Volvo Community Forum. The Forums of the Volvo Owners Club

Forum Rules Volvo Owners Club About VOC Volvo Gallery Links Volvo History Volvo Press
Go Back   Volvo Owners Club Forum > "Technical Topics" > S80 '06-'16 / V70 & XC70 '07-'16 General

Notices

S80 '06-'16 / V70 & XC70 '07-'16 General Forum for the P3-platform S80 and 70-series models

Information
  • VOC Members: There is no login facility using your VOC membership number or the details from page 3 of the club magazine. You need to register in the normal way
  • AOL Customers: Make sure you check the 'Remember me' check box otherwise the AOL system may log you out during the session. This is a known issue with AOL.
  • AOL, Yahoo and Plus.net users. Forum owners such as us are finding that AOL, Yahoo and Plus.net are blocking a lot of email generated from forums. This may mean your registration activation and other emails will not get to you, or they may appear in your spam mailbox

Thread Informations

Xenon upgrade

Views : 1604

Replies : 13

Users Viewing This Thread :  

Reply
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
Old Feb 17th, 2020, 10:23   #11
100K+
Premier Member
 

Last Online: Yesterday 09:12
Join Date: Aug 2008
Location: Newcastle
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by Tatsfield View Post
On a previous car, not a Volvo, I had dipped halogens that would have come second to a candlestick in a light competition. .
How did we manage back in the day eh? I can remember switching tungsten bulbs on a 1965 Mini for sealed beam units and being delighted at the massive improvement. Halogen bulbs were a games changer over the sealed beam units too. Tomorrows lighting will obviously bring "true daylight" to our roads 24hrs a day!!

Cheers
Bob
100K+ is offline   Reply With Quote
Old Feb 17th, 2020, 18:18   #12
Tannaton
Bungling Amateur
 
Tannaton's Avatar
 

Last Online: Yesterday 20:51
Join Date: Aug 2014
Location: Beverley, East Yorks
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by Tatsfield View Post
....Eventually I bit the bullet and installed after market xenon gas discharge bulbs which produced a perfect light. These bulbs meet the legal requirement for projector lamp housing.....

So my attitude is that if you consider the lighting on your car to fall below safe standards, you should fit better lighting and deal with MoT and servicing issues as and when they arise.
Not so I'm afraid, the MOT testers manual describes how to read the markings on the front lens of the headlamp to see what type of lamp should be fitted and how to identify HID/LED over Halogen lamps. It says "Existing halogen headlamp units should not be converted to be used with HID bulbs. If such a conversion has been done, you must fail the headlamp...."

I do agree with you though that carefully installed HID upgrades with satisfactory beam pattern make for a much safer car than those with weak halogen lamps.
__________________
2011 XC90 D5 Executive
2003 C70 T5 GT
2012 Ford Ranger XL SC
1977 Triumph Spitfire 1500
1976 Massey Ferguson 135
Tannaton is offline   Reply With Quote
Old Feb 18th, 2020, 14:39   #13
I-S
Premier Member
 

Last Online: Jul 23rd, 2021 00:43
Join Date: Aug 2006
Location: Huddersfield
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by Tannaton View Post
carefully installed HID upgrades with satisfactory beam pattern make for a much safer car than those with weak halogen lamps.
The problem is that many people think that "satisfactory beam pattern" is entirely to do with the cut-off pattern.

I briefly had an HID kit in my 2003 Honda Accord, and the projector headlamp housing provided a cut-off at the correct level, and it wasn't dazzling to oncoming drivers.

However, the distribution of light under that cut-off was completely wrong. Too much light hit the ground close to the car, and it was very uneven, including shadows of the HID capsule return wire (which would noticeably vibrate over bumps). Because of the very bright light close to the car it caused the eye to adjust to deal with that and so distance vision (below and above cut-off) was actually worse with the HID kit than with a decent set of upgrade halogens.

In the case of the V70, the halogen headlamps are of the reflector type and will never get a satisfactory cut-off pattern with any non-halogen bulb. The OP was at least trying to take the correct approach by replacing the entire housing with the Xenon projector type housing.

I can also understand the desire - I recently used our work pool car (a 2016 facelift V60 D4) and the headlamps were utterly dire.
I-S is offline   Reply With Quote
Old Feb 18th, 2020, 14:56   #14
Tatsfield
Premier Member
 
Tatsfield's Avatar
 

Last Online: Yesterday 23:42
Join Date: Nov 2015
Location: Poole
Default

I just need to say that my experience was with a non Volvo and I was lucky that the original projector headlight housings coped well with the HID conversion and I could only discover that by installing it and seeing how it worked.

My reason for posting was merely to say that if you consider the existing headlight setup to be a safety hazard, despite all the R&D that Volvo should have put into designing it, you might try uprating the lights. On the matter of HID in reflector housings, I have seen HID kits being sold as suitable for reflector housings. I think they have internal reflector units on the bulbs but I had no need of them as I already had projector housings.
__________________
2012 XC70 SE Lux Polestar 230 bhp D5 Auto Oyster Grey
Tatsfield is offline   Reply With Quote
Reply


Currently Active Users Viewing This Thread: 1 (0 members and 1 guests)
 
Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump


All times are GMT +1. The time now is 09:16.


Powered by vBulletin
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.