2019 Rav4 - LED Headlights

[Southern Softy]

Morning all,

I have booked my Rav4 into my local dealer to have the headlight adjustment / throw of light checked, just wondered if anyone else has done this.

My issue is the throw of light from the drivers side is not as far down the road as the passenger side ( not whilst on high beam )  but on main beam. I just want a longer throw of light in front of me rather than having to go onto high beam to be confident. I recall trying a Mini Countryman with LED lights and their throw was a lot better.

Any thoughts / comments welcome 

[Scottydog007]

9 hours ago, Southern Softy said:

Morning all,

I have booked my Rav4 into my local dealer to have the headlight adjustment / throw of light checked, just wondered if anyone else has done this.

My issue is the throw of light from the drivers side is not as far down the road as the passenger side ( not whilst on high beam )  but on main beam. I just want a longer throw of light in front of me rather than having to go onto high beam to be confident. I recall trying a Mini Countryman with LED lights and their throw was a lot better.

Any thoughts / comments welcome 

This is interesting as my drivers side is too low compared to the passenger side, Kind of irritating, plus the divers side feels like it needs to be higher illuminating more of the road. 

Tomorrow my car is going back to the dealer to have a tow bar fitted and I have asked them to look at the different levels of the lights as well. If this is the same problem you have then I’ll give you feedback from my dealer.

[Rav Rob]

Headlight pattern is supposed to be longer on the passenger side by design, perhaps your noticing it more on a LED car as its so sharply defined?

The purpose being on the drivers side its short so as not to dazzle oncoming, but on the passenger side its a longer throw to illuminate road signs and pedestrians.

That said, I do find the general throw of light on the drivers side to be set very short and would like it tweaked up a bit.

[Southern Softy]

Rob, I’ll let you know the outcome once I attend the dealers at the end of next week.

[Scottydog007]

Today I took my Rav4 back to he dealer today, Friday to have a tow bar fitted and they checked my lights as well. They used the mot light unit and they found they were a long way out. So now corrected.

The down side to the day was that I had booked the car in for 9:30 and when I phoned to collect at 4:30 the car had only just been started on for the tow bar. When I did collect and drove away a warning on the dash said “Park Assist Malfunction take to dealer”. And in the short time before the place closed they could not fix it so they want me to bring it back for Monday. So I assume the wiring circuit was affected when installing the tow bar wiring loom. I’m not happy.

[Rav Rob]

44 minutes ago, Scottydog007 said:

Today I took my Rav4 back to he dealer today, Friday to have a tow bar fitted and they checked my lights as well. They used the mot light unit and they found they were a long way out. So now corrected.

The down side to the day was that I had booked the car in for 9:30 and when I phoned to collect at 4:30 the car had only just been started on for the tow bar. When I did collect and drove away a warning on the dash said “Park Assist Malfunction take to dealer”. And in the short time before the place closed they could not fix it so they want me to bring it back for Monday. So I assume the wiring circuit was affected when installing the tow bar wiring loom. I’m not happy.

Presume their is a connection to tell the system to disable the sensors when something is connected to the towbar plug. Interesting about the lights, may have a fiddle with mine if it ever stops raining.. so maybe April!

[Southern Softy]

Peter, sorry to hear about your woes, frustrating but should be an easy fix. Are the lights much better ?

[Scottydog007]

23 hours ago, Southern Softy said:

Peter, sorry to hear about your woes, frustrating but should be an easy fix. Are the lights much better ?

Sorry for late reply, but only very recently been out in the dark to test the lights. So my Rav4 is 5 weeks old and drivers light was way lower than passenger light when on main beam. At first the garage told me they are auto height correcting so should be good. I said that is fine if the original height was set correctly in the factory build but one light is shining a lot lower.

They tested them on the mot system and sure enough they were wrong. I have no idea if they were both wrong, but now drivers is matching passenger and all seems powerful, there is a massive improvement on illumination. 

Just hope they are not too high now, but I’ll probably find out if other cars flash me.

This is the second thing I found wrongly set from factory and not caught by dealers final check. The other was seat A&B setting not working at all. But some nice person on this site explained manually moving seat all the way forward and backwards, up and down, then the “Set A or Set B” works. Basically in the factory they do this to activate the limits of the seat, but it seems some times they miss this.

[PeteB]

2 hours ago, Scottydog007 said:

...This is the second thing I found wrongly set from factory and not caught by dealers final check. ... manually moving seat all the way forward and backwards, up and down, then the “Set A or Set B” works. Basically in the factory they do this to activate the limits of the seat, but it seems some times they miss this.

It might be that they disconnect the 12V Battery during shipping, as Toyota Hybrids tend to have relatively low capacity 12V batteries because they don't have to start the car.  This will cause some settings to be lost, maybe this is one of them.  The RAV has slightly higher capacity Battery than some other recent Hybrids because of the electric seat and tailgate, but it's still lower capacity than a 1.8 petrol car I had in the 1990s with no such features.

It's probably meant to be checked at the PDI but clearly not all dealers do it and one person on this group said his dealer didn't know how to fix it until he relayed the details from these pages!

The original Mk 1 Prius had a high rate of 12V Battery failures because they all went flat during the voyage and again on the dealers' forecourts prior to being sold.  On my first Prius the 12V battery lasted just over 18 months.

Some owners with electrical knowledge (and suitable meters) determined a Gen 1 Prius could be parked up for a maximum of 4 weeks if every part of the 12V system was in perfect condition and the battery was fully charged when last parked.

[Southern Softy]

Peter, thanks for the feedback. 
 

I had a 3 hr drive back from Devon last night in the rain and really do feel the projector lights need to be better so I am hoping adjustment is needed and it will improve matters

[Southern Softy]

A quick update, I had my lights adjusted this morning and as I thought, the drivers side did need adjusting which was done on the MOT light testing machine.

i’ll let you know how they now compare once I have driven at night a couple of times.

[Southern Softy]

Just had a drive around some dark country lanes and I can confirm my lights are a lot better following the adjustment at the garage this morning, I would suggest everyone who has concerns gets theirs checked, perhaps they are all set incorrectly in Japan which may be a concern 

[MrBee]

Many thanks for the update. I will specifically ask the dealer to check this as part of the PDI. 

[Southern Softy]

Mine is a leased car and the supplying dealer did not make much on an effort I am afraid even the SatNav  and my T Toyota was not set up. I had another car from Japan many years ago where the headlights were not set up correctly so I did have my suspicions.

It seems odd that at least 2 cars have had the issue with the drivers side being out.

[Scottydog007]

If and when you take the car back to the dealer to get the lights checked out, do not let them faff you around by saying they adjust automatically. They did this to me and I told them not to patronise me as I am a senior design freelancer and have designed for many car companies.

l said yes it could be that they are automatically adjusted, but they need to be set correctly first, if they are set wrong to each other, then they will adjust wrongly with each other. Easily checked by putting on the MOT light setting machine which most dealers should have.

The service technician found and was surprised as he said they were set very wrong. I think the drivers side was corrected only and now matches the passenger side. A massive improvement.

[Rav Rob]

Having done some dark country roads, particularly the very low drivers side was downright dangerous. the cutoff on LEDs is so sharp!

Anyway I will get them properly set but for now have tweaked them myself, just went to a very dark carpark and a bit of a tweak with an 8mm ring spanner to lengthen the range a bit, nothing drastic. Much better.

[Ezcritique]

I noted that driver side led range was significantly lower than the passenger but from the angles of light this looked to be by design, perhaps so as not to dazzle oncoming motorists. Having read this post I thought maybe best to get it checked out. Happy to report my dealer obliged with a wait until current mot complete... And when put on their "beam checker" sure enough it was out. 

They advised not by much approx 3 degrees but the tweak they completed to correct has given a significant improvement. 

Can only recommend anyone else who thinks they nay have this issue gets it checked out... Many thanks to Southern Softy.. 😀

[Southern Softy]

Glad you got a result and are happy with the result. Mine are so much better that even on dark country lanes I do not need to go onto high beam now. I do now wonder if they come into the U.K. not set correctly, all appear to be the drivers side as well which appears to be a little bit odd. 

[Rob88]

I’m just making a comment to remind myself of this, as I’m having my light checked in a couple of weeks.

I was convinced my Driverside headlight seemed very low compared to my last few cars and I’m pleased I’m not the only one and that it is fixable. 
 

I’ll try to get a before and after picture because everyone loves a picture haha

 

edit: before photo added - may try for a better one for a direct comparison 

Edited October 23, 2019 by Rob88

[Southern Softy]

That looks like the A696 to me or is my eye sight getting bad !

[Rob88]

Haha, A1

[Marmitek]

I to have had headlight issues and found that the headlights appeared very low making night time driving difficult bordering on dangerous. The vehicle has only covered 1300 miles.

Yesterday I took my car to an Mot test station where they put it on the beam setter. The mot examiner said it was absolutely disgusting how they were set up and were massively out of adjustment. He adjusted them for me and in the evening I took the vehicle out onto some unlit roads and the difference is like night and day.

I can’t understand why this isn’t picked up on PDI or even why it’s coming out of the factory so badly adjusted.

[Southern Softy]

Good result Phil, yaki dah !

Watch  out for all them sheep, you’ll be able to se them now !

[Marmitek]

Thanks Martin
No sheep round here they’ve all been mown down by Toyota drivers. My freezer is full to.

Not sure how we will manage without the Welsh leisure centre.