Headlights still bad on 2023
 

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I posted about this before but just had a chance to drive for awhile at night again. The headlights on my 2023 seem terrible, as in I can barely see the road at all when they are on. The best way for me to describe it is that it looks like what the road would look like from my other cars if just the DRLs were on at night, but I am positive the actual headlights are on. Could they be aimed too high or something? Tonight it is raining and the car is almost un-drivable due to having almost no visibility with the night and rain combined. Pic above is what they look like against a wall.

I think the headlights are fine.

At night, in the rain, in a city with streetlights..........I've never driven a car with good visibility in those conditions.

I would love your opinion on my 91 Miata's headlight performance

I've definitely found the headlights to be good, especially given the height they are off the ground. Not as good as modern LEDs on a big SUV, but IMO still good for most conditions. Highways in driving rain/snow? Yup, always going to be worse.

We could run a quick test. Park your car a bit closer to the wall (go for 1-2 feet from bumper to wall) and then measure the exact distance from the wall to the centerline of the front wheels. Then measure the vertical height of the highest point of light before the cutoff (so ignore the bit where it starts to diffuse). I'll duplicate your test in my 2022, and perhaps others can do the same. Being close to the wall will reduce the error from different angles of garage floors. Just a thought. At least we could evaluate the vertical aim on your lights.

Sounds like a good test... I just measured it. Measuring from the left tire to the wall and then measuring from the floor up to the highest cutoff line on the left (right at the white light cutoff just before it has a little bit of a prism effect before going into the full diffusion).

Measured from 71" away up to around 40" away or so... all distances were the cutoff being at 26" from the floor.

This is a general guide. It applies to all vehicles.

1. Prepare your vehicle: Make sure your tires are filled to the appropriate air pressure and that you have around a half tank of gas (the weight of the fuel will adjust the vehicle’s stance, and you’re more likely to have between 1/4 and 3/4 tank of gas than you are an empty or full tank). If you regularly carry around heavy equipment or supplies, place them in the vehicle as well.

2. Find the headlight axis: With a dry erase marker, draw a small dot in the center of each headlight. This is the headlight axis. Make sure to mark the center of the regular lights, not the high beams.

3. Park your vehicle: Park your vehicle right in front of a level wall or flat surface — this could be your garage wall, garage door or a wall in a parking lot. You should have enough room to back up 25 feet in a straight line from the spot.

4. Bounce the suspension: Bounce the vehicle a few times on all four corners to allow the suspension to settle. (or not kinda pointless on our cars if your suspension if fine)

5. Create a center guide: Using a piece of painter’s tape, put a vertical mark on the wall or garage door in line with the center of your vehicle. Don’t worry about precise measurements — this mark will just serve as a guide. A hood ornament or front license plate can be helpful for determining this.

6. Mark the headlight axis on the wall: Place a vertical strip of painter’s tape on the wall in front of each headlight axis. The axis dot (the one in the middle of your headlight) should line up with the center of the tape.

7. Measure the height of the headlight axis: Using your measuring tape, measure from the ground to the headlight axis, using the dot as a guide.

8. Mark the height of the headlight axis on the wall: Measure up the wall and make a mark on the tape at the height of the headlight axis.

9. Find the headlight cutoff lines: On the driver’s side of the wall, measure four inches below the axis height you marked and draw another line. On the passenger’s side, draw a line two inches below the axis height. These marks will serve as cutoff points when you adjust your lights. The driver side mark is lower than the passenger side mark to reduce the glare seen by oncoming drivers.

10. Mark the headlight cutoff lines: On each side of the wall, place a horizontal strip of painter’s tape above each cutoff line, making sure it’s level. The bottom of the tape should line up with the drawn cutoff line. This step makes it easier to see the cutoff from a distance.

11. Back your vehicle up: You’re ready to adjust your lights now. Back your vehicle in a straight line away from the wall. The front of your headlights should be 25 feet from the aiming wall chart you’ve created.

12. Turn on your lights: Turn off your garage lights or any other light source and turn on your vehicle’s headlights to compare their alignment to the guide. If you’re adjusting your headlights outside, you’ll need to do this work at night.

13. Adjust your headlights: Use a piece of cardboard or a jacket to block one headlight. Then, use your ratchet or screwdriver to turn the other light’s vertical adjuster screws, being careful not to lean on the vehicle. Turn the screw clockwise or counterclockwise until the brightest part of the light is exactly 4 inches below the previously made cutoff line. When the lights are aimed properly, everything above the horizontal tape will be dark.(Highly dependent on lights. FRS yeah. Miata not so much.) Repeat the process on the other side. If you notice that your lights are horizontally out of alignment, follow a similar process using the horizontal adjustment screws, to adjust them back to center.

14. Check the alignment: Remove the cardboard or jacket from the covered headlight and check the finished alignment. The beam from the driver’s side headlight can sit a bit lower than the one from the passenger’s side. This setup gives you proper visibility without blinding other drivers. Equal is fine but the driver side headlight should be a little lower if they are different. (1/4 inch max.)

15.Test your lights: After you’ve set your headlight alignment, take your vehicle out for a test drive to make sure the lights provide proper visibility.
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I knew there must have been a standard test haha - I should have googled first!

Your test is much easier... curious to see if everybody's are at 26 inches.

So very true. Those conditions make for terrible visibility. I've recently noticed that when you combine the viariables you mention along with it being twilight, visibility is even worse until the sky is finally dark.

I'm also starting to wonder if some of the complaints are simply due to the fact our cars are so low to the ground. I've noticed my BRZ lights up the road quite brightly, but has a really sharp cut off at a point some distance in front of the car. Our new-to-us MDX seems to cast a much wider and longer beam pattern, but it's slightly less bright. Other than having totally different lighting elements, I wonder how much of the difference in visibility is attributed to the fact the MDX's headlights are easily 12~18" higher off the ground and the angle of the light hitting the road leads to better lighting conditions.

When I bought my 86, it took a while for the headlights to start pointing in the right direction. I used to get flashed in the oncoming lane cause I think they were too high. Then I guess they leveled themselves?

Can I ask how old you are? Any chance of cataracts?

op are you barely able to see over the steering wheel?

It’s definitely not anything with conditions, or eyesight, or seeing over the steering wheel. I also have a Miata, Crosstrek (with halogen lights), and Tesla Model 3, and all of those cars are much much better at night as far as headlights go. Definitely something specific to the BRZ… not sure if it’s aiming or if there’s just a light output or beam pattern problem.

The oem hid headlights on my 2013 are quite good, but during a recent night time track day I couldn’t see shit. I had to use the reflective glint on the apex cones to see where I was going. Sometimes it’s just dark like that.

I commented on this in the other thread you had. Doesn't make sense to me, they should be plenty bright. I think you're down to one of three problems.

1. Your standards for how bright they should shine are too high somehow? My 2018 BRZ looks to have brighter headlights than my dads 2020 Crosstrek.
2. Something is wrong with your lights? You're probably the first person I have seen make the complaint since at least the facelift of the previous gen (2017).
3. Your light adjustment isn't correct. Can't tell from your picture, but seems fairly straight. I mentioned before, mine are pointed to where the fine line tends to land right under everybody's rear windshield (with typical cars, not SUV's). This way I'm not blinding anyone unless I'm on a hilly road. To me, I feel like I can see a mile away with how bright my lights shine. I often forget to use my high beams when there's no one around at night as I see plenty fine.

I also come from cars that didn't have LED's before this one. So this is some luxury lighting for me. I can't imagine how your Miata could have MUCH better lighting than the BRZ... something's not right.

Right… that’s why I’m thinking something is not right… surely if they were all like this more people would be complaining. The BRZ is like car 30+ for me and has the worst headlight illumination of any of them. Granted I’ve had lots of other cars with HID and LED lighting so just having LEDs on this one aren’t a big improvement to me, but they still seem a lot worse than other cars. Maybe the beams are narrower top to bottom so unless you have them aimed down more the road itself isn’t illuminated much? Not sure but that seems to be some of the issue… the road itself isn’t getting much light, so I see street signs and things reflecting back but I can barely see the actual road.

Should park the car out in a lot or somewhere open and get a picture of the illumination you're getting from the inside and outside at different angles at night. I'm just curious at this point.

I might give that a shot. It’s tricky for comparison since my phone camera tends to try and brighten things up on its own.

I'd run by the dealership and ask them to check that they are properly aligned.

It's a brand new car...it has a whole ass warranty...

If the headlights don't work good, dealer.
If it doesn't smell right, dealer.
If it doesn't look back at me how I thought it would, dealer.

Meanwhile you're over here making multiple threads about the same issue.

The thinking for something like this is: Maybe this is a simple fix that others have experienced that I can do at home in 5 minutes versus spending hours or days dealing with the dealer. If it was an obvious warranty item then of course I’d take it to the dealer but maybe they are just aimed wrong or the lights are just like this on the BRZ compared to other cars.

For what its worth, mine are the same height over the same range, but this test probably isn't accurate enough to say for sure that your lights aren't aimed wrong.

Okay, thanks for checking. I really need to do a comparison with the other cars side by side. The weird thing to me is the Miata is about the same height/seating position and seems much brighter. The other cars that sit higher in general I could see how they might seem better but the BRZ just seems so much dimmer overall. Weird.

How are the high beams?

Does an entire post about how to do this yourself properly for cheap. Get's ignored.
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Is the cut off messing with your head.
It took me a while to get used to the LEDs on the 2020.

Sort of:
Bright
Bright
Bright
NOTHING.

The section that is bright is very, almost overly, bright and then when the cut off kick in nothing at all.
Don't get that affect with halogens.

the brz has an auto leveler. maybe itmalfunctioned and it's not aimed at the right ehight

This is taking me a while to get used to. The cut off is sharper than any of the HID's I've had in the past, and like you say, far different that what is experienced with halogen lights.