New youtube review showing headlight and high beam

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iluvscuba

iluvscuba

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Of all the talk about the headlight and high beam of the Clarity in this forum. I haven't seen it actually in action until today when I saw a 1 week old video review of the Clarity. The headlight stuff is around the 5 minute mark.



It's not as bad as I thought, of course all my previous cars had the basic yellow bulb and I have never had a car with LED nor HID headlight so my expectation are quite low.

I guess for people that are used to HID light, you will probably be disappointed.

Of course, I won't know if I think it's good or bad until I get the car (when, Honda, when???) and drive it at night, in the rain, snow and fog
 
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Compared to my 2013 Outback, which has HID low beams and huge fog lights, the Clarity is significantly worse, especially in the rain. The dealer said we would enjoy the super bright LED lights but that's been the most disappointing part of the car. The HV range issue is nothing by comparison.
 
That was a pretty cool "everyman" type review with solid observations. I have to say he did a good job of reviewing as a hybrid only vehicle as well.

FYI - watch his Prius Prime review and see how we really win with our Clarity. On around town hybrid only driving he got 45 mpg compared to 41 mpg in his Clarity test - way to go Honda.
 
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In his review of the Clarity, he mentioned the sun visor does not slide back. I thought I saw in another video that it does. Can someone confirm either way.
 
LED lights are very directional and require very good design. HID provide a full output over a wide range, but of course use more power and have to be replaced.
 
I have 2 problems with the headlights on my Clarity:
1 Low beams put most of the illumination directly in front of the car on the pavement and do not provide much illumination down the road at further distances. At higher speeds I feel like I’m unsafely overdriving then. And yes, I have had the dealer adjust them. Looking for a flat area with a wall to go adjust them up a little to see if that helps (but not so much to blind oncoming cars).
2 High beams are marginal at best and do not give as much increased illumination as all the other cars I have owned. Very wimpy. Drove around one night on high beams and nobody flashed me. Nuff said.
 
Not sure what Honda was thinking with the design of the high beams. If the idea is just to light up the road ahead a bit better they marginally achieved that goal. But that's not what I need.

We live in an area where dear sightings are very common. There are known places where dear might cross the road especially around dusk. I want high beams that will light up the sides of the road so I have a chance of seeing deer in time to apply brakes. In this case Honda has miserably failed with the Clarity.

Our 2015 Prius high beams were superb.
 
KentuckyKen said:
I have 2 problems with the headlights on my Clarity:
1 Low beams put most of the illumination directly in front of the car on the pavement and do not provide much illumination down the road at further distances. At higher speeds I feel like I’m unsafely overdriving then. And yes, I have had the dealer adjust them. Looking for a flat area with a wall to go adjust them up a little to see if that helps (but not so much to blind oncoming cars).
2 High beams are marginal at best and do not give as much increased illumination as all the other cars I have owned. Very wimpy. Drove around one night on high beams and nobody flashed me. Nuff said.
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sorry, but yours must be poorly adjusted mine lights up the whole street ahead in low bean mode.
 
LAF said:
sorry, but yours must be poorly adjusted mine lights up the whole street ahead in low bean mode.
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Thanks for the motivation LAF, I’m definitely finding a place to measure and adjust my lights now that I know yours work. Watched a couple of YouTube Videos and all I need is level ground in front of a wall 25 ft away and a yard stick.
 
I hate the aftermarket ultra bright HID headlights. Even if the beams are pointed correctly, it hurts my eyes whenever the lights momentarily point upwards because of bumps or hills. They should outlaw anything that produces over a set amount of lumens. I know I shouldn't be staring at the lights but you can't always avoid it.
 
I'm with LAF--I haven't understood the complaints from others about the low beams. The low beams on mine seem surprisingly bright (I'd actually put them roughly on par with the Acura I had, which had HIDs), and do an exceptional job of lighting the road both at low and highway speeds in a fairly rural area with almost no streetlighting.

The high beams do seem to be... let's say not all that much different from the low beams. Not terrible, but it's not nearly as dramatic a difference as I'm used to.

Since light output on the LEDs should be very consistent, I wonder if there's a lot of variability in the factory adjustment or something.
 
M.M. said:
I'm with LAF--I haven't understood the complaints from others about the low beams. The low beams on mine seem surprisingly bright (I'd actually put them roughly on par with the Acura I had, which had HIDs), and do an exceptional job of lighting the road both at low and highway speeds in a fairly rural area with almost no streetlighting.

The high beams do seem to be... let's say not all that much different from the low beams. Not terrible, but it's not nearly as dramatic a difference as I'm used to.

Since light output on the LEDs should be very consistent, I wonder if there's a lot of variability in the factory adjustment or something.
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I don't have a problem with how bright the headlights are. Just the aim and area covered by the high beams. I'm used to high beams that are broader and taller, covering a lot more of the scene ahead, not just the road.
 
iluvscuba said:
In his review of the Clarity, he mentioned the sun visor does not slide back. I thought I saw in another video that it does. Can someone confirm either way.
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Our Touring model (in US) does not have slide out in the sun visors similar to the video. We didn’t notice it until we watched this video.


Sent from my iPhone using Inside EVs
 
qtpie said:
Our Touring model (in US) does not have slide out in the sun visors similar to the video. We didn’t notice it until we watched this video.


Sent from my iPhone using Inside EVs
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That is interesting, if you watch the review from 'the straight pipe' (2 Canadian doing car review) review of the Clarity in Arizona (I presume that is a US model), they did the sun visor slide test (which is one of their 'thing' on all their review) and it did pass their 'test'
 
I just checked, and both sides of my US Touring definitely have slidable sun visors. That video review looks identical to mine, but he didn't pull on it to demonstrate that it wouldn't move, he just said it doesn't.

Maybe some of them are sticky and people just aren't pulling hard enough?

I suppose it's not impossible, but it seems genuinely bizarre that Honda would install slidable sun visors on some particular cars in the same line and not others.
 
Some errors in the video review:

- His comments about "performance paddles" on the steering wheel show that he doesn't understand that these control regen braking, not transmission shifting as in most cars that have paddles

- Fundamental misunderstanding of what Sport mode does

- His contention that there are three propulsion systems all working together for max acceleration - gas, battery, and "hybrid"

- His contention that nuclear power plants cause pollution. Unless you count warming of the coolant water as pollution, that's wrong
 
qtpie said:
Our Touring model (in US) does not have slide out in the sun visors similar to the video.
Click to expand...
Are you sure that your sun visors don't slide out? Have you really pulled on them to make sure they’re not just sticky. I’ve been thinking about this and it seems like a much more plausible explanation than Honda randomly switching sun visors in the middle of production.
 

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