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 situations, there’s only one component of your car at fault – your headlights, as well called high beams. Although this adjustment might seem easy thanks to the thumbwheel on your dashboard, a whole adjustment is much more complex than this basic manipulation, and in this article, we are going to discover how to adjust the headlights of your Fiat 500? To get this done, first we will discover why you need to adjust your high beams, and secondly how to adjust the headlights of your Fiat 500.
Why adjust the headlights of your Fiat 500?
So let’s start our content page with the benefit of adjusting the headlights of your Fiat 500. For the majority of us, our headlights are adjusted sufficiently, and they seem to light up enough through the night. Regrettably this is not constantly the case and examining this setting, either because the headlights on your Fiat 500 are not bright enough, or because you have the impression that they are too weak is a wise decision .
Adjusting the high beams of your Fiat 500 for safety
To begin with, the headlight adjustment of a Fiat 500 must be finished for a basic security explanation. If it’s for you, or for the other users you come across during your night trips. In truth, if you don’t see enough, the risk is to ignore an obstacle while traveling, or to predict a curve badly. On the other hand, if your headlights are too strong, even if you are expected to switch to low beam lights when you pass a car, the time needed to make this switch will most of the time expose the driver in front of you to the headlight beam of your Fiat 500 . It is therefore necessary for others as well as for you to have an optimal adjustment of your headlights.
Adjusting the headlights of a Fiat 500 for legal reasons
Furthermore to security, there is a law that supervises the power, the adjustment of car headlights (articles R313-2 of the Highway Code), here is what it suggests: have between 2 and 4 headlights that illuminate at minimum 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 very same to that of the dipped headlights and that the maximum luminosity must be 225, 000 cd.
How to adjust the headlights of a Fiat 500?
We will now move on to the section that interests you the most in this article, how to adjust the headlights of his Fiat 500? This setting might seem a bit difficult, but by simply following the guidance you should have the ability to perform it without too much trouble.
Preparations to adjust the headlights of a Fiat 500
To begin with, you’ll need to prepare your car to adjust your high beams in good conditions, here are the preparations to put in place:
- Place your car on a surface in front of a white wall for example, about 4 or 5 meters from the wall.
- Check your tire pressure carefully.
- Check that the height adjustment knob for the lights is set to 0
- Try doing that with half a full tank.
- Take out all needless weight from the car, only one person should be in the driver’s seat.
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The headlight adjustment of his Fiat 500
Once your car 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. Check 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 stick to:
- Open your hood, find the screws for horizontal and vertical control of the headlights of your Fiat 500 (they are in most cases designated, and those on top must modify the verticality and the one on the side manages the horizontality of the adjustment).
- Use a cloth or something else to hide the projector on which you are not making the correction.
- Using the screws to make the horizontal correction, you should have the most intense component of the beam which should be a little to the right of the vertical line noted on the wall
- With regard to vertical correction, 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, check that the headlights setting of your Fiat 500 is logical, do not hesitate to check it after you have driven it, occasionally it may move.
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If you want to adjust the fog lights on your Fiat 500, please read our content page on this subject matter.
If you want more guides on the Fiat 500, go to our Fiat 500 category.
