If you feel you can’t see as well at night, or you feel you’re lighting too low, or too high, in all these circumstances, there’s only one component of your car responsible – your headlights, also named high beams. Although this adjustment may seem easy thanks to the thumbwheel on your dashboard, a whole adjustment is much more complex than this simple manipulation, and in this article, we are going to see how to adjust the headlights of your Citroen Xsara? To get this done, first we will see why you need to adjust your high beams, and secondly how to adjust the headlights of your Citroen Xsara.
Why adjust the headlights of your Citroen Xsara?
So let’s start our content page with the interest of adjusting the headlights of your Citroen Xsara. For the majority of us, our headlights are adjusted well enough, and they appear to light up enough after dark. However this is not constantly the case and checking this setting, either because the headlights on your Citroen Xsara are not bright enough, or because you have the sensation that they are too weak is a good idea .
Adjusting the high beams of your Citroen Xsara for safety
To begin with, the headlight adjustment of a Citroen Xsara must be conducted for a very easy safety explanation. If it’s for you, or for the other users you come across during your night trips. In actual fact, if you don’t see enough, the risk is to ignore an obstacle while traveling, or to predict a curve badly. Alternatively, if your headlights are too powerful, regardless if you are expected to switch to low beam lights when you pass a vehicle, the time required to make this switch will generally expose the driver in front of you to the headlight beam of your Citroen Xsara . It is consequently essential for others as well as for you to have an optimal adjustment of your headlights.
Adjusting the headlights of a Citroen Xsara for legal reasons
In addition to safety, there is a law that supervises the power, the adjustment of motor vehicle headlights (articles R313-2 of the Highway Code), here is what it suggests: have between 2 and 4 headlights that illuminate at least 100 meters. Another legislation supervises their use, the European one (directive 76/756/EEC), which stipulates that there is no maximum height for the adjustment of the headlights, but that the maximum width of the beam must be matching to that of the dipped headlights and that the maximum luminosity must be 225, 000 cd.
How to adjust the headlights of a Citroen Xsara?
We will now go forward to the part that concerns you the most in this article, how to adjust the headlights of his Citroen Xsara? This adjustment may seem a bit complex, but by following the recommendations you should be able to perform it without too much issue.
Preparations to adjust the headlights of a Citroen Xsara
To begin with, you’ll need to prepare your car to adjust your high beams in good conditions, here are the preparations to executed:
- Place your car on a surface in front of a white wall for example, about 4 or 5 meters from the wall.
- Verify your tire pressure cautiously.
- Verify that the height adjustment knob for the lights is set to 0
- Try doing that with half a full tank.
- Remove all needless weight from the automobile, only one person should be in the driver’s seat.
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The headlight adjustment of his Citroen Xsara
Once your vehicle is in place, you will turn on your dipped beam and make a cross-shaped mark (one horizontal and one vertical section) in the middle of the beam that will be projected on the wall. Verify with a level that both parts of the cross are straight. Then back your car up to a distance of between 7 and 10 metres. For the rest of the process here are the steps to follow:
- Open your hood, locate the screws for horizontal and vertical modification of the headlights of your Citroen Xsara (they are in general marked, and those on top must modify the verticality and the one on the side controls the horizontality of the adjustment).
- Use a cloth or different things to hide the projector on which you are not making the modification.
- Using the screws to make the horizontal modification, you should have the most intense component of the beam which should be a little to the right of the vertical line marked on the wall
- With regard to vertical modification, you will have to use the screw to try to position the upper end of the beam at the level of the horizontal marking on the wall, or slightly down below.
- Once finished, verify that the headlights setting of your Citroen Xsara is coherent, do not hesitate to verify it after you have driven it, oftentimes it may move.
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If you want to adjust the fog lights on your Citroen Xsara, please read our content page on this subject matter.
If you wish more tutorials on the Citroen Xsara, go to our Citroen Xsara category.
