Issues with LED headlights...

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Wildeyed said:
Headlight alignment is part of the PDI. An inspection you paid for. If you suspect your lights are improperly aligned go back to the dealer and make them do it properly.
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Yeah, but the nearest dealer is an hour away, plus however long it takes them to do this. The dealer I bought the car from is 2-1/2 hours away. The plan is just to tweak them down a bit and when I am in for regular "service" (whatever that is) I can have them actually do it properly.
 
ericy said:
I was driving early this morning, and a few people were flashing their lights at me - like they thought my high beams were on - this happened 3-4 times. Of course they weren't, but I am wondering if this is a common experience or whether I need to have Hyundai recheck the headlight alignment.

I have the Ultimate trim with the LED headlights, and I have only had the car for 4 days now.
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First reported ;)
https://www.insideevsforum.com/community/index.php?threads/headlights.5409/
 
Last eve after getting flashed a few times I started observing cars as they approached me to see which cars were brighter than normal. As one earlier post mentioned pickups and larger vehicles all seem to be quite bright, sometimes extremely. And as you would expect high end vehicles with HID lamps (mostly Audi's) were somewhat ridiculous. BUT...I did notice one other thing that got my attention. Jeeps that have the same light configuration as the Kona, with the high/low lamps BELOW the mid-line of the nose and the running lights above, all seemed exceptionally bright. I now suspect that the lower position of the lamps requires them to be angled upward more than other cars to meet the requirements of the beam positioning charts. This may mean that the LED element is more visible in the mirrored reflector to the oncoming drivers. You can observe this if you stand at a distance in front of the Kona at night with the lights on. If you keep your head above the sharp "cut-off" line where the light pattern shines in front of the car it seems bright but not extreme. But if you squat down a bit so your head is inside the beam pattern the light is intensely bright. Side to side movement at that point doesn't change the brightness much at all. So it may be that the combination of the abrupt cut-off of the beam pattern with the low positioning of the lights effectively "dazzle" people in oncoming cars. All anecdotal of course but but I do question whether changing the LED's would make a difference. Their beam pattern would also have to be different in some way to soften the abruptness of the intensity.
 
I'd like to adjust my headlights, but don't have a level driveway, and pretty much every chunk of parking lot near a building is crowned for drainage. Anyone have any ideas, or an alternate method?
 
Esprit1st said:
As long as both headlights are adjusted at the same height (not is not higher than the other) you can adjust then bit by bit.
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I understand how to move the beams up and down. The challenge is to calibrate them relative to flat level.

According to this post:
nigels said:
The Hyundai documentation explains how to adjust the headlights: https://www.hkona.com/head_lamps_repair_procedures-1490.html

These instructions are a little difficult to decode, but the principle is simple, the headlights need to be angled downwards towards the road.

According to the aiming procedure above, that's down 3.93" (100mm) over a distance of 32.8ft (10m), which is -0.57 degrees. I suspect the factory is installing the headlights level and not adjusting the angle at all.
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the correct adjustment is to mark the height of the low beam, back off 10m on a level area, and then adjust the low beam so it drops 100mm below level.

IOW the low beam should drop 1 in 100 from dead level. The problem is how to determine dead level if you don't have a level area to start with.

I happen to have an inexpensive bubble shop level with a built-in laser pointer. Here's how I used it to aim the headlights.
  1. I taped a cloth over the junk at the back wall of my garage to provide a uniform screen for the lights.
  2. A garage floor should be tilted slightly toward the door, so liquids will drain out. Use the level on the floor to determine the tilt. Check several spots on the floor. Note the position of the bubble.
  3. With the car in the garage, put the level on the roof of the car with the laser pointing forward. Slide the level fore and aft to find a spot where the bubble is positioned exactly as in Step 2. Secure the level to the roof with masking tape, being careful not to change its tilt. Now the laser will mark a line parallel with the garage floor.
  4. Drive the car within a few inches of the screen. Turn the low beams on. Mark (I used masking tape) the height of the center of each low beam, and the height of the laser dot. (Do I have to say not to look into the laser? My attorney nods.) Also mark the position of the left front wheel.
  5. With the laser on, back the car out of the garage. Stop when it's well back and the laser dot is somewhere near its original position. Turn the laser off.
  6. The next task is to re-level the car to have the same tilt as the garage floor. Inspect the bubble in the level. If it's not in exactly the same position as in steps 2 and 3, move the car forward or back until it is. If you can't find a position where this happens, this method probably won't work (but see the comment below.)
  7. Mark the position of the left front wheel. Measure the distance between this and its position in step 4. To get a drop of 1 in 100, the low beam needs to be adjusted 1/100 of this distance down from level. In my case the distance was 180", so the adjustment was 1.80" down from level.
  8. Turn the laser on, and measure the vertical difference between the original dot height and where it is now. This tells how much higher or lower the car is from its original position in the garage. In my case the dot was 0.5" lower.
  9. Take 0.01 times the distance in Step 7 (1.80" in my case) and add (if lower) or subtract (if higher) the distance in Step 8. In my case, this was 2.30".
  10. Go down that distance from each low beam position marked in Step 4, and mark that height. So I put a piece of tape 2.30" below the two pieces placed in Step 4.
  11. Turn the adjusting screw on each headlamp until the center of the beam is at the height marked in Step 10. They are now adjusted for a 1 in 100 drop.
The logic in Steps 8-10 is that the laser showed the car, when backed up, was sitting 0.5" lower than the garage floor. So dead level would have been 0.5" below the marked position of the beam, and then it needed to be lowered another 1.80".

If you can't back the car to a spot where it's at the same tilt as the garage floor, this won't work. Often there are changes of angle at the door, so there's a good chance it will. If not, you could try the same thing starting at the closed garage door instead of the back of your garage. The ground doesn't have to be level, but it should be flat between the four wheels of the car, which is why a garage floor is ideal. And the further you can back out, the easier it will be to measure and adjust to the correct height.

Let me know if I've missed something, and whether this works for you.
 
Yeah, I get what you're doing. And it makes sense. And I understand where you're coming from, I'm OCD in quite a few things, but that's way too much effort for me. I just turn it down a rotation and done. It looks good currently when I'm driving. But if I get flashed at excessively I will turn it down another turn. That's good enough for me. [emoji2957][emoji3][emoji106]
 
Since I calibrated the headlight alignment to the factory specs I haven't had a single person flash me. I can now drive at night without the hassle of every other car flashing me. I can finally see the edge of the light pattern on the road. The high beam isn't affected. The alignment was WAY off from the factory. It's definitely worth spending the time to get the lights properly aligned.
 
nigels said:
The Hyundai documentation explains how to adjust the headlights: https://www.hkona.com/head_lamps_repair_procedures-1490.html

These instructions are a little difficult to decode, but the principle is simple, the headlights need to be angled downwards towards the road.

According to the aiming procedure above, that's down 3.93" (100mm) over a distance of 32.8ft (10m), which is -0.57 degrees. I suspect the factory is installing the headlights level and not adjusting the angle at all.

To set the angle according to the factory specs:
  1. Set the tire pressures of all 4 tires to the same values.
  2. Park the car 32.8ft (10m) away from a wall or garage door on level ground.
  3. Measure the distance from the ground to the center of the low beam bulb. On my car that was 24.5" (622m) without the driver. Curiously, the instructions give values of 26.1" (662mm) without the driver, and 24.1" (613mm) with the driver. TIP: The innermost high beam bulb is smaller and easier to find the center.
  4. Turn the headlights on. Make sure they're on low beam!
  5. Mark a line at the height of the driver's side bulb on the wall, centered horizontally on the brightest part of the light pattern. I used blue masking tape. As in step 2, that was 24.5" (622mm) from the ground for my car - yours might be different.
  6. Mark another line 3.93" (100mm) below the first line.
  7. Repeat (4) and (5) for the passenger side.
  8. Cover the passenger side headlight. This will make it easier to see the driver's side light and adjust it.
  9. Adjust the driver's side headlight until the top of the headlight pattern on the wall lines up with the bottom line on the wall. You'll probably be turning the adjustment screw (see Dag's post) counterclockwise from the factory setting. Note that the headlight unit moves up and down when you push on it, so release the screwdriver to see the true level. My headlights needed several rotations of the adjusting screw to get them aligned to specification.
  10. Repeat (7) and (8), covering the driver's headlight and adjusting the passenger headlight.
  11. After you've adjusted both headlights, uncover them and compare the height of the light patterns on the wall. Adjust so they're at equal heights.
After you've set the headlight angle to the factory specs, test drive the car and make any fine tuning adjustments by following Esprit1st's video, turning both headlight adjusters a half turn at a time to get the angles right.
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I had a look at these instructions I wonder if there is not an error in interpretation of what the distance should be between the vehicle to the screen(wall, garage door etc) is. I see a reference in Nigel's instruction quoting 32.8 ft(10m) but after reviewing the associated link it appears the L- distance is actually 118 inches or 3000mm or 9.8 feet. The only reference I see to 32.8 feet(10 meters) is in the regards to the size of screen you should use.

Actually upon further look , there is also a reference to L= 32.8 ft for the fog lamp instructions, very confusing
 
nigels said:
I suspect the factory is installing the headlights level and not adjusting the angle at all.
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That seems consistent with what I found.
apu said:
I had a look at these instructions I wonder if there is not an error in interpretation of what the distance should be between the vehicle to the screen(wall, garage door etc) is. I see a reference in Nigel's instruction quoting 32.8 ft(10m) but after reviewing the associated link it appears the L- distance is actually 118 inches or 3000mm or 9.8 feet. The only reference I see to 32.8 feet(10 meters) is in the regards to the size of screen you should use.

Actually upon further look , there is also a reference to L= 32.8 ft for the fog lamp instructions, very confusing
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Yes, confusing. But 32.8 feet can't be the screen size - that's more than twice the length of the car. Here's why I think it is L:

There are two different screens in the instructions. The high beam screen (which @nigels didn't use) is marked "L=118 in. (3000 mm)" So this is L (for high beam) and I read it as the specification of the screen, not its size. The low beam screen that we've been working off of is marked "32.8 ft. (10 m) SCREEN". It doesn't say "L=" but by analogy to the high beam screen it must be L for low beam.

And from the sketches it looks like the fog lamps use the same screen as the low beam, and there it does say L=32.8ft (10m).
 
You would think that when these cars are imported, they would be periodically spot checked for compliance with the various standards of the country they are being imported into.
 
You have a keen eye for details apu!

I took another look at the Hyundai repair procedure. It's confusing, but here's what it says:

In step 1 "Head Lamp (Low beam)" it shows "32.8ft (10m) SCREEN" but it doesn't associate it with L.
In step 2 "Head Lamp (High beam)" it shows the value of L, as in "L: 118 in (3000mm)"
In step 3 "Fog Lamp" it also shows a value of L, "L: 32.8ft (10m)"

With the way the text is formatted, it seems that the distance from the head lamp to the screen is 32.8ft (10m) for low beam and fog lamp aiming (not that we have fog lamps). The anomaly is the high beam, where L is only 118in. My guess is that the car needs to be closer to the screen for adjusting the high beam so that the light pattern is less diffused. The Kona EV with the LED lights doesn't have a way to separately adjust the high beam, though.

I set the low beam using the 32.8ft head lamp to screen distance and the aim seems right to me and consistent with my other cars. I don't feel like the range is too short, and lit gives me a reason to use the high beam. So, i think the interpretation is correct, but of course it would be interesting to see how a dealer would aim them.
 
Along with a front end alignment, the dealer should check this stuff pre-delivery. But it seems now they just take a chance on it being right.
 
Esprit1st said:
As long as both headlights are adjusted at the same height (not is not higher than the other) you can adjust then bit by bit.
I made a short video about it: How to adjust the headlights https://youtu.be/X5FrMuqDCew
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I think I will lower them a 1/2 turn CCW (down) when I get time. I was flashed a couple of times on separate occasions when I first got the car, but nothing lately.
Maybe a piece of tape on the wall in front to keep track, thanks for the easy video Esprit1st. :)
 
KiwiME said:
Along with a front end alignment, the dealer should check this stuff pre-delivery. But it seems now they just take a chance on it being right.
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The note at the top of the procedure is telling:

If there are any regulations pertinent to the aiming of head lamps in the area where the vehicle is to be used, adjust so as to meet those requirements.​

It seems that the dealers aren't doing this as part of the PDI.
 
Suggest testing the light beam pattern on the wall, there will have 45-degree cutoff light on the low beam. If they are not standard, they'll emit scattered light to other drivers. I bought the headlight bulbs from NAOEVO a month ago, they produce perfect light beams as i expected. Anyway, when I am driving on the road, nobody is flashing at me :)

Here is the links: https://www.naoevo.com/collections/gt6-led-headlight

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