Well at the end of the day, you entitled to your opinion,
Thank-you
. We are
all entitled to voice our "opinions", and I would be the last person standing, defending peoples' rights to do so. However, in your posts, you have, as well as giving your opinion, tried to state issues of law. It is that area, regarding the law, which you are very wrong, and I am offering my expertise and experience in that area to offer others who may be reading this, and thinking about taking the same route as yourself, to be given clear and frank advice, that retro-fitting of HID Xenon headlamps is illegal.
Yes, there are many other "modifications" that people do to their cars which are illegal, and some of those modifications have no effect on road safety - heck, a loud exhaust, whilst irritating to some, certainly won't cause an accident! Dangerous, faulty, illegal, misaligned, and misused headlamps
do cause accidents, and as someone who has directly experienced a near-fatality
in my own family due to the night blindness caused by the incorrect use of headlamps, this is an area close to my heart, and one which I feel passionate about
.
I do maintain an "honesty", for want of a better word in my posts, on the absolute legal issue, but I admit my "tone" in expressing that point may seem less than friendly, to which I have already appologised to the forum. Rather than taking the easy route of re-editing my previous posts, I will let them stay as they were, however, I again offer my appologies to the whole of the forum, including the OP, CC, for any offence or distaste caused only by the tone of my expression, but not by the facts in my posts.
but all I know is that I drove home last night, as I have done for the last couple of weeks, without anyone flashing me, or crashing as they approached me.
That is rather a hollow, and meaningless statement. It is exactly like saying if a heroin dealer carries out his/her business without geting caught, then that too is A-OK!
If your the “vehicle technician†you claim to be, you will have noticed the pattern on the headlight beam tester might have been less pronounced that a halogen, but in no way higher of more obtrusive.
I am well versed with beam patterns, and the MoT test requirements, produced by all types of headlamp bulbs and assemblies, ranging from US DOT beams, UK sealed beams, tungsten-only filament bulbs, tungsten-halogen bulbs (ranging from the older H1, H2, H3 and H4s, through to the later better quality H7, HB3, HB4 and H11s), and the latest HID Xenon capsules (both in single beam, and dual beam or bi-Xenon).
The beam
patterns you have posted in your original message would be on a par with the ancient Lucas sealed beam units, or the earlier poorly designed tungsten-only or tungsten-halogen headlamps. The beam pattern of an H7, HB3, HB4 or H11 would be considerably better by some magnitude over what you have shown in your pictures. The beam "intensity", or brightness, along with the "temperature", or colour (whiteness) shown in your pictures is an extremely simple indication that the light is being produced by a HID capsule. This is blatantly obvious, and any MoT tester, along with any Police Officer from a "Roads Policing Unit", otherwise known as a traffic cop, will know of the illegal fitment of the said HID capsule.
Any accident your car
may be involved in, will be deemed a contributory factor in the cause of that said accident. Now, you may think the same could be said for OEM headlamps which were misaligned, and, providing the police, or insurance assessors could prove the misalignment, after any collision, then fine, they would have something to go on - but any kind of front end impact would invalidate any effort or attempt to prove that particular issue. However, it is very easy to see, even after severe front end impact, of any unlawful modification to your headlamps. Even if your headlamps were smashed to tiny pieces, there would still be the evidence available to categorically state the headlamps were unlawfully modified. That would actually deem your insurance invalid, and you would then be personally liable for all costs from any accident, including all third party costs, and more alarmingly, now the police, fire service, ambulance and hospitals can also recover their costs from dealing with RTAs! Think about it - is it really worth it? Only can make the final call!
... to be continued (due to my reply exceeding the maximum post length
)
