If you experience you can’t see as well at night, or you experience you’re lighting too low, or too high, in all these circumstances, there’s only one part of your car at fault – your headlights, as well named high beams. Nevertheless 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 post, we are going to discover how to adjust the headlights of your Mazda 3? To achieve this, first we will discover why you need to adjust your high beams, and secondly how to adjust the headlights of your Mazda 3.

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Why adjust the headlights of your Mazda 3?

So let’s begin our article with the benefit of adjusting the headlights of your Mazda 3. For most people, our headlights are adjusted sufficiently, and they seem to light up enough at night. Regrettably this is not constantly the circumstance and examining this setting, either because the headlights on your Mazda 3 are not bright enough, or because you have the impression that they are too weak is a good idea .

Adjusting the high beams of your Mazda 3 for safety

First of all, the headlight adjustment of a Mazda 3 must be conducted for a simple security explanation. Regardless 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 ignore an obstacle on your way, or to predict a curve badly. However, if your headlights are too strong, even if you are meant to switch to low beam lights when you cross 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 Mazda 3 . It is consequently necessary for others as well as for you to have an optimal adjustment of your headlights.

Adjusting the headlights of a Mazda 3 for legal reasons

In addition 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 matching to that of the dipped headlights and that the maximum luminosity must be 225, 000 cd.

How to adjust the headlights of a Mazda 3?

We will now move on to the section that concerns you the most in this post, how to adjust the headlights of his Mazda 3? This adjustment may seem a bit complex, but by following the guidelines you should have the ability to do it without too much problem.

Preparations to adjust the headlights of a Mazda 3

First of all, 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.
  • Check your tire pressure attentively.
  • Check that the height adjustment knob for the lights is set to 0
  • .

  • Try doing that with half a full tank.
  • Take out all unnecessary weight from the car, only one person should be in the driver’s seat.

The headlight adjustment of his Mazda 3

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 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, locate the screws for horizontal and vertical adjustment of the headlights of your Mazda 3 (they are usually 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 different things 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 part of the beam which should be a little to the right of the vertical line marked on the wall
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  • 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, verify that the headlights setting of your Mazda 3 is logical, do not think twice to verify it after you have driven it, occasionally it may move.

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If you want to adjust the fog lights on your Mazda 3, please read our article on this subject.

If you want more tutorials on the Mazda 3, go to our Mazda 3 category.