LED, Adjusting headlights and rotating bulb?

[kwartelknaap]

I put some LED in my ZS, and its so much better! Way more light and better matching color.

Ideally, the LED bulb should be mounted vertically in the headlamp. Some LED bulbs can be rotated for this reason, but the one I have cannot. Is it possible to rotate the socket instead? I do see a few screws (see photo) and markings that look like something has been adjusted. Does anyone know?

And finally, the headlight is aimed quite a lot toward the ground, much more than necessary (it was the same with the halogen bulb). I’d like to adjust it slightly upward. Is that done with the Allen screw in the red circle? Of course, I’ll check afterward that it doesn’t cause glare by aiming it at a wall and driving backwards.

 

[DBedford]

Don't forget putting LEDs in your headlights where they are not part of the original spec, could (if the testers are awake) be a MOT failure !!

 

[JohnV6]

I see your are in Holland so I'm not sure UK construction & use rules apply. We had a big change to them in 1986 to align them to EU standards I believe.

Your car if UK registered would now be illegal & the insurance invalidated.
I did this to my Morgan with round land rover or MGB style lights.
Cars before 1986 are legal; they have the same headlight as was on my 2005 car which wasn't.

The painful part is that the LEDs transformed night time driving making far safer. You need to fit complete LED headlamps to be legal i.e. bulb, lens & bowl. Dutch law may be different.

 

[kwartelknaap]

I know about the problems with LED and your law, but in the Netherlands it isn't a big deal. Officially its illegal to change halogen designed headlights to LED, meaning you can get a fine and the vehicle could fail MOT. But with the MOT they don't check the bulbs, they only check the light pattern, and even if you fail most of the time you get a day or so to fix issues and retest for free. A police officer certainly isn't going to bother unless you blind them first and then flip them off... I wouldn't run those insane bright LEDs tho, but these are very comparable with build in LEDs in other vehicles.

And most important, its not a problem for insurance, i asked. (But they did advice me not to do it ofcourse, because it's technically illegal).

 

[hmadsen]

I know about the problems with LED and your law, but in the Netherlands it isn't a big deal. Officially its illegal to change halogen designed headlights to LED, meaning you can get a fine and the vehicle could fail MOT. But with the MOT they don't check the bulbs, they only check the light pattern, and even if you fail most of the time you get a day or so to fix issues and retest for free. A police officer certainly isn't going to bother unless you blind them first and then flip them off... I wouldn't run those insane bright LEDs tho, but these are very comparable with build in LEDs in other vehicles.

And most important, its not a problem for insurance, i asked. (But they did advice me not to do it ofcourse, because it's technically illegal).

Back in the day when people swapped their halogen bulbs for Xenon the police were very hard on people here, but those were also typically very bright to the point you would get a big white spot on your vision for minutes after passing one, but nowadays with better LED's that do not blind people, i think they care less.

As you say...Unless you pass the police and you blind them, they are not going to stop you.

Also, with so many cars having LED's from factory, it has become harder for the police to see if the car, coming toward them is one that has LED's or has had them retrofitted. Then they need to look at the car and unless it's a 2000 Toyota crap-car, they can't determine if its okay for it to have LED's or not.

I think here, most people have the old Halogen bulbs and they pop those in, before doing the "Every second year" inspection, here re-inspection is not for free, it cost ~£35 so not worth it taking the risk of being failed.