MOT: headlamp aim too high

JoRowlingRocks

My car has failed its MOT due to the nearside headlamp aim being too high. I was wondering if anyone knows what might have caused this (e.g. could going over a speed bump etc. move it?). I had my MOT with Halfords, and realised afterwards that Halfords fitted a new bulb to the headlamp not too long ago. I'm just wondering if it's likely they caused the problem or whether it can happen whilst driving!

TeamPlum

What car do you have?

I had this on a fiat punto (well, the aim was too low rather than too high).

The moron who'd fitted my bulb had screwed the bulb housing down before it was in the right place. Can be as simple as that.

Iceweasel

It is possible that the bulb is not seated in the holder.

Theoretically that's impossible - but I know for a fact that the retaining clip can be forced shut with the bulb trapped on the edge of the holder.

A simple job to refit and screw the adjuster up or don to reset the height.

You could do it yourself by shining the dipped beams up against a wall or garage door to get the wrong one in line with the correct one.

My MOT guys are decent enough to give the adjuster screws a turn or so to get them accurate.

forgotmyname

Slight variations and the design of the bulb will affect the headlamp aim.
They should have checked the alignment when fitting the bulb.

Maybe you need to find another MOT station?
My usual MOT place will adjust the headlamps for free during the check.

Richard53

Last MoT but one, the Mondeo failed on headlight aim. "No worries," said the tester, "I'll fix it and retest, no charge." A quick fiddle with a screwdriver and he was happy. Ten seconds max.

I didn't question it, but later I wondered why he didn't mess with the height adjuster knob inside, which was far more likely to have been disturbed than the lights themselves. I tend to adjust it quite often, and I know what a big difference it makes to the height of the beams. I mentioned this to the guy who tested it last month, and asked if the first guy might have decided to fail it on purpose to keep up his fail quota. Presumably a testing centre needs to have a certain proportion of failures or people will ask questions. The second guy just smiled, 'no comment'.

Maybe that's all it was for the OP.

forgotmyname

Maybe one light was higher than the other?

BeenThroughItAll

JoRowlingRocks wrote: »

I had my MOT with Halfords

There's the problem right there.

Bigphil1474

I considered myself semi skilled on doing work on my car, but even I managed to cause the headlights to be mis-aligned simply by putting a new head light bulb in upside down - doh. Took me a week to work out why, as I didn't realise they could be put in upside down. Never had a car failing on just a headlight out of alignment though, but then I've never had an MOT at Halfords either. Did have one at Kwik Fit with a free voucher - just used the fail list to have it fixed at a proper outfit and passed no probs.
I suspect it was the replacement bulb that caused it to be out of alignment, can't see the bulb moving through driving - more likely the unit would be loose if it was caused by that. Best advice I can give, if you can't find a reliable private garage, find your local council MOT centre and have your car tested there in future, rather than Halfords. Where I live, they have to do a certain amount of external MOT's, and they've no incentive to fail unnecessarily.

InsideInsurance

Iceweasel wrote: »

My MOT guys are decent enough to give the adjuster screws a turn or so to get them accurate.

Arent they supposed to fail it, adjust and retest?

My old garage did the retest for free as long as the car wasnt taken off their premises. I know one year my old car failed its test because the windscreen washer bottle was empty so when I went to collect the car I got one form saying the car had failed and then a second saying it had passed. Obv didnt charge for putting plain water in the bottle and the retest was free as standard.

anotherbaldrick

When I took my previous BMW in for test they found one headlight was aiming too high , the tester just called to the supervisor who did two turns with his screwdriver on the adjuster screw. The car was passed, they did not even tell me, I only knew because I was watching from the waiting room window