We've just spent a few days touring round Anglesey and Snowdonia. Car's behaved impeccably. 43 mpg getting there and 37+ touring around according to the onboard computer. On thing I'm not happy with are the headlights on dipped beam. They seem to be set too low. Main beam is fine.
Hi Roger, I've just got standard headlights, no leveling system. The car has a fairly recent mot but the lights are set far too low. Driving on unlit roads is not good. I'll have a look at adjusting them when I get a chance.
Barry
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From what I have found is that you should have air suspension which is supposed to keep the car level. Could yours not be doing its job right.
Suspension's working fine. I think part of the problem is that my previous car, Ford smax with the xenon headlights, had the best lights I've ever had. The jags are like 7" sealed beams in comparison.
Signature updated.
The self levelling unit was deleted quite early on as the base option of ordinary spring suspension never happened, and the air suspension keeps the car and hence the headlamps level.
There are headlamp adjusters, they are white and stickup through the cover over the radiator and lights at the front of the engine compartment.
That's odd Eddie because cars built with HID's had auto headlight leveling modules inside the headlight unit. The wiring diagrams do not show conventional headlights after 2006.
That's odd Eddie because cars built with HID's had auto headlight leveling modules inside the headlight unit. The wiring diagrams do not show conventional headlights after 2006.
My 2004 XJR has leveling mechanisms inside the HID lights and used to go to the lowest level and then rise .
When I bought a replacement light the leveling mechanism had been deleted and so I disconnected the mechanism in the original light so it didn’t look odd.
I think the levelling motor was deleted quite early in the X350s production run; that SSM is '04 and the X358 wasn't introduced until ... late '07 or early '08 ? I think it was only about the first year of 350s that had the motor.
there was a whole world of confusion surrounding the Light installation Directive at the time.
The end result was that all vehicles with HiD (gas discharge) lamps required some form of headlamp levelling, which could be either active levelling in the headlamp unit with a motor, OR could be reliant on the vehicle self-levelling suspension where it had it. That "or" bit was added at a relative late date.
So I'm not surprised that early cars had self-levelling lamps with self-levelling suspension and later cars had only self-levelling suspension.
None of them had the internal switch where the user could adjust beam level.
.... The end result was that all vehicles with HiD (gas discharge) lamps required some form of headlamp levelling, which could be either active levelling in the headlamp unit with a motor, OR could be reliant on the vehicle self-levelling suspension where it had it. That "or" bit was added at a relative late date.
So I'm not surprised that early cars had self-levelling lamps with self-levelling suspension and later cars had only self-levelling suspension. ....
I think the explanation for the X350 is rather more mundane. It was originally intended to market the X350 with conventional spring suspension, and only to fit self-levelling air suspension as either an optional extra or a standard feature on high-line models. For the conventional spring cars with HID lights it would obviously require levelling motors so that was what Jag initially specified for the HID lamp units.
The decision to abandon the conventional spring suspension and have air suspension on all models was taken so late on that initial stocks of HIDs with levelling motors had already been manufactured so these were fitted to the first X350s until that run of HIDs was used up. Naturally further production runs of HID lamps did not have the levelling motors.
One consequence was that there was a small number of X350s, just after the switch to non-self-levelling HIDs, that still had the wiring harness for self-levelling lights, so the plug for the levelling unit was 'taped back'. (It's in an SSM somewhere).
Happen my thoughts are the other way on the HID's having also had the ST220.
Then again I did change the Jags units a couple of years ago now as I suspected I had differing manufacturers bulbs in, sure enough I had.
Gun metal grey with Infra Red leather, loved that Fast Ford.
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