Really Getting Fed Up With Dealer

[I.D.C.]

Have Xenon lights without the led.
Reported this to my dealer last year twice to be told there is nothing wrong with my lights.
Every time it's dark on coming cars flash their lights at me. At first I thought it was maybe a hidden police car. The flashing lights continued from on coming cars even though my full beam was not on.
Then I was behind a car a noticed I was lightening up his interior as the beam from my car was high.
One car pulled in to let me go in front then sat behind me with his full beam on obviously thinking I was doing that to him.
Now early dark nights are here ( I'm north ) and the whole problem has started again with on coming drivers.

Have noticed when I start the car , stationery the lights go up and down as normal and then set to right level.
However on the move these light rise to a level that annoys other drivers.

Before todays service I explained the whole thing to the dealer again. When picking up the car was told there is nothing wrong with my lights that it would pass an MOT. Really pissed off about this there seems nothing I can do. I'm even thinking of contacting the Police to confirm my problem as surly this is a safety issue and has the potential to cause an accident. 

[Exonian]

In most towns and cities there are Govt. run MOT stations that would I'm sure happily put your car on the beam levelling rig just to test the aim of the lights. Or a local garage that has an MOT bay, I doubt they'd charge just for a few mins work? buy them a packet of biscuits or tea bags for their trouble. You can probably change the beam level with VCDS too.
They can at least double check the aim and if they say the car has a fault you can march back to your dealer and stamp your feet a bit...

[itavaltalainen]

Go to a different dealership. I changed when one dealer refused to give me courtesy car because I don't have a UK licence. Now drive to dealer is 30 miles instead of 10 but am happier with them and it's a smaller place as well (handful dealerships rather than national chain), who generally are more reliant on word of mouth so try harder.

Problem with going to non-VW garages is that they often don't have equipment to bring the lights to adaption setting; though you can also go to Seat, Skoda or Audi, though they probably will make you pay.

[Snoopy]

Go to a different dealer and tell them the beam height on the move is far too high and lighting up car interiors in front of you as if you have main beam on. Ask them to do a beam height check after a test drive.
The mk5 GTIs suffered poorly setup beam height from the factory so its not an unknown problem to them.

[I.D.C.]

Thanks guy's.

Problem with dealers , I live in central Scotland where every VW dealer is Arnold Clark.
Like the idea of an independent MOT station. Not sure what they are called - do most MOT stations have rollers that the cars wheels can sit on to simulate the car when driving ?

[Exonian]

MOT stations have rollers, yes, it's how they do the brake tests.
In England at least there is generally a local MOT station run by the ministry, they will do commercial vehicles and all sorts generally. I have never used them but I have heard from people that have and they say the positive side is that they aren't looking for repair work like a garage - so they do the test and that's it, there's nothing further to be gained by them, any remedial work is your own worry so you're not going to get stung by any unscrupulous garage practice where they fail your car trying to get extra money out of you. But on the flip side they do just do MOT tests and a pass is a pass and a fail a fail, they're not geared up for anything else but at least they are as impartial as you would get.
They will have rollers and they will have headlight alignment testing equipment and it will be properly calibrated.

[itavaltalainen]

They will have rollers and they will have headlight alignment testing equipment and it will be properly calibrated.

You don't need rollers to do headlight alignment.... but you will need a VW tester, ODIS, VCP or VCDS to align xenon headlights. MOT stations will most likely only have a generic OBD2 tester - they would have little use for dedicated VAG diagnostic systems. As I said you can also go to other VAG marques...

[Exonian]

They will have rollers and they will have headlight alignment testing equipment and it will be properly calibrated.

You don't need rollers to do headlight alignment.... but you will need a VW tester, ODIS, VCP or VCDS to align xenon headlights. MOT stations will most likely only have a generic OBD2 tester - they would have little use for dedicated VAG diagnostic systems. As I said you can also go to other VAG marques...

I, and I think IDC too, was getting at the possibility that the xenons go out of alignment actually on the move rather than on start up so if the car was put on rollers it could be tested 'moving' and not just stationary (bearing in mind that the headlights have motors to adjust the beam) and then the car could be taken back to VW with the orders of "here's the report from an MOT station, now please at long last get this fixed"
Quite a few independent garages keep a VCDS cable tucked away too, they're quite common!

[itavaltalainen]

The xenons have a 0 position, you adjust them to that when stationary. When you turn ignition on they initialise - if there was an issue with stepper motors etc that would get picked up and you'd end up with fault codes.
Same for range module etc.

If the alignment would change during driving then you would see that already during initalisation (if done multiple times, e.g. when you have teeth missing from gears or stepper motor misses steps).

[Finglonga]

Have you asked them to take it for a test drive when it is dark. Maybe worth doing so they can physically see that they are set too high and causing problems.