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BRZ First-Gen (2012+) -- General Topics All discussions about the first-gen Subaru BRZ coupe


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Old 05-19-2018, 06:53 PM   #29
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Can’t really tell how they are aimed that close to the wall. You need to get close to the wall and measure where the cutoff is on the wall. Then back up 25’ and remeasure. Then adjust so there is a 1-2” drop from the first measurement. If you want I can meet up with you one night and we can compare where our beam height is.
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Old 05-19-2018, 10:55 PM   #30
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I only ever get flashed in rural areas with no street lights. It usually helps if i DO have my high beams on when they come into view. Then when i turn them off, i usually dont get flashed.

The thing about LED headlights is that they look bright even when they arent pointed at you. But when someone gets annoyed thinking i have my high beams on, and i actually turn them on in response, it seems to shut them up (so to speak) pretty quickly.
This ^^^. turn the brights off when people can see you do it I get flashed several times whenever it's dark... Even after they see me turn them down, then I hit em with the high beams.
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Old 05-22-2018, 04:49 PM   #31
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I have owned a MY17 86 for almost a year now, but I have never been flashed like this. I wonder if my driveway is responsible. I park my car at home with the nose tilted up each day. Now I know the automatic adjusting headlights are supposed to do their thing when they detect a slope, but there is so little information about the details of how this works. So when I start my car on an up slope, presumedly the lights should adjust down. Once I back out and drive on level surfaces, presumedly they should level out. Or do they? How often do they adjust? Only at start up? Constantly as you drive? It can't be constantly or else they would be bouncing around with every hill, and I don't notice that happening. Maybe they only level off if at an incline for a set amount of time? Maybe they move so slowly that it is imperceptible? I can't find anything in the manual that explains under what parameters the auto leveling headlights work. If they level only at startup, my inclined driveway might always point them down. Just a theory. However they work, I do not think the shine level is ever high enough to be above another car's hood. They are bright, though. My old Integra has the dimmest lights ever and compared to that I'm driving in a lighthouse for lost ships!

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Old 05-22-2018, 06:08 PM   #32
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These headlights are nothing compared to the 14-18 Corolla headlights.
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Old 05-24-2018, 09:28 AM   #33
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That’s a good point Myriad.

We don’t know how/when the light auto adjust.

Sounds like some research is in order.

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Old 05-26-2018, 12:57 AM   #34
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I was following a honda fit on a one lane road when he pulled over, then tailed me with his high beams on. We pulled up to a stop light side by side and the guy refused to look at me.
Once the light turned, and he moved, I showed him what my high beams looked like and carried on my way.

I crested over a hill while he was in front of me and he took the full brightness of my headlights.
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Old 05-26-2018, 07:29 AM   #35
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Quote:
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I was following a honda fit on a one lane road when he pulled over, then tailed me with his high beams on. We pulled up to a stop light side by side and the guy refused to look at me.
Once the light turned, and he moved, I showed him what my high beams looked like and carried on my way.

I crested over a hill while he was in front of me and he took the full brightness of my headlights.
I never knew that my headlights could be used for the Forces of Evil?

It gives me pause to reconsider all the good I've done in my life.

What a waste of a life.

Just Kidding RToyo86 - We've all heard that voice in our left ear from the little red man with the pitch fork.
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Old 05-31-2018, 07:00 PM   #36
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MY17 series yellow I got flashed 10+ times on one trip and other days 0. So I think they are just extremely bright and people are dumb
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Old 06-12-2018, 05:24 PM   #37
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I have something to add to this thing with headlights using my 2014 Forester as a reference. The Forester headlights illuminate the road better than most cars I have driven. The low beam is a single filament Halogen and high beam adds a second pair of single filament halogen lamps. The fog lights add a bit of close up light, but don't seem to have the desired effect in actual fog conditions, so I would rate that part a C-. An engineering error causes premature replacement of the bulbs. Daytime running light is accomplished by utilizing the high beam lamps only with a dropping resistor to dim the lamp a bit while taking advantage of the high aim for oncoming traffic at a distance. Good idea, but somewhat flawed in execution. Quartz-Halogen lamps need to always be run at full working voltage so that the Tungsten/Halogen cycle can work. In short, Tungsten is boiled off the filament and redeposited (randomly). This keeps the quartz glass envelope clear so the lamp is bright throughout it's lifetime. Over time, since the redeposition is random, the filament will start to get deformed and might erode more in one spot causing a burnout. Good to replace Halogen lamps in sets when they acquire a lot of hours just to be pro-active. On my Forester, the first set of high-beam lamps developed blisters in the quartz envelop due to heat buildup. Very strange. Because they run at a low voltage, tungsten deposited on the top of the envelop due to convection. If I had not checked them the envelope may have burned through causing damage (expensive) to the plastic reflectors. I elected to replace all four bulbs at once as many nighttime hours wore away at the low beam filaments. By the way, this is why it is not recommended to use dimmers on household Halogen type bulbs. Anyway, I am comparing the headlights on my 2014 Forester that I have been driving for five full years now to my 2017 BRZ with LED headlights. At night on a road with no streetlights I find it easy to 'overdrive' or in other words, drive faster than what is safe. There is too much contrast. On low beam, the lighted area is very bright and clear so many feet ahead and then the light cuts off sharply with little or no visibility. One night, several deer suddenly appeared into view. If I had been driving fast I would have hit one or two. In my forester, I would have seen them a couple of hundred feet sooner. There is a more of a tapered transition from dark to light where objects come into view sooner and become brighter more gradually. In the BRZ objects pop into view. High beam solves that problem, but then I have to be constantly switching back a forth. As the car goes over a road that has a lot of hills, the focus of the headlights is so sharp that stuff disappears. This also causes problems with oncoming traffic when I hit a rise or dip, drivers think I am flashing my lights at them. I can see it. One second no light and then the full focus of my very bright LED lights in their eyes. They respond by flashing their high beams at me. I feel that the LED lights are too sharply focused and there needs to be more of a transitional brightness zone. Maybe a re-designed lens to cast more diffused light so the difference between light and dark is not so abrupt. This is my first car with this sort of 'eyeball' headlamp. I am a bit concerned because I have a Subaru Ascent on order to show up in the next month and I will be driving it more so at night than the BRZ.
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Old 06-12-2018, 05:51 PM   #38
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Originally Posted by Flarpswitch View Post
Anyway, I am comparing the headlights on my 2014 Forester that I have been driving for five full years now to my 2017 BRZ with LED headlights. At night on a road with no streetlights I find it easy to 'overdrive' or in other words, drive faster than what is safe. There is too much contrast. On low beam, the lighted area is very bright and clear so many feet ahead and then the light cuts off sharply with little or no visibility. One night, several deer suddenly appeared into view. If I had been driving fast I would have hit one or two. In my forester, I would have seen them a couple of hundred feet sooner. There is a more of a tapered transition from dark to light where objects come into view sooner and become brighter more gradually. In the BRZ objects pop into view. High beam solves that problem, but then I have to be constantly switching back a forth. As the car goes over a road that has a lot of hills, the focus of the headlights is so sharp that stuff disappears. This also causes problems with oncoming traffic when I hit a rise or dip, drivers think I am flashing my lights at them. I can see it. One second no light and then the full focus of my very bright LED lights in their eyes. They respond by flashing their high beams at me. I feel that the LED lights are too sharply focused and there needs to be more of a transitional brightness zone. Maybe a re-designed lens to cast more diffused light so the difference between light and dark is not so abrupt. This is my first car with this sort of 'eyeball' headlamp. I am a bit concerned because I have a Subaru Ascent on order to show up in the next month and I will be driving it more so at night than the BRZ.
Your old Forester had what are called multi-reflector housings. Multi-reflector housings simply aren't "accurate" enough to generate a sharp cutoff, the way your BRZ can. The fact that your Forester could light up deer several hundred feet away wasn't so much a thoughtful feature, as it was an unintended result of not being able to sharply define where the light is projected from your headlights.

Modern projector/LED/laser headlights have the ability to VERY sharply define where light is/isn't allowed to shine. That sharp cutoff, rather than the fading transition, is highly desired because it allows you to have maximum light all the way up to the cutoff point, and then NO light above that point. That's good because you can light up the road, without blinding oncoming drivers. Muti-reflector housings can't do that, because if you had maximum light all the way up to the "cutoff point" then oncoming drivers would be dazzled by the "fading area," so to speak.

Unfortunately, on low, stiff sporty cars like ours, it's going to have some drawbacks. First, our lights are mounted low to begin with. That means the lights project at a very shallow angle, which means it's a very fine line between achieving a good distance with the low beams, and not blinding oncoming traffic. Second, and compounding that, is a stiff suspension which - as you pointed out - means that the car will tend to kinda-sorta flash oncoming drivers over rough roads. The shallow angle makes things worse in that case.

Your Ascent will not have anywhere near this bad of a problem, both due to the higher headlight placement, leading to a steeper "throw angle," and the softer suspension which won't pitch the vehicle up and down so much.

I promise if you directly compared the lights on your BRZ, and those on your old Forester, you wouldn't want the Forester lights back. The sharp cutoff of modern lights is exactly what allows them to be so much brighter than older headlights.

As far as the constant flipping on/off of high beams... that's what you're supposed to do. I used to live in NJ, and at night you basically drive with your hand over the headlight stalk, flicking the high beams on and off as necessary for oncoming traffic.
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Old 06-12-2018, 07:17 PM   #39
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Fifty some odd years ago I got my driver license in New Jersey. In my circle of friends, we all drove British cars, sporty and not so sporty (Morris Minor). My rides were Minis, Austin Healeys, MGs and a Triumph or two. We solved our road lighting issues with various Lucas headlamps and auxiliary lights. Anyone old enough will know what a Lucas Flamethrower was. Out on the back roads of New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, there was plenty of potential road kill, but I never came close to hitting anything with the exception of an indecisive squirrel. However, in the BRZ with it's headlights on a dark road and taking into account reaction time, low beams limit how fast you can drive. I understand the dynamics of the headlights in this application, but I still maintain that there could be a way to introduce a little less specular light in a transitional zone to mitigate the startling sudden appearance of objects. Trick is to conform to standards in this country and others as well.
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Old 06-12-2018, 10:06 PM   #40
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I'm in SE PA as well with aftermarket HIDs however, and have yet to be flashed. Is there no adjustment knob like he past BR-Zs had on the left side near of the steering wheel?
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Old 06-12-2018, 10:18 PM   #41
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I'm in SE PA as well with aftermarket HIDs however, and have yet to be flashed. Is there no adjustment knob like he past BR-Zs had on the left side near of the steering wheel?
No, because the refreshed vehicles replaced the manual knob with a sensor on the rear LCA to automatically adjust the headlights based on ride height.

However, people need to keep in mind that the knob (and the sensor on the newer cars) are NOT a replacement for properly aligning your headlights, which is still a MANUAL process done under the hood at the headlight assembly itself. The knob/sensor serve a completely different purpose, which is to be used either when the vehicle is heavily loaded, and the rear is sagging, causing the headlights to appear higher than normal, or you will be driving on hilly roads and don't want to blind oncoming traffic over each crest. Under normal use, that knob should be set to '0', which is the highest setting.
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Old 06-13-2018, 03:02 PM   #42
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No, because the refreshed vehicles replaced the manual knob with a sensor on the rear LCA to automatically adjust the headlights based on ride height.

However, people need to keep in mind that the knob (and the sensor on the newer cars) are NOT a replacement for properly aligning your headlights, which is still a MANUAL process done under the hood at the headlight assembly itself. The knob/sensor serve a completely different purpose, which is when the vehicle is heavily loaded, and the rear is sagging, causing the headlights to appear higher than normal. Under normal use, that knob should be set to '0', which is the highest setting.

Interesting I was not aware of that obviously

When I installed my headlights I made it a point to align them using a wall and tape method in a high school lot at night, I would suggest his dealer do something similar just to double check I guess?
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