Whether 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 part of your vehicle at fault – your headlights, as well identified as high beams. Nevertheless this adjustment might seem easy thanks to the thumbwheel on your dashboard, a whole adjustment is much more technical than this simple manipulation, and in this article, we are going to see how to adjust the headlights of your Nissan Xterra? 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 Nissan Xterra.

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Why adjust the headlights of your Nissan Xterra?

So let’s start our content with the benefit of adjusting the headlights of your Nissan Xterra. For many of us, our headlights are adjusted sufficiently, and they seem to light up enough at night. Regrettably this is not constantly the circumstance and checking this setting, either because the headlights on your Nissan Xterra are not bright enough, or because you have the feeling that they are too weak is a good idea .

Adjusting the high beams of your Nissan Xterra for safety

To begin with, the headlight adjustment of a Nissan Xterra must be made for a basic safety explanation. Regardless 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. Alternatively, if your headlights are too powerful, even if you are expected to switch to low beam lights when you cross a vehicle, the time needed to make this switch will generally expose the driver in front of you to the headlight beam of your Nissan Xterra . It is consequently essential for others as well as for you to have an optimal adjustment of your headlights.

Adjusting the headlights of a Nissan Xterra for legal reasons

In addition to safety, there is a law that supervises the power, the adjustment of car 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 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 Nissan Xterra?

We will now go forward to the section that interests you the most in this article, how to adjust the headlights of his Nissan Xterra? This setting might seem a bit complex, but by following the guidance you should be able to accomplish it without too much concern.

Preparations to adjust the headlights of a Nissan Xterra

To begin with, 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.
  • Verify your tire pressure attentively.
  • Verify 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.

The headlight adjustment of his Nissan Xterra

Once your car 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. Verify with a level that both parts of the cross are straight. Then back your vehicle up to a distance of between 7 and 10 metres. For the rest of the procedure here are the steps to follow:

  • Open your hood, find the screws for horizontal and vertical modification of the headlights of your Nissan Xterra (they are usually designated, and those on top must adjust the verticality and the one on the side handles 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 part of the beam which should be a little to the right of the vertical line marked 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 Nissan Xterra is logical, do not hesitate 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 Nissan Xterra, please browse our content on this subject matter.

If you need more tutorials on the Nissan Xterra, go to our Nissan Xterra category.