5

 

So
now..
is your xenon light look like 3 or 4???

 

xenon lighting does have a break in period. It usually starts out pure white with a tinge or yellow and becomes bluer. the rx8 has self leveling features... has anyone noticed it working?

 

But I got my car for a month already

 

whats that under your headlights, that thing sticking out,i dont have that

 

headlight washers, we (the US) don't get them

 

I'm glad we dont get them
I like the look without them

 

Our Xenon headlamps are supposed to be self leveling. Now...not having owned a car with xenons before, I may not know what to exactly expect. BUT....I have heard of audi owners saying there car does a leveling "self check" at start up. I have done many tests to see if the horizontal beam cutoff changes with the angle and pitch of my car on the road. The lights never seems to do anything. No movement or "leveling" what so ever.
Has anyone else noticed this?
Does the "leveling" really mean intensity? Next time you turn your head lights, watch closely at the light pattern. It appears the the lights are bright...then dimmer then bright again. This all takes place in a second or two.
I initially assumed that this was the Xenon Fusion balasts warming up. Does anyone else know how our RX-8's self level?

 

They go through a self-test and levelling cycle when you first turn them on. Try it yourself - park facing a wall and put a few heavy items in the trunk. Turn on the lights, and let them stabilise. Make a mark on the wall at the cutoff point of the beam. Now turn them off again, remove the trunk ballast, and turn them on again. You should see the cutoff below your mark for a moment, then it should automatically adjust back up to the mark. If they're not doing this, then you have a system fault and should be getting a yellow warning light on the dash.

(BTW, you may need to have the ignition turned on when you do this - I'm not sure if the system is enabled with the ignition off.)

 

you can see them level out when you turn them on but more impressive to me is they were more yellow when I got the car and now they are really sharp white. Looks like they broke in finally

 

OK. this is long. To cut to the chase, does anyone know if there is any adjustment for the auto-leveling mechanism? I suspect that if there is, mine is adjusted to a range of zero (i.e., auto-leveling is effectively off.)

I've been concerned about my perceived lack of auto-leveling since I bought the car, and now I'm convinced there is an range-of-adjustment problem (no range) or it's off/not working. I've never seen any instrument panel warning lights for this -- no system fault indicated, that is.

I've never seen my headlights level-adjust: they just always point straight up or down with the car. Last night I went out, fired up the car & turned on the headlights. Observing the top-of-beam cutoff location, I pushed and held down on the trunk. I watched the cutoff point correspondingly rise to a higher position, and holding to a count of ten saw no leveling whatsoever. I released and saw the cutoff point drop back to the original position.

Now, my neighbor fires up his BMW 5 series. Headlights on, I actually see the xenons do the self-adjust up against the garage door: they tilted up (high!) then back down. Then I watch as he backs out the driveway and pause for traffic: while tilted thus, again I could easitly see the xenons auto-level. And finally, as the BMW moved onto the level road surface I saw the headlights adjusting all the time. It was really obvious that the auto-leveling was working.

So I go and repeat the same procedure with my car in his driveway, even to the point of shutting off and restarting the engine. No self-test auto-leveling at headlights on, no adjust backing down driveway or pausing on the incline, no adjust while moving onto the level road surface. It's pretty clear the auto-adjust is simply not working.

Thus far the shop manual is unavailable, so again, does anyone know how to adjust the auto-leveling mechanism for the xenons? (And thanks for reading this far!)
Cheers,
-jd.

EDIT: I started a new thread with this post, as it seems more of a tech question... -jd.

 

See my response in the other thread.. :P

 

Wait...im confused...whats the difference between HID and Xenon? Arent they the same thingys?

 

same thing different terms.

Xenon gas fusion.

High Intensity Discharge ....( I believe)

 

Uhhhh...thx..but which is better? I heard different stories...like Xenon is really bright or HID is better then Xenon and so on...

 

xenon is a brand of HID
like levis to jeans

 

actually....Mikeb, in automotive use, HID and xenon are the same.

HID- High Intensity Discharge, is the name of the tecnology. Xenon is the name of the gas that CAN be used in HID's. High power streetlamps over freeways are HID...but not Xenon.

HID's that are used in stadium lighting..Freeways.. etc use different high pressure gas to produce bright, highly efficient light. Usually Mercury or Sodium Vapor. Mercury Vapor cant have automotive application due to long warm up times(ever notice how a street lamp will flicker and sometimes slowly warm up). The headlamps in a vehicle need to be immidiate. Thats why they use Xenon gas in the HID headlamps under high pressure, because it has a very fast "excite" phase.

There are no filaments in a HID bulb. Positive charge electricity is introduced in the form of an arc, and excites the high pressure gas. Electricity is in essence flowing through the gas...and lighting it up. Thats why HID's last longer. No filament to break/burn out. Thats also why thay are cooler.
Halogens lights rely on heat to do their lighting. The filament glows and the halogen gas around it "enhances" its performance. Very old technology, and not efficient compared to HID.

So all HID automotive applications use xenon gas, but otherwise....in non automotive use, HID's can use a number of different gases.

 

OOOOoooOO...ic...thx! I learned something todaii How come cars still use halogen lights tho? I hate my yellow lights...

 

Like everything else...The price is relatively high to produce an entire HID system. They are trickling down further and further in the market. $28,300 for a RX8 with sport package gets you Xenons, a couple years ago you had to pay 10 grand more for a car equiped with HID's. A few years from now, they will be on corollas....wait and see.

In the big applications it SAVES money....like stadium lighting. It uses far less electricity, yields more light output, and needs less maintenance. A no brainer.

For cars though, it definately yields more light output, but thats where most of the benefit stops. Yes they last far longer than halogens...but the cost of halogens is so cheap its almost a mute point. The energy consumption is a non issue as well.

With self leveling systems and generaly more components involved, they never will be AS cheap to mass produce as standard halogens, but the consumer market will demand the crossover to a HID predomination.

 

gyro

you put me in my place I must say

 

Have anyone ran across an incoming car at night then flick their high beam at you, thinking that you are running on high beam but your not???
It happens to me everytime I drive at night.

 

there is a whole thread on that

 

Just some pics of my car the day I picked it up. It was raining...and it was only 5pm, but it gets dark in New England around 4pm around this time.


As you can see the Xenon lamps in my car a crystal blue....no yellow at all. And I am happy to say the auto-leveling works awesome.

 

question..
i have a normal headlight..
and i asked dealer and they told me you cant change it to xenon head light..
is there any way you can change it..?
plz mail me to soo_1987@hotmail.com

 

It would probably cost over 1000 dollars.

But, I would really like to replace my fog lights with these: http://www.piaa.com/Lamps/Lamp-pages/610hid.html