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 cases, there’s only one component of your car responsible – your headlights, also known as high beams. Although this adjustment may appear easy thanks to the thumbwheel on your dashboard, a complete adjustment is much more complex than this simple manipulation, and in this article, we are going to see how to adjust the headlights of your smart fortwo? To achieve this, first we will see why you need to adjust your high beams, and secondly how to adjust the headlights of your smart fortwo.
Why adjust the headlights of your smart fortwo?
So let’s start our content with the benefit of adjusting the headlights of your smart fortwo. For many people, our headlights are adjusted sufficiently, and they seem to light up enough at nighttime. Regrettably this is not always the case and examining this setting, either because the headlights on your smart fortwo are not bright enough, or because you have the feeling that they are too weak is a wise decision .
Adjusting the high beams of your smart fortwo for safety
First of all, the headlight adjustment of a smart fortwo must be conducted for a simple safety reason. 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 driving, or to anticipate a curve badly. Alternatively, if your headlights are too strong, regardless if you are expected to switch to low beam lights when you pass a car, the time required to make this change will generally expose the driver in front of you to the headlight beam of your smart fortwo . It is consequently essential for others as well as for you to have an ideal adjustment of your headlights.
Adjusting the headlights of a smart fortwo for legal reasons
In addition 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 suggests: 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 identical to that of the dipped headlights and that the maximum luminosity must be 225, 000 cd.
How to adjust the headlights of a smart fortwo?
We will now go forward to the part that concerns you the most in this article, how to adjust the headlights of his smart fortwo? This setting may appear a bit complex, but by simply following the guidelines you should be able to complete it without too much concern.
Preparations to adjust the headlights of a smart fortwo
First of all, you’ll need to prepare your car to adjust your high beams in good conditions, here are the preparations to set up:
- 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 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 automobile, just one person should be in the driver’s seat.
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The headlight adjustment of his smart fortwo
Once your vehicle 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 procedure here are the steps to stick to:
- Open your hood, find the screws for horizontal and vertical modification of the headlights of your smart fortwo (they are generally marked, and those on top must adjust the verticality and the one on the side controls 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 down below.
- Once finished, verify that the headlights setting of your smart fortwo is logical, do not hesitate to verify it after you have driven it, often it may move.
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If you want to adjust the fog lights on your smart fortwo, please browse our content on this subject.
If you want more tutorials on the smart fortwo, go to our smart fortwo category.
