost without fail when theres a problem its related to that same tech. so 20 yr ago you had a linkage rod fall off you opened the hood saw it ,fixed it went back to work , now there is some brain a solenoid and resistors .and one needs a laptop to interview it . not easy in the desert,third world and no where near a replacement of any of those , so i dont see it as a step forward .
Ok. Here’s a direct analogy. 20 or more years ago we had a typical jet aeroplane with maintenance measured in the hundreds of man- hours per flight hour. 20 years before that it was in the thousands. Now it’s under 100 and we are marching towards the tens.

The exact same application of technology that allowed that progress is what we’re talking about now. Electronics are in our lives and in ever- increasing amounts both in penetration and duration of usage. 20 years ago very few of us would be responding to internet fora (message boards as they were then called) on our mobile phones; 20 years before that the concept of it wasn’t even a gleam in Motorola’s eye.

So, a bulb in a box is a simple cheap form of lighting. For as long as bulbs are made, because there has been many billions sink into capital investment over many decades. There’s already movement to cut back on that tech in favour of LED, which is a far superior lighting source in many different ways, and more expensive mainly because the tech is exactly one decade old this year.

So, LED lamps in cars give us some huge advantages. We don’t have to design lamps to be bulbs in boxes anymore. We can have them 25mm deep instead and use the volume for something else. Batteries, fuel, energy absorption, just a smaller car. We can use the electronics to do other things. Combined engine and lighting ECUs. Ranging for cruise control. Infotainment.

The point is that nothing in design stands still if there’s progress. Progress isn’t linear and one technology gets disrupted by another. LED tech in this case has disrupted the lighting industry. Shortly cars will be made by 3D printing in your back yard anyway so the point will be moot ;)
 

ajlsl600

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accepted. fairly well put . does not,however always make it a sensible way to go ,not with my wallet anyway ,its a completely different matter if such things are a listed option , if i elect to add that option i am accepting the likely cost ramifications and not having them forced on me . i think someone has suggested that this is the case with some makers/models . i simply like to choose. for me a step forward is when something is developed that at least statstically i can forget about . then i can weigh up the value of that option. and if convinced , buy it . as is now, i am far from convinced .. i AM not merc bashing here as has previously been suggested , the issue crops up in almost everything these days. simply you and some other are convinced of the advantages .i am not
 

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thats progress for you.
 

ajlsl600

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Try opening a business there and you soon will!!!

accurate at times ,that statement on france . however in this case not, i am 34 yrs in west,east southern and nrthern africa and the subject i am harping on about, sorry,just slighty, causes at least 60% of our downtime . i have almost the same number of toughbook diagnostic systems as i have machines, mercedes ,hitachi,volvo,ET,jcb ,iveco.and just arriving bloxxy DAF they cant, it seeems even agree on a common operating systems, believe me putting on a different system " head" 4 or five times a day gets a little tiresome. at least, so far one can still attack the issue with fairly common tools , but someone will be working on changing that as well..
 

LostKiwi

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I've always found than an intelligent system in a car is more intelligent than the monkeys the dealers employ to fix them...
 

Craiglxviii

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I've always found than an intelligent system in a car is more intelligent than the monkeys the dealers employ to fix them...
What do you have against monkeys? ;)
 

Paul Goff

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I've always found than an intelligent system in a car is more intelligent than the monkeys the dealers employ to fix them...
And that, is very much the nub of the problem!

The tech is fine until something goes wrong and then, if even the main dealer workshop can't get to grips with the problem, does one do?

I had an alarm/immobiliser fault on a six month old company car some years ago, one of the key fobs failed. Without the initial unlock signal from the fob, you simply could not start the car.
The local main dealer took five goes and four weeks to supply a new fob, code it to the car, and recode the second fob so that they worked. They had one man who knew how to do this (oh no he ruddy didn't) and he was only there on Fridays! By the time they had performed the task, under warranty, I had been talking to the importers technical team, they didn't understand why the dealer hadn't just ordered a new, pre coded fob. Which was what I asked them to do, but "that's not possible Sir"

No doubt, had I been paying, the bill would have been ludicrous.

Nurture your local friendly independent chaps ;)
 

ajlsl600

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And that, is very much the nub of the problem!

The tech is fine until something goes wrong and then, if even the main dealer workshop can't get to grips with the problem, does one do?

I had an alarm/immobiliser fault on a six month old company car some years ago, one of the key fobs failed. Without the initial unlock signal from the fob, you simply could not start the car.
The local main dealer took five goes and four weeks to supply a new fob, code it to the car, and recode the second fob so that they worked. They had one man who knew how to do this (oh no he ruddy didn't) and he was only there on Fridays! By the time they had performed the task, under warranty, I had been talking to the importers technical team, they didn't understand why the dealer hadn't just ordered a new, pre coded fob. Which was what I asked them to do, but "that's not possible Sir"

No doubt, had I been paying, the bill would have been ludicrous.

Nurture your local friendly independent chaps ;)
in a nutshell ,if you WANT people to buy into tech, it needs to be reilable and reasonably priced and those marketing it need to be able to maintain it ,if not WHATS the point.?
 

Craiglxviii

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in a nutshell ,if you WANT people to buy into tech, it needs to be reilable and reasonably priced and those marketing it need to be able to maintain it ,if not WHATS the point.?
And it mostly is most of the time, because enough people ARE buying into it to help it spread out diagonally.
 

ajlsl600

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even if i won the blxxdy lotterey i wont be giving 600 for a damn headlight. i dont agree that it is reliable either.i am also prety sure that many of those who do pay 600 ,1000 for the headlight...... are 1, unaware , before hand that this would be the likely cost and 2 are pretty unhappy about it .Craiglxviii , we are just going to have to dissagree, no hard feeling from me......i guess some like it and some are happy enough managing without it........i content with freeview channels ,some it seems find it vital to give 60 quid a month to watch tv , i have plenty of other things to do...
 

Paul Goff

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I do wonder, to what extent the new car market is being "distorted" by the inherent short termism produced by the PCP, Lease, et al, forms of finance which seem to dominate now?

Were I able to procure and service such an arrangement on a car I would actually want to "own", which I am not o_O, would I give a darn about expensive options going wrong? NO, almost certainly not! Such things are rather unlikely to fail in the two or three years of my tenure and, even if any did, it would not be my financial responsibility to effect repairs.
Being a bit of a Tech head, I would be very keen on an intelligent lighting system etc etc ;)

There is an Elephant in the room though.
At the moment these sorts of deals can be spectacularly cheap, but for how long? This must be flooding the market with hundreds of thousands of cars that may well not have been on the road without the leasing deals. All well and good until said vehicles hit the used market after a few years, when their values will almost certainly suffer, due to over supply!
The ones that will/do suffer most are the cars packed with potentially very expensive technology.

Consequently it will be a brave man indeed who actually BUYS, with real money, a NEW vehicle.

The bottom line for me, is that it would have been cheaper, so far, to lease a new C220 CDi, than to keep in repair my 2002 C Class for the seven months I have had it!
Unfortunately I cannot raise the necessary finance, were I able to though, and I apologise for using a five letter word, I would be eyeing the new Tesla with some intent :)

There is elephant there too, it's asleep in the corner for the moment, it isn't range or infrastructure, it's Motor Fuel Duty. If anything is going to drive black box based Road Pricing, it will be electric vehicles!
 
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ajlsl600

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fair enough if yr leasing i suppose one would go for the most tech for the least cash,best deal. but as ù said above cant see that stuff holding its used car value once the general public wise up to 600,1000 quid headlights and other related , similar priced tech i have often been asked about does my motor have panoramic folding roof i have yet to be asked about cornering headlights, and tho i like my roof it would not have been a game changer for my interest in the car, stuff i am reading about on here would make some motors a non starter for me,i rarely buy less than 5,6 yr old motors,so with just a little bad luck i could land up with considerable expence which no amount of grafting,effort would help me avoid .
 
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Craiglxviii

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And on that score what we see is a market opening up to repair complex electronics. Throttle position sensors were the big thing a decade ago, now they can be fixed for £50 with 12mth warranty... electronic headlamps are the same.
 

ajlsl600

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And on that score what we see is a market opening up to repair complex electronics. Throttle position sensors were the big thing a decade ago, now they can be fixed for £50 with 12mth warranty... electronic headlamps are the same.


thank god for that ,but in the case of the lights , as this is how subject started.i still see that as an avoidable expense, at least for the time being .i think the makers install this kind of stuff knowing full well that they have at least a few yrs to milk it before the market comes up with a solution ,by which time they have already moved on to the next protective tech drama, we are the rabbits in the crosshairs ..
 


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