Headlight Alignment Problem - €850 to fix!!

griffin100

My Volvo S60 failed the NCT a while back on tyres and a damaged / misaligned headlight. I got the tyres sorted and replaced the headlamp unit with a spurious part and dropped it back in to be retested and it failed again on the headlight alignment again. I had a Volvo main dealer look at the car this morning and they reckon that they can't focus the light properly because the leveling motor is not working and also because it's a spurious headlamp unit. They are quoting around €850 to replace these and focus the light!! Does any one know of a decent indy garage / mechanic in Dublin who might be able to help me with this??? Car is barely worth €850. Other option is to buy a secondhand unit and motor but still pricey. Thanks.

mullingar

griffin100 wrote: »

My Volvo S60 failed the NCT a while back on tyres and a damaged / misaligned headlight. I got the tyres sorted and replaced the headlamp unit with a spurious part and dropped it back in to be retested and it failed again on the headlight alignment again. I had a Volvo main dealer look at the car this morning and they reckon that they can't focus the light properly because the leveling motor is not working and also because it's a spurious headlamp unit. They are quoting around €850 to replace these and focus the light!! Does any one know of a decent indy garage / mechanic in Dublin who might be able to help me with this??? Car is barely worth €850. Other option is to buy a secondhand unit and motor but still pricey. Thanks.

You seem to have 2 faults there, focus and alignment, which is it? Focus is usually a badly positioned bulb. It would be impossible to align a badly focused bulb. Simple check would be to drive up to a wall at night, stay back about 10 feet, parking squarely towards the wall and check the pattern of both lights. Block one at a time and the beam pattern should be identical and level

VeVeX

griffin100 wrote: »

My Volvo S60 failed the NCT a while back on tyres and a damaged / misaligned headlight. I got the tyres sorted and replaced the headlamp unit with a spurious part and dropped it back in to be retested and it failed again on the headlight alignment again. I had a Volvo main dealer look at the car this morning and they reckon that they can't focus the light properly because the leveling motor is not working and also because it's a spurious headlamp unit. They are quoting around €850 to replace these and focus the light!! Does any one know of a decent indy garage / mechanic in Dublin who might be able to help me with this??? Car is barely worth €850. Other option is to buy a secondhand unit and motor but still pricey. Thanks.

I'd hazard a guess that your new headlight was fitted incorrectly. Its more than likely a human error rather than an issue with the lamp itself.

pippip

Have you had any work done on the car since the last NCT?

griffin100

The beam in question sits well higher than the beam on the other side (which is correct) when you shine them at a wall and is also off to the side. The tester brought me in to see how badly the light was misaligned when he did the test - it was miles off. Perhaps the headlight unit is poorly fitted, I never thought of that. Can anyone recommend a good place to have this checked? I did ask a tyre / bulbs place to take a look but once they heard the leveling motor was gone they told me they couldn't do anything.

enumbers

Would not go back the place that fitted the headlamp. Would they not of charged you for alignment as part of fitting.

colm_mcm

I wonder is the front of the car straight?

christy02

Independent Volvo place down from holle st under dart bridge (Ivs) . Used him a couple of Times when I had my s40 and very decent.

mickdw

Surely the light can be botched in some way to manually twist the motor to get the light into a basic position and then aligned with adjustment screws. The focus of the bulb issue as already said could be a poorly seated bulb or bulb fitted upside down etc.
Ok, so a garage will tell you it needs a new part. I have a strong suspicion that it is possible to get this through the test by spending a couple of hours of your own time at this and getting the beam into a more reasonable pattern.

s14driftking

I had this trouble before with a e39 bmw motor was gone in the headlight and silly money to replace new or second went to a local indy mechanic and he sorted the beam for me, did notice after wards he had used a few cable ties and screws but it passed no problem. think 30 quid sorted it at the time

griffin100

mickdw wrote: »

Surely the light can be botched in some way to manually twist the motor to get the light into a basic position and then aligned with adjustment screws. The focus of the bulb issue as already said could be a poorly seated bulb or bulb fitted upside down etc.
Ok, so a garage will tell you it needs a new part. I have a strong suspicion that it is possible to get this through the test by spending a couple of hours of your own time at this and getting the beam into a more reasonable pattern.

Yeah someone suggested this to me - some time with superglue and brute force. might do the trick. Not something a main Volvo dealer will do. Will give it a go.

Matt Simis

mickdw wrote: »

Surely the light can be botched in some way to manually twist the motor to get the light into a basic position and then aligned with adjustment screws. The focus of the bulb issue as already said could be a poorly seated bulb or bulb fitted upside down etc.

Pre-Xenon days, cars (well decent ones) with leveling/electrically adjustable height had secondary screws on them to allow this exact thing, a forced manual adjustment.

griffin100

So I got the mechanic who looks after the fleet in work to look at the lights. He reckoned he could do something to get the alignment right but that it might take a bit of work. It took him a few minutes to work out that the problem was actually an incorrectly fitted bulb, something a Volvo main dealer mechanic missed when he looked at the car (I know, I should have spotted this but I took the main dealer at face value). Instead Volvo tried to get me to buy a new headlight (€350), a new levelling motor (€150) and two hours labour (€90 ph) plus VAT. The mechanic didn't charge me and the car passed the retest today.

Bigus

griffin100 wrote: »

So I got the mechanic who looks after the fleet in work to look at the lights. He reckoned he could do something to get the alignment right but that it might take a bit of work. It took him a few minutes to work out that the problem was actually an incorrectly fitted bulb, something a Volvo main dealer mechanic missed when he looked at the car (I know, I should have spotted this but I took the main dealer at face value). Instead Volvo tried to get me to buy a new headlight (€350), a new levelling motor (€150) and two hours labour (€90 ph) plus VAT. The mechanic didn't charge me and the car passed the retest today.

People forget main dealers are more in the business of selling parts rather than solving and fixing problems.
Great you got it fixed with a bit of determination .

mullingar

griffin100 wrote: »

So I got the mechanic who looks after the fleet in work to look at the lights. He reckoned he could do something to get the alignment right but that it might take a bit of work. It took him a few minutes to work out that the problem was actually an incorrectly fitted bulb, something a Volvo main dealer mechanic missed when he looked at the car (I know, I should have spotted this but I took the main dealer at face value). Instead Volvo tried to get me to buy a new headlight (€350), a new levelling motor (€150) and two hours labour (€90 ph) plus VAT. The mechanic didn't charge me and the car passed the retest today.

Cough, post #2....

mickdw

Is pretty poor that volvo didn't sort this. At least you now know where not to take your car in future.

dr.fuzzenstein

And that's why they call them main stealers.