Whether you experience you can’t see as well at night, or you experience you’re lighting too low, or too high, in all these situations, there’s only one component of your vehicle to take responsibility – your headlights, as well often known as high beams. Nevertheless this adjustment might seem easy thanks to the thumbwheel on your dashboard, a whole adjustment is much more complex than this simple manipulation, and in this post, we are going to find out how to adjust the headlights of your Ford Ka? To get this done, first we will find out why you need to adjust your high beams, and secondly how to adjust the headlights of your Ford Ka.
Why adjust the headlights of your Ford Ka?
So let’s start our content with the interest of adjusting the headlights of your Ford Ka. For the majority of us, our headlights are adjusted well enough, and they appear to light up enough after dark. However this is not always the circumstance and checking this setting, either because the headlights on your Ford Ka are not bright enough, or because you have the impression that they are too weak is a great idea .
Adjusting the high beams of your Ford Ka for safety
First of all, the headlight adjustment of a Ford Ka must be achieved for a simple safety motive. If it’s for you, or for the other users you come across during your night trips. Indeed, if you don’t see enough, the risk is to miss out an obstacle driving, or to predict a curve badly. However, if your headlights are too strong, regardless if you are supposed to switch to low beam lights when you cross a car, the time required to make this switch will generally expose the driver in front of you to the headlight beam of your Ford Ka . It is therefore essential for others as well as for you to have an ideal adjustment of your headlights.
Adjusting the headlights of a Ford Ka for legal reasons
Furthermore to safety, there is a law that regulates the power, the adjustment of motor vehicle headlights (articles R313-2 of the Highway Code), here is what it specifies: have between 2 and 4 headlights that illuminate at least 100 meters. Another legislation regulates 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 equivalent to that of the dipped headlights and that the maximum luminosity must be 225, 000 cd.
How to adjust the headlights of a Ford Ka?
We will now proceed to the part that interests you the most in this post, how to adjust the headlights of his Ford Ka? This adjustment might seem a bit complicated, but by simply following the instructions you should be able to do it without too much trouble.
Preparations to adjust the headlights of a Ford Ka
First of all, you’ll need to prepare your vehicle to adjust your high beams in good conditions, here are the preparations to put in place:
- Place your vehicle 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.
- Remove all unnecessary weight from the car, only one person should be in the driver’s seat.
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The headlight adjustment of his Ford Ka
Once your vehicle is in position, 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 horizontal. Then back your vehicle up to a distance of between 7 and 10 metres. For the rest of the process here are the steps to follow:
- Open your bonnet, identify the screws for horizontal and vertical control of the headlights of your Ford Ka (they are in general marked, and those on top must modify the verticality and the one on the side adjusts the horizontality of the adjustment).
- Use a cloth or another thing 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 below.
- Once finished, check that the headlights setting of your Ford Ka is coherent, do not think twice to check it after you have driven it, oftentimes it may move.
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If you want to adjust the fog lights on your Ford Ka, please go through our content on this subject.
To find more tips on the Ford Ka, take a look at the Ford Ka category.
