W169 Dipped Adjustment.

bigtwin

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The missus' 169 came manual free. Obviously a race lightening feature. As is, presumably, the special dark dipped lights, saving on all those heavy photons. The dipped lights are shockingly useless. Light up the hedges nicely, but useless for actually seeing the road at all - they need to swivel in towards the centre more. The main beams are very good however, and I don't want to move them.

Delving under the bonnet, it seems there is an adjuster on the top of the unit, a plastic slotted nut thing that looks as if it will move the whole caboodle, which I don't want to do.

Is there any way of adjusting laterally the dipped/main units independently of each other, or is it a choice of seeing with dipped or main but not both?
 

whitenemesis

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Are the headlights xenons or halogens?
 
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bigtwin

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Big standard Halo-where's-all-the-light-gone's....
 

television

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No you can only adjust the complete lamp, I would suggest that you change the lamp bulbs to "Osram Nightbreaker Plus" You will get 90% more light and only £12 on Ebay the pair
 
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bigtwin

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No you can only adjust the complete lamp, I would suggest that you change the lamp bulbs to "Osram Nightbreaker Plus" You will get 90% more light and only £12 on Ebay the pair

Thanks - I did bung some brighter bulbs in, but all it does is light up the tops of the hedges more and deepen the patch of darkness on the road where one can see bugger all.

It's a good job they don't do test drives at night, or they'd sell none of these things. Who the hell put those stupid bean-can light units in there, and made them so utterly useless?
 
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television

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Then lower them a touch, its so simple to do
 
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bigtwin

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Then lower them a touch, its so simple to do

That would just make it worse. The dipped light pattern is a "V", and it's wide. Lowering it would throw no more light on the middle of the road without pointing them down massively (or actually raising them may be the only way to try to get a bit of the bottom on the V up the road), if then even, and it would make the main beam far worse/useless.

I may try a £35 HID kit from flea bag and see if that makes it useable. Fundamentally, it's just crap design.

It must be a German thing. My BMW motorbikes have proudly had awful dipped lights till after-market modded to make them safely rideable. That said, the W210 is fine, but then it's got separate units, so you can adjust them properly. If it ain't broke.....
 

television

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Maybe they eat more carrots in Germany that us ;)
 
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bigtwin

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They probably have road lighting, less traffic, and fill in their potholes, thus it's not such an issue....
 
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bigtwin

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Thanks for the tip about the Osrams - they do make a huge difference. Ordered some for the bike too now.

The lights are still pretty poor, but at least it's not like driving with one's eyes shut now.
 


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