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 scenarios, there’s only one part of your vehicle to take responsibility – your headlights, as well often known as high beams. Although this adjustment might seem easy thanks to the thumbwheel on your dashboard, a whole adjustment is much more complex than this elementary manipulation, and in this post, we are going to find out how to adjust the headlights of your Kia Sportage? To achieve this, first we will find out why you need to adjust your high beams, and secondly how to adjust the headlights of your Kia Sportage.
Why adjust the headlights of your Kia Sportage?
So let’s start our content with the interest of adjusting the headlights of your Kia Sportage. For most people, our headlights are adjusted well enough, and they appear to light up enough after dark. Sadly this is not constantly the case and checking this setting, either because the headlights on your Kia Sportage 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 Kia Sportage for safety
First of all, the headlight adjustment of a Kia Sportage must be made for a basic security reason. Regardless it’s for you, or for the other users you come across during your night trips. Obviously, if you don’t see enough, the risk is to miss out an obstacle while traveling, or to predict a curve badly. However, if your headlights are too strong, regardless if you are meant to switch to low beam lights when you cross a car, the time required to make this change will most of the time expose the driver in front of you to the headlight beam of your Kia Sportage . It is therefore essential for others as well as for you to have an optimal adjustment of your headlights.
Adjusting the headlights of a Kia Sportage for legal reasons
In addition to security, 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 suggests: have between 2 and 4 headlights that illuminate at minimum 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 matching to that of the dipped headlights and that the maximum luminosity must be 225, 000 cd.
How to adjust the headlights of a Kia Sportage?
We will now move on to the section that interests you the most in this post, how to adjust the headlights of his Kia Sportage? This setting might seem a bit complicated, but by following the recommendations you should have the ability to perform it without too much concern.
Preparations to adjust the headlights of a Kia Sportage
First of all, you’ll need to prepare your vehicle to adjust your high beams in good conditions, here are the preparations to executed:
- 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 cautiously.
- Check that the height adjustment knob for the lights is set to 0
- Try doing that with half a full tank.
- Take out all unneeded weight from the vehicle, just one person should be in the driver’s seat.
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The headlight adjustment of his Kia Sportage
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 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 stick to:
- Open your hood, identify the screws for horizontal and vertical control of the headlights of your Kia Sportage (they are in general designated, and those on top must adjust the verticality and the one on the side manages the horizontality of the adjustment).
- Use a cloth or another thing to hide the projector on which you are not making the adjustment.
- Using the screws to make the horizontal adjustment, you should have the most intense part of the beam which should be a little to the right of the vertical line marked on the wall
- With regard to vertical adjustment, 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 Kia Sportage is coherent, do not hesitate to check it after you have driven it, often it may move.
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If you want to adjust the fog lights on your Kia Sportage, please browse our content on this subject matter.
To get more tips on the Kia Sportage, take a look at the Kia Sportage category.
