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NCT fail on light alignment

rightmove

It was way off and I have corrected now - bulb was put in wrong. However wondering if I should bring it to a garage before popping back to the NCT center.

Do most garages have the equipment to 100% say its fine or do they just do what I did and line it up from about 24 foot off a wall and check it?

Wondering what the experts on here think?

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colm_mcm

I’d chance it.

biko

If you found that the bulb was incorrectly inserted and have fixed it now then just go for the retest.

You can pay for a pro to check or try to check yourself if it looks right.

CoBo55

Drive up to a wall and see does the beam follow the same line as the light that passed.

rightmove

cheers I am sure most ppl do a simple visual to see if they look alright.

Toyotafanboi

A visual wont be enough, generally. NCT's are very sticky about headlight alignment, it even says so on their booking letter.

Just because a bulb was badly inserted and is now corrected doesn't mean that the headlights are focused, they are just now capable of being focused.

For the cost of headlight alignment, i'd definitely do it before a retest.

whizbang

For the cost of a retest, I'd definitely get it tested first

Toyotafanboi

Well it'd either be

Retest now, take a chance on alignment and pass, costings €28

Restest now but focus the lights beforehand and pass costing around €53

Retest now, fail, get lights focused then retest again and pass costing €81

It's all small money but for the hassle of having to rebook yet another in lane retest i'd focus them beforehand. It's good practise.

btree

rightmove wrote: »

It was way off and I have corrected now - bulb was put in wrong. However wondering if I should bring it to a garage before popping back to the NCT center.

Do most garages have the equipment to 100% say its fine or do they just do what I did and line it up from about 24 foot off a wall and check it?

Wondering what the experts on here think?

My car failed NCT early this year for light alignment too. I faced the car in front of a wall for about 5m (count from the bulb) and tried to get the inclination of the light as defined in the NCT guideline. I then revered back further 5m and measured again to make sure that the inclination remained. The ground surface must be flat to do the job.

The car passed without any problem. To be honest, I was only 50-50 confident to pass that time only but I accepted another test (if failed) to see if measurement by hand would work and it worked. It will give me confidence for the next years to do the same before NCT.

The job took me about 20 mins to make sure the alignment was in within the recommended value in the NCT manual.

whizbang

Am i wrong in thinking the NCT test will only fail if the light is too high..?
(other than ridiculously low)

There was a massive margin in the test spec the last time i had a car fail on Headlamps.

CoBo55

whizbang wrote: »

Am i wrong in thinking the NCT test will only fail if the light is too high..?
(other than ridiculously low)

There was a massive margin in the test spec the last time i had a car fail on Headlamps.

If a beam is too far left or right it will fail on out of range. I think they've tightened up the parameters as they used to be very wide.

rightmove

whizbang wrote: »

Am i wrong in thinking the NCT test will only fail if the light is too high..?
(other than ridiculously low)

There was a massive margin in the test spec the last time i had a car fail on Headlamps.

Mine was really high. I drove to a wall after removing and readding the light and it looks visually ok now. not blinding like before and the inclination of the light is going to the left for both although it only failed on one

CoBo55

rightmove wrote: »

Mine was really high. I drove to a wall after removing and readding the light and it looks visually ok now. not blinding like before and the inclination of the light is going to the left for both although it only failed on one

Sounds ok from your description, maybe take a photo this evening and put it up here. You will need to book a retest as it needs to be put on the tester you won't get away with a free visual.

The Continental Op

whizbang wrote: »

Am i wrong in thinking the NCT test will only fail if the light is too high..?
(other than ridiculously low)

There was a massive margin in the test spec the last time i had a car fail on Headlamps.

I've had a failure for being too low.

rightmove

The Continental Op wrote: »

I've had a failure for being too low.

you move the bulb or fix another way?

The Continental Op

rightmove wrote: »

you move the bulb or fix another way?

Just paid to have them aligned.

grogi

rightmove wrote: »

It was way off and I have corrected now - bulb was put in wrong. However wondering if I should bring it to a garage before popping back to the NCT center.

Do most garages have the equipment to 100% say its fine or do they just do what I did and line it up from about 24 foot off a wall and check it?

Wondering what the experts on here think?

Park in front of the wall and see both beams are aligned.

irishgrover

I would go for a halfway house solution.
Its easy and straight forward to check yourself if your headlights are aligned, plenty of guides on google.

I would suggest you do that. If they appear to be aligned then just do the retest.
If they appear NOT to be aligned then paid to get them done if you are not happy to try it yourself.

Point is, you should be in a position to check yourself and make a more informed decision on if you need to spend more money pre-test on alignment

timple23

Got mine done at a tyre place after they failed nct. When retesting the guy said that they barely made it inside the allowance and said that if they were using the newer machines they were due to get that I would be looking at a retest.

rightmove

CoBo55 wrote: »

Sounds ok from your description, maybe take a photo this evening and put it up here. .

attached

rightmove

diff wall

They 'look' with in range to me

CoBo55

They look fine.

Sharpyshoot

Toyotafanboi wrote: »

A visual wont be enough, generally. NCT's are very sticky about headlight alignment, it even says so on their booking letter.

Just because a bulb was badly inserted and is now corrected doesn't mean that the headlights are focused, they are just now capable of being focused.

For the cost of headlight alignment, i'd definitely do it before a retest.

Making a mountain out of a molehill. Better take the engine out altogether to make sure the bulb gets installed correctly.

Toyotafanboi

It's not really a mountain to pay €25 and get your headlights focused before the test. It's good advice.

It's the most popular fail item and they advise you do it before making an appointment on their reminder letter and to be fair if OP had done that, they wouldn't be in this situation at all, now after ignoring that and failing on alignment, they are going for a retest for headlight alignment without getting them focused :rolleyes:.

It'd be a bigger mountain IMO to have to do yet another in lane retest for the sake of lack of preparation for this one. Any garage would focus your lights for €20-25 while you wait, would it not be better safe than sorry for that price?

timple23

Are focusing and aligning two different things? Should you get it done if you change both bulbs?

CoBo55

Toyotafanboi wrote: »

It's not really a mountain to pay €25 and get your headlights focused before the test. It's good advice.

It's the most popular fail item and they advise you do it before making an appointment on their reminder letter and to be fair if OP had done that, they wouldn't be in this situation at all, now after ignoring that and failing on alignment, they are going for a retest for headlight alignment without getting them focused :rolleyes:.

It'd be a bigger mountain IMO to have to do yet another in lane retest for the sake of lack of preparation for this one. Any garage would focus your lights for €20-25 while you wait, would it not be better safe than sorry for that price?

It'll pass as it is as it's in perfect alignment with the light that already passed.

grogi

timple23 wrote: »

Are focusing and aligning two different things? Should you get it done if you change both bulbs?

No no no. There is hardly any physical reason those will go out unless there was bodywork fix done.

Just do the wall check, if both light beams are leveled you should be fine.

Toyotafanboi

CoBo55 wrote: »

It'll pass as it is as it's in perfect alignment with the light that already passed.

Granted, they look ok in the photos posted but the NCT lads aren't checking them by eye against a wall in the back yard.

grogi

Toyotafanboi wrote: »

Granted, they look ok in the photos posted but the NCT lads aren't checking them by eye against a wall in the back yard.

By that logic you need to replace whole car before NCT 'just in case'...

The gold standard should be to regularly do your due diligence: exp. check if all.lights work, eyeball alignment, tyre and screws check etc. If all looks ok to naked eye and there were no obvious 'adventures' , it should be fine. If it isn't, fix that one item and re-test.

Toyotafanboi

grogi wrote: »

By that logic you need to replace whole car before NCT 'just in case'...

Not really.

The logic is simple, the car failed on headlight alignment, getting the alignment re-checked on a proper beam setter before the re-test would be sound advice IMO as it is such a quick, cheap thing to do. NCT's are sticky about headlight alignment, i personally wouldn't have confidence in a garden wall check.

I'm not saying the car will fail, but I can't see how getting the headlights aligned properly could be considered over complicating things on a car that has just failed on headlight alignment.

The Continental Op

Toyotafanboi wrote: »

Not really.

The logic is simple, the car failed on headlight alignment, getting the alignment re-checked on a proper beam setter before the re-test would be sound advice IMO as it is such a quick, cheap thing to do. NCT's are sticky about headlight alignment, i personally wouldn't have confidence in a garden wall check.

I'm not saying the car will fail, but I can't see how getting the headlights aligned properly could be considered over complicating things on a car that has just failed on headlight alignment.

To back that up my indy mechanic got away for years by having the back wall of his garage marked up for headlight alinement, but eventually had to buy the proper machine because even with a lot of experience he couldn't always get it accurate enough for the test against the wall.