Quote:
Originally Posted by Charlie86
Hello,
I am also new here. I bought an 05 S40 in December and the lighting is rubbish, I am amazed at Volvo as you associate them with safety, or did. I live in France so the headlights are set to the continental B setting. I am on the point of buying a new set of LHD headlights to see if there is any improvement? I do have an HID conversion kit available but am a tad put off by the earthing comments on the forum.
Thanks for any advise,
Charlie.
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Hi Charlie, I drove full time in France on my UK spec lights for a few years, with the dipped beam aim switch in the proper posn. for driving over here. But, like you, I figured that changing over to continental spec lights would bring about a worthwhile improvement - because I would get the extra dipped beam kick-up to the right. I bought 2 headlamps from a breaker. They were in good order and they did bring about a small improvement as expected. But the bottom line was that the lights were still too poor to be considered safe.
Hence I went for the STEALTH HID conversion I described a little earlier in this thread. The improvement is massively better than you will get from changing to continental lights. The earthing issue is well documented and simple enough to deal with. The concern about the life expectancy of the HID kit is also well documented but feedback from others, who have contributed here, suggests that the kits have worked well over several years or more - BUT ONLY IF YOU DO NOT USE DRL set-up.
I read now that HID conversions may be a failure under the forthcoming revisions to the UK MoT test and so I assume the same may apply to the CT in France. In my case I can simply swap in my old units for the CT test day. However, without that luxury I would still go for the HID conversion and undertake to slip the halogen bulbs back in for the CT.
Not sure where you are in your 2 year CT cycle but if it is coming up this year then it may well be worth getting the test done before the new regs get introduced. That then gives you 2 years of HID use before the next CT is due. My first CT with HID conversion will be in March, so it will be interesting to see what gets said.
Happy to discuss any of this if it helps.