LED headlight upgrades. MOT Rules??
 

A classic car site that I am a member of have just posted this?

Update to MOT rules from 1st Feb. Until now fitting HID headlight upgrades have been illegal, LEDs have been a grey area. From 1st Feb LEDs cannot be fitted into headlight units that were designed for std halogen! The mot testers now MUST fail if you have done this and it's part of the MOT check!

Direct from my online testing manual.

4.1.4 Headlamps - Compliance with requirements - Changed sentence from 'Existing halogen headlamp units should not be converted to be used with HID bulbs. If such a conversion has been done, you must fail the headlamp.' to 'Existing halogen headlamp units should not be converted to be used with high intensity discharge (HID) or light emitting diode (LED) bulbs. If such a conversion has been done, you must fail the headlamp.'

So Yes it would be a fail, our VOSA guy told me a few days ago that they are going to get tough on conversions.


Hope that helps
Mick

There is going to be a heck of a lot of failures if the MOTs testers are diligent enough hopefully

Absolutely hate some of these headlights on cars and vans that pretty much burn your retina out where it's quite evidently had HID or LED upgrades just put on with obviously no care to given for alignment.

I hate this trend for modern LED headlights and DRLs which just present you with a wall of light so you have no perception of speed of approach, or even if it's a car or truck.

Thanks Mick,
So, does that include led sidelights and halo rings?

I’d say so if it’s been done as part of the halogen headlamp unit conversion, Mark (sworks) will probably clarify this more clearly, but this part is also interesting too as the wiring will be checked too.
I know our tester has said he’s going to be on this as it’s a important safety aspect, he expects to fail a fair few.
4.11. Lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment - Electrical wiring - Changed sentence from 'You must inspect all visible electrical wiring, other than on Class 3 vehicles.' to 'You must carry out a visual only inspection of all visible electrical wiring. The check does not apply to Class 3 vehicles.'
4.11. Lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment - Electrical wiring - Added sentence 'You should be mindful of high voltage components and cabling as these may be capable of delivering a fatal electric shock.'

Mick

It's about time too, the amount of plums driving around in cars with LED headlight bulbs in reflector style lamps scattering ultra bright blinding light is appalling.

I would go one step further and ban outright the sale of LED bulbs in H4 and H7 format.

I have halogen projector lamps in the ZT, and the Mini has factory fit Bi-Xenon lamps, and if I'm honest the ZT has a better beam pattern and a much warmer colour output which is certainly much kinder to other road users and perfectly satisfactory for night time driving.

Don't get me started on the latest crop of SUV style cars with arc lamps at eye level :mad:

Brian :D

Basically if the wires protrude from the opening in the headlight it’s a fail.

Looks like some rerouting required for some folk!

Mick,
I read that as
'look at the main lighting wiring' and 'be careful if HID is fitted, you are expected to just look, don't touch'
I too really hate these high beam jocks but it's a lot of newish cars too that are being driven with badly aimed OEM fitted kit (especially the faux 4WD stuff) - why I don't know but it's far too common and I believe it's got a lot to do with suspension meaning the high beam is not set sufficiently low to accommodate the normal range of road surface 'bounce'. Do the standards for what is a static alignment process need a bit of correction?

I think LED lights should be banned. They totally blind me on a regular basis. Even new cars with them fitted as standard are down right dangerous. That's before they start driving over speed bumps with them turned on.

If the above is correct, then there will tens or hundreds of owners having to rectify the lights on their cars, what about the side indicators if they have been changed from original white to black, orange etc, will they be ok as long as they do not have LED bulbs in them?