Headlight Alignment Problems on '06 Sonata

I took my week old Sonata GLX on a trip between Wilmington NC, and
Fayetteville NC last Saturday. On the trip home, I constantly had people
flashing me to turn down my headlights. They were. this past week, I had my
wife drive it, and I approached here on a similar type of road. Blinding! My
trip to the dealer today resulted in them telling me that "they looked a
little high" according to the marks they have on the wall in their shop
(somehow, I think that there's amore precise method of checking
headlights)... Anyway, they adjusted them down - WAY DOWN!

Now I can't see for s**t! See pix here
http://n2qew.dyndns.org/Hyundai Headlight Pix/ that I took tonight. I
put a standard 3 foot traffic cone at 35 and 70 feet on a dark road (the
local cops were way down the road, and came flying up it to see what I was
up to - what an explanation I had - taking pictures of crappy headlights!
They probably thought it was too dumb sounding to be made up)

As you can see, the choices with the headlights on an '06 Sonata are as
follows: Blind oncoming traffic (yourself in the process 'cause of all the
oncoming traffic flashing their high beams), or set them so you can't see 70
feet in front of the vehicle.

 

I had a couple of people flash me also the night I brought my 06 Sonata
home. Since, I try to not dim the lights until the other driver can see
me dim them. I thought mine were too high also, but on low beam I can't
see all that far down the road. And with the sharp cut-off that modern
headlights have, it is hard to see well when driving down a hill and
then up another hill. At the bottom, you can't see more than a 100 feet
ahead, if that. I don't like these sharp cut-off headlights.

I also didn't realize that the Sonata had the push and pull dim lever
like my old Accord had. I much prefer the ratchet switch my Chryslers
and Chevys have. It is easy to remember to always pull the lever to
change the state of the lights from hi to low or back again. With the
bidirectional lever, you have to consciously remember which way to move
the lever based on the current state of the lights. Simply a dumb
design from a human factors perspective. I'm sure it makes for a simple
and cheaper to make switch however...

Matt

 

So Bob - why don't you simply adjust each headlight up one turn and try it,
until you reach a point where they throw far enough for you and still don't
blind on-coming traffic.

 

It may well come to that. Being the vehicle is brand new, I figured the best
course of action would be to let the "experts" fix the problem. Turns out
she - the tech. - had no clue. I brought it back this morning (saturday),
and the lights were way low of the line on the wall. Their alighnment
technique consists of parking the vehicle about 15 feet from a concrete
block wall. The top of the hot spot is adjusted to the line between the
third and fourth block from the floor. It remains to be seen if I'm blinding
oncoming traffic again.

 

This is actually the time honored way of aiming headlights. Before the days
of the device that attaches to the lens, this is how everyone did it. Some
things can't really be improved upon. This is still the best way to align
plow lights on trucks with snow plows. It's a simple as you can imagine and
it's really a sad statement that the tech bungled the job the first time.

 

I don't know where you're from Bob, but inspection stations in Maryland and
Virginia are required to have headlight alignment machines. Most dealers
in Maryland are also inspection stations. I don't know about Virginia,
but I'd think that'd be the case to save expense and trouble. They even
have to do inspections on brand new cars in Virginia.

 

I'm in Wilmington, NC NC's procedures are here:
http://www.ncdot.org/dmv/vehicle_se...ionsmanual/download/CR435NCDOTEnforcement.pdf
They don't appear to actually require the use of an aimer, but they need to
use one, or a wall chart in order to fail a vehicle.