Hey everybody:

I have searched and looked through alot of threads but still no luck on fixing my problem. So I turn to you guys, the experts, once again to show me the light hopefully.

Ever since I got my car back from the body shop, I knew there was something wrong with the headlights. When parked in front of a flat surface, you can clearly see that the reflection of the light is misaligned. The drivers side is lower than the passenger side. My accident required replacement of pretty everything you can see in front, hence they replaced entire headlight assy. I remember reading somewhere that when you put in new headlight housing and bulbs, you need to "realign" it so its straight again. Does anyone know how to do this, and steps of doing it? BTW, I have a 02 TL-S.

 

Was the accident covered under insurance? If so have the body shop align it until its perfect, its part of their job.

There are a few adjustment knobs, but they can be hard to turn and you can break them if you arent careful. One is right above/to the side of the large black bulge which contains the light itself, it has a large plastic gear on it. You can place an alan wrench into it and turn it, thats 1 adjustment. The other is further down the light and harder to access.

I say have the body shop do it

 

Yeah the accident was covered under insurance. I guess thats what I'm going have to do. The last thing I want to do is unintentionally break something and have to replace the whole housing again. I'm starting to really hate this body shop now. Ever since I picked my car up 3 weeks ago, I've been noticing some problems like this that they completely neglected. Do you think they'll give me a hard time for bringing the car back after 3 weeks to fix some problems that were supposed to be done in the first place. I didn't notice these things when I picked up the car, because I was happy just to get my car back after a long time and thought it was "fixed" BTW, I really appreciate your advice and suggestions.

 

No, they dont care. They arent doing anything for free your insurance is paying them for every minute they work on your car, so you are just more business to them.

You have 3 years for insurance claims. 3 weeks isnt gonna matter. You can have them work on it until its just like new, its what insurance is for. Have all those problems fixed, and make sure they give u a damn engine cover if yours was damaged.

 

The right headlight should be slightly higher- so you can see pedestrians or obstacles on the right edge of the road and spot the white road edge lines
The left headlight is down a touch so as not to blind oncoming traffic

Body shops do about half the work they billed for and expect cars to come back in with a list of fix-its. Not a big deal- it helps to detail each item enough so the worker knows whats happening.
I usually leave a note in the car- service writer to anyone loses a lot in translation

 

^---this guy is a brain

 

Correction encyclopedia, I dont know how many of my questions have been answered by him.
But for the calibration thing I'm just gonna get mine calibrated at the dealership I bought it from when I go in to get my oil changed. Because as of right now when I drive with them on at night I can only see 5 feet in front of me .

 

There should be a shop that advertises Licensed Brake and Headlight Inspections
They can do it for 1/2 the price of the dealer

 

 

Don't mean to bring this thread back from the dead. But since I've been really busy lately, I never got a chance to go back and have the shop fix the little things wrong w/ the car. But I'm planning to go there in the next day or two. I gave the shop owner a very angry threating phone call, and seems like that did the trick. Also, I got another clip for the bulb. I just blamed the shop for not putting it in, and they said they'll put it in for. BTW, my new replaced ballast went out, since water got into the little gap around the connector. They're replacing the ballast also. So I wanted to double check, do the high beam's have to be aimed also? Because I doubt they did that if they didn't aim the low beams.

 

(Sorry for double posting) I did a few searches, and noticed alot of people have had the same problem of failing ballasts, due to water seeping into the gap. What do you suggest? I was thinking, some 100% silicone around the connector sealing the gap. Any thoughts?