Driving with high beams on at night .... - 986 Forum - The Community for Porsche Boxster & Cayman Owners

Is it only me or have any of you guys noticed that you can drive with your high beams on at night and no oncoming traffic seems to get blinded by them, or even notice that you have them on? The days have been getting shorter around here, so on a couple of nights I`ve noticed that the oncoming traffic wasn`t noticing that my high beams were on, so tonight I had them on the whole time and not I single car gave me the high beam flash warning that I had them on, if anything I was the one getting blinded by all the SUVs and pick-up trucks . I have the halogen OEM headlights which suck, even with LED bulbs, but I think that it might be because the car is so low.

They noticed... turn them off please

If there are LED bulbs in there with the reflectors, you are already blinding them without needing to switch to high beams.

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I don`t think so, but I`m going to test it out myself. When one of my sons comes by the house I`m going to ask him to drive the car (if it`s dark out) and I`ll go on a different car to see if it blinds me. I think my headlights are pointing to much to the ground and to the right. I`m going to take them apart today to see if they have any leveling adjustments on them. I had them out a few times and I never noticed any adjustment on them

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I`m not sure if they have reflectors on them, I`m going to take the headlights out today and I`ll check. I think something is not right with the headlights leveling?, or it`s just normal halogen output. I have had xenon headlights for so long that I can`t remember what halogens look like anymore. My 535 low beams light up farther than the Boxster high beams

If you have stock halogen headlights then you have the standard reflector lens. You are definitely blinding someone with the high beam on unless you have severely clouded headlights . The Litronics come with the projector lens. The headlight's beam path is adjustable but only for low beam and fog. The owner manual has instructions on page 229; full tank, stock tire PSI, 165lb driver, and about 25 feet away from wall. If you do decide to upgrade to LED bulbs you should have it professionally calibrated for a street driving car. Different state has different leniency. Otherwise spend the money for Litronics and help your eyes.

I just took the headlights out and the LED bulbs have reflectors on them, it looks like they are not level at all, the passenger side is pointing to high and the drivers side to low. I found the adjustments and the white level bar with the black markings at the front of the headlight glass, so I`m going to wait until it gets dark to adjust them, thanks guys.

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The headlights are are brand new, maybe 4 months old, I found where to adjust them, thank you. I`m going to adjust them later on when it gets dark out. I looked into getting litronics, but all the ones I found come with the clear bottom turn signals, I like the yellow at the bottom of my headlights, somehow it blends in nicely with the color of my car.

Dont be one of those people. There are enough clowns out there already with their high beams on full time. ****************ing annoying

How can you tell they are unaffected, they didn't crash? I agree with everyone else, don't be one of those people that leaves their high beams on with oncoming traffic.

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Exactly. Probably they are focusing on passing by you without running off the road while blinded. That`s why they are not flashing back to you. Also, at least here in California, my impression is at least half of the drivers don`t know how to flash. They don`t even realize they have the high beams on, don`t even know their car has that function.

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You won't find the Litronics with the amber markers. If I remember correctly it did exist for the 996 and it was rare. Correct me if I'm wrong. If you do go Litronics, what you can do is buy a small roll of orange tint film and tint the turn signal amber. Keep the amber corner reflectors. Now you have amber markers on your factory Litronic headlight the way you like, brighter headlights, and no need to get it professionally calibrated. Just make sure the set you buy is not the UK version. (RHD). New cars have automatic high beam and will turn on and off when a vehicle is detected in front of you. It works very well to my surprise but is an overkill with LED these days for city life and most well lit interstates. For the rest, its a great feature to have in dark areas.

1PorscheBoxster986, I don`t think I want to put amber film on the turn signals, I`m not a fan of tinted lights or film over them. I`m going to calibrate them later on tonight and see how they look after, thanks for the suggestion. Rick3000, I assume that by "they didn`t crash" you mean if the car has any accidents, no it doesn`t, the original owner just had new headlights installed prior to selling the car and I don`t think that whoever installed them calibrated them. The drivers side is facing straight down and the passenger side is turned all the way to the right facing the shoulder, I can`t see anything past 20 feet in front of me in a dark road. Homeoboxter, I don`t think I`m blinding anyone the way the headlights are calibrated. Like I said before, I can see better with my 535 low beams on than the Boxster with the high beams on. I just asked the question last night because I didn`t want to go into the garage last night to investigate, but I planned on doing it this morning, which I did and I figure it out quickly. This is not my first rodeo, I have been working on cars since high school, hell I remember changing a clutch in my teens on 2x4`s .

I just finished calibrating my headlights and took the car for a test drive. WOW what a difference, it`s like night and day, I can see now . The drivers side was set at approx. 9 inches at 25 feet and the passenger side was at approx. 14 inches at 25 feet. I put the drivers side at approx. 24 inches at 25 feet and the passenger side at approx. 26 inches at 25 feet. The low beam bulbs were approx. 26 inches high from the floor, so I think that is good enough not to blind any oncoming traffic, thanks for the help guys.