Failed inspection due to incorrect headlight beam image. Tips?

I just failed inspection due to one of the headligths projecting a circular image rather than the correct beam image which is cut horizontally to not blind oncoming cars. Does anyone know what may cause this?

Maybe u want to tell us something about your car? I guess we can assume its a 996 but with what headlight options. Maybe tell us what year maybe the miles in it or even take a pic of the headlight to give us a clue. Help is help u. There r a few reasons for the projectiors to go bad and solutions but we need more info.

Sorry, my bad. I was busy at work and popped this in during a break. The car is a 986, 98model, but the headlights should be the same as the 996? The headlights are halogen units with orange yolks. I can find the part number if needed.

No need for part numbers. There are projector and lens rebuild kits. Most likely the projectors have deteriorated. https://rennlist.com/forums/996-foru...this-year.html https://www.adriantaillights.com/sto...986-c114018836

Thanks for helping. The rules are very strict over here, so upgrading/modding the headlights likely not be allowed as the requirement is for parts to be CE approved. They may not notice it, but if they do I'll have to revert back. Is there a way to check the degree of degradation by visual inspection? I'm not sure I understand exactly what part of the headlight the projector is? Is it the complete internal headlight?

Its the chrome foil "cup/lens" behind the bulb. The bulb refects/projects the light foward. Email those guys in the link because (i think) they have a replacent part thats basically the oem part.

Got it. Thank you.

Barrow a friend with a 996/987 headlights for the test then switch it back

Good idea. Unfortunately they all have 996.2 lights which won't fit since mine are the early lights. I'll ask around. This is what didn't pass. I was not able to get the car square to the wall so the distance is closer on the left. It was the left that failed inspection. I have polished the left h headlight. It was more faded than the right, so is probably older. I was not able to get the car square to the wall so the distance is closer on the left. It was the left that failed inspection.

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They sell a kit for .2s as well. I have one sitting in a box in my garage.

If you pull the bulb, and use a cheap dental mirror like from harbor freight you can inspect the inside of the housing. It sounds like you have the problem with either the reflector coating dyeing, or the projector lens fogging/aging. Hard to believe something that subtle is causing a fail on an inspection. wow..

Thanks. I'll see if I can get a smaller mirror. I know, they called the beam image appalling. They don't cut us much slack when it comes to cars.... They also failed the clear side indicators. The orange bulb wasn't orange enough. Looks orange to me

Does the failed headlight Show burn marks in the lenses like this? ? If not, try new bulbs from Philips or Osram.

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at least its easy to swap the side indicators out as needed...

Thanks to Jeeper for sharing links to my web site. Since OP is in Norway, however, it would be easier to source any upgrades directly from the manufacturer, Retrofitlab, that is based in the Netherlands. Here is a picture of the halogen (left) and Litronic/HID (right) inserts in the 996.1/986 headlights. They are sadly not available as a Porsche replacement part, so if that is the problem you would have to source them from another set of lights. Caveat is that you need to remove the lens to replace them which is not an easy task...

@Hardtailer. The burn marks are present. Do they affect the beam image, I thought they were cosmetic only? The car is a dedicated track car so I don't care about looks. That's also why I'm hoping to not have to buy new lenses.

The 996.1 halogen is the only non projector headlamp for the 996 as far as I'm aware, in projector lamps there's a piece of metal doing the beam cutoff, I'm not sure what does it in your halogens, it may just be from the shape of the reflector bowl itself? If you haven't popped that light out and verified the bulb is correctly seated, certainly start with that.

@ Adrian Taillights I've seem some which have split inner lenses, like the litronic one, but are halogen. I found a seller of replacement upper halves of the inner lens. Is the halogen lens to the right actually split horizontally. It says EU version only. Does that mean the US version is a single piece? My car is a US model.

@ dsbl Will do, thanks. I'm beginning to wonder if my US car has a different beam image than the inspectors expect due to the headlights beeing US versions?. It seems this is the problem? No wonder the car was cheap. European rules are much stricter. They allow for less scatter and lower max lumen. They did fail the non blinking side markers, so I know for sure the car has US lights. I'll have to mod the harness for that.

Wow they're really turning the screws on you, lol. You have a right hand drive beam pattern unless that photo is mirrored, it seems crazy that they'd have 2 different rhd patterns for those headlights. In your photo the left doesn't look particularly worse than the right, maybe a bit fuzzy, but could just be the angle. For 25 year old halogens I'm not sure you can really make a marked improvement, all thought perhaps the burns in the plastic cause more distortion than I would think. Maybe they could give you some more specific feedback about the evaluation criteria?

That beam pattern shown is LHD not RHD (it's defined by the side where the steering wheel is fitted not by the side of the road the car's driven). The US headlights have a different lense both in shape and light pattern. RoW/Euro lenses are depicted in the picture above (1 for each headlight) with the black background. US lense is not half a disk like RoW but a full disk and has different light projection characteristics as far as I could tell but do check yourself. There is more scatter due to the burn marks but what you see is representative for US headlights. I had a right US headlight and left RoW headlight and the scatter was the discernable difference, that's how I know. RoW headlights are easily recognised by a second yellow sticker on the housing that states 'not DOT approved' next to the one stating part number and supplier (BOSCH, not sure if AL, American Lighting supplied these too).