Iv got a 62 plate focus titanium x estate. Havnt had it long and did first real night driving recently. I found that the bi xenons didnt light up the road as i thought they would and the only way to light the road up was to put main beams on which are halogens. They really lit road up.but can only use them when roads empty. Also the xenons seemed to light the side walk up and not the road dire ctly in front of my car. Am i doing somethi g wrong or are the bi xens pretty hopeless

I found the same with the Mk2 xenons I had, nice white light but it just didn't go very far!  Main beams were much better but dazzle surprisingly far away...like I got flashed a couple of times from the outer lane of the opposite side on an unlit dual carriageway with a wide centre!

They are designed to flick up and light verges and pavements on the NS so that's fine, but might be worth asking an MOT garage to check if they are manually aligned as high as legally possible.  They should automatically adjust to any extra weight in the car so there's no separate adjustment inside.

HID's degrade and colour-shift over time. You would probably find new bulbs would improve vision.

7 minutes ago, YOG said:

HID's degrade and colour-shift over time. You would probably find new bulbs would improve vision.

Just make sure you're sitting down when checking the price of xenon bulbs...

 

Have you had the alignment checked? Mine were low from the factory.

No iv not even thought to have them checked for alignment. They do self adjust.  I think.  When first switched on they start higher then the beam shines down a bit. And yes my main beams are superb. But i had flashes from people miles away. And seemed to shine quite high on road signs too. So sounds like the natire of the beasts then. I thought id have great headlamps when i found tbey were bi xenons.  Bit disapointed really.

They only self adjust based on suspension load/angle, but it's adjusted from the default alignment, so it can still be set too low.

Ok i understand. So what is it that happens when i first turn them on then. Is it the shield inside the projector moving to stop blinding oncoming vehicles. ?

When you first turn them on it just moves in all directions to check that the mechanism is operating and reporting back its position correctly, without getting stuck, it then returns to its normal position based on the sensor reading on the suspension.

Complicated. Thanks