When I was much younger I thought the name came from the fact that it was waterproof. It repels liquid like water off a duck's back.

Rear fog light? Ive had a few with that. Makes me feel betterhaving that on in blizzards.

One problem is the manufacturers have made headlights into assemblies that cannot be repaired or really disassembled, forcing you to replace the entire thing if anything goes wrong. Also they can be expensive.

https://daxstreet.com/cars/419253/10-cars-where-a-headlight-assembly-costs-2000-dollars/

Also sometimes the new headlight needs to be programmed by the dealership to work correctly

Canada used to have regulations about the maximum lumens that could be output by headlights, but corporate lobbyists undermined this with a rule that exempted cars that rolled off the dealership lot with brighter lights in the late 90's when the manufacturers started using the bright blue halogens. Then LEDs came out and they got the same bypass automatically.

I voted against the political leaders that supported moves like this for years, but most of the population doesn't.

So, here we are.

Wtf, on my 2005 car changing the lights costs 30 bucks. They are purposefully low price because you don't want people around going without lights

Yeah, we are very strict regarding max light output, but depending on what we measure, it's Candela or Lumen. And bright beams (> 2000 Lumen) need to automatically limit how far they reach to not blind people when driving over a hill for example, etc. Without all of that, it would be carnage.

Yep, driving around without lights is dangerous, it could get you pulled over. The people designing these setups know this and want to force you back to the dealership.

Do it. I did and it's fucking hilarious getting revenge on these people. They get so mad lol

Just don't make the mistake I did and do it to a cop (it was at night so I couldn't see what kind of car it was; all I saw was tailgating headlights). Thankfully he had a sense of humor about it.

Then get aftermarket headlights! Why are you guys acting like OEM housing is the only way?

This is a real Mercedes-Benz as they ran in magazines, showing you can check how far along a cow's pregnancy is with their stock headlights.

A lot of them are now automatic and older not Lazer beam lights don't deactivate them. And many many many people have no idea how to adjust or change this... To be fair many many people have no business behind the wheel of literally anything but I digress.

It happens on rolling hills too, which aren't very annoying on their own. And sure it might be possible to fix this issue in the future, but currently headlights assuming down = bright is an issue.

Spray-on tint lol.

You're not a person by Elon's standards. It uses AI facial recognition to see if you're a billionaire and if you're not, it re-aims to blind you more.

The factory ones are bright but not blinding. Its always the aftermarket's that aren't set up properly or regulated that are blinding.

Yeah I'd end up eating a curb with my self-control around cops.

How is making your vehicle highly visible a dick move? Probably safter than most others.

For reference where are you located?

The factory LEDs from any north american car manufacturer are absolutely blinding.

it is

You will be the one pulled over and ticketed, even if you aren't actually using it.

Definitely looks like some Ai image they used.

You do realize their goal is less bright lights, with these LED assemblies there is often little to no aftermarket, and when there is it is brighter. Example: 2023-2026 Acura integra

I don't know about the second part, but yeah, using it is definitely illegal on the road.

And many many many people have no idea how to adjust or change this…

The number of people I've encountered who believe that their automatic headlights will always come on when they need one and therefore they do not need to ever manually turn them on so that other drivers can see their white car in the white fog as they drive down the centerline...

Seriously just turn on your headlights. Makes your car way easier to see regardless of the weather or lighting

Well you gotta give it a few years for an aftermarket to develop. I'm happy that there are people on Lemmy privileged enough to afford a brand new car, but most of us are driving 12-14 year old vehicles, in which there's almost always an aftermarket available in that age range unless you're driving something obscure (in which case you'd have a difficult time finding even OEM parts for!).

nope, the factory ones are blinding too

pay to get them replaced with something that's not dangerous

it's your vehicle. you are responsible for it too.

this is one of many reasons I won't buy a newer car.

Do people not verify lights are on by checking the dang illuminated symbol on their dash?! I keep mine on auto and sometimes have to override it but it’s still convenient enough to not have to dick with my lights 90% of the time.

I used to have a foot button on the left side for brights/dims back in the day, left foot isn’t used for anything else, I miss that shit so much.

incorrect. stock LED headlights are blinding

I am enthused by the anti-led headlight comments in this thread

it's nice to see people recognizing the danger for what it is and not just making false claims about how it's only illegal headlights that are dangerous and stock LEDs are fine

I'm proud of all you people shitting on LED headlights. keep up the good work

edit: to the guy who respectably tried to find alternatives for their blinding headlights and couldn't and wrote their MP about it - good work. but that's not enough. it's your vehicle, and you as the owner and operator are responsible for its safety. you chose that vehicle. you were aware of the headlights. you made that trade off of blinding headlights for the rest of the package. that was YOUR decision. don't fuck my life up as a result and say "whoopsie, nothing I can do, not my fault". that's disgusting. have some responsibility for your actions. yes the manufacturers fucked you. don't use that as an excuse to fuck the rest of us.

I have automatic high beams and they almost never turn on. I don't really think I've had an issue with them not turning off. EXCEPT for one time I was driving around with my normal low beams on as usual and they just decided to pop on briefly to blind the person right in front of me. I felt so bad because wtf???

A lot of cars have daytime running lights that won't show a symbol on the dashboard when they're on.

Also, don't forget to turn them off. I was on the road at about 3:30am this morning and initially thought there was a wrong way driver. It took about 20 seconds to realize it wasn't getting any closer and figure out what it actually was: a guy in a jeep had them installed on a roof rack.

My car has them too, from the factory. Maybe there are tints that can be applied to the light thing. Maybe that's illegal tho 🤷

Blinder-lovers tend to lean conservative (comes with the "Doesn't hurt me = Not a problem"), and Lemmy is definitely not very.

There are no replacement options, see other threads.

I thought this, but then after flashing a few of them I realized those are actually their low beams, and they're just stupidly bright LEDs.

I fucking hate those things. I saw somewhere that it's almost always an alignment issue, but I feel like with today's technology it should be self-correcting if it's going to otherwise blind people. We have phones that can photograph an ant's asshole at 300 meters. they could fix this shit if they cared. They'll only care if they lose billions in a class action lawsuit.

If it's from the factory, it's likely not as bad as the aftermarket ones. The problem with aftermarket is the light housing is designed for a bulb in a particular location. The aftermarket ones will often be in the wrong location, so even the low beams will shine higher than they should be. (Low/high beams have to do with height, not brightness.) Your lights might be bright, but I suspect that your low beams still don't shine upward very far. If they do, name and shame the manufacturer of your car please.

Teslas notoriously have almost no quality control, so that makes sense.

The technology for adaptive headlights absolutely has existed...... in super high-end cars because that's a complex optical control and microelectronics system. it requires advanced engineering, complex optical assemblies, and complicated control systems. Your Honda will never have that because most of us simply don't want to pay. Cars are complicated enough. Do want more things that can break? Do you want your replacement headlights to cost $5,000? LED technology is so far superior to any other light source for headlights. That there are idiots all over the place with poorly maintained cars is not the LEDs fault.

Its bad enough that people constantly flash their lights at me because they think I have my brights on. At stop signs I literally need to flash my brights back to prove they aren't. (It would be impossible, the brights will not stay on when there are any red or white lights in front of the vehicle unless you manually pullback and hold the control stick.)

I never use the brights on this thing. The headlights are already too bright

Mentioned in another thread, this is a Dodge. And Mopar makes sure no aftermarket parts exist. Dodge doesn't provide any alternative light brightnesses.

This is unfortunately just not true. I'm also from Germany and I drive a lot at night, where I get absolutely blinded by random headlights every couple of minutes. My car sits very close to the ground and the average SUV headlights are way above my trunk and hood, shining directly into my cabin. It's gotten so bad in recent years. One day I'll probably crash into a tree or something because yet another idiot trusts their Matrix LED high beams to recognize my car in time.

The worst part is when the other headlights are so bright you have to make yours brighter to compensate. I have astigmatism and am literally blinded by these headlights while driving at night. I had to upgrade my own headlights to LED (still dimmer than these others) just so that I could still make out the road when they drive by. Because the way my eyes work the more my eyes adjust for darkness the more blinding a light is.

It's super easy to adjust in most cars that don't do it automatically. There is usually a slot near the lights and you use a philips or flat screw driver and turn the adjustment nut either up or down depending on need. Instructions are in the manual or you can look it up online for every vehicle I've owned.

There is an exact method but generally line the car up facing and super close to a wall, turn the lights on, the center of the beam should be about 2-3 inches below the height of your headlights. If you have space the beam should hit the ground 7.5m or about 25 ft from where your car is parked.

A common issue in my hick town is people lifting vehicles and never adjusting the light angle. Any time you put bigger tires on a car or lift the body you should adjust the lights.

Edit:
I just wanted to add, if you get brights flashed at you a lot it's time to adjust your lights.

Having them installed is legal as far as I know because they're legal for off road use.

Yeah. That's what I meant. As long as you don't use them to blind other drivers. Even if it is just for the lulz.

I had mine installed in the rear window, so if I left it on it would be very obvious. Installing a rear-facing light on a light bar where you can't see it is a really bad idea.

Never had that issue with my normal cars (like Golf class). What kind of Tarnmobil are you driving?