jennifer911

When HID headlights first became popular in Europe, euro regulations mandated an effective headlight washer as part of the brighter headlight system. Just as a dirty, grimy, streaky windshield scatters oncoming light into your eyes as a glaring mess. Dirty headlights also send glare out towards oncoming drivers, defeating the sharp focused cutoff that keeps the light on the road and away from the eyes of oncoming cars. This is extremely important for the Rennlist forum demographic (old people).

The powered brush and water squirt systems available for some 1960s Chryslers and the miniature windshield style wiper blades on 1970s Volvos etc. were effective because they worked on flat glass sealed-beam headlights. The shapely, steeply raked plastic headlights of present cars require a high-pressure blast of heated or oscillating cleaner to do the job. Unfortunately, the rest of your car, adjacent cars, and hapless pedestrians also get a drenching.

ZuffenZeus

Thank you for the helpful information Jennifer. My responses are below... Only the European Union could conjure up such a useless regulation and I guess that explains why all of my Volvos have this horrid technology. The result of these marvelous water shooting' inventions is scratching of the plastic headlight enclosures over time thus causing more dispersed light than what the washers were designed to prevent in the first place. Also, the blurring of light coming from our headlights is less annoying than the intensity of light produced by newer HID. And although I understand what you're trying to convey, but eye strain associated with windshield glare vs. light diffraction from dirty headlights are totally two different phenomena. A better method of quantifying eye strain of a person in a driving situation would be to measure visibility between the average halogen spot lamp versus the average Xenon HID lamp. That would be a great study! The most common complain that people (from the receiving end) have with HID lights are two things - brightness and color. Since HID lamps that use Xenon lamps produce a higher kelvin (4000K+), higher intensity (3000+lumens) light, and aftermarket HID systems are known to produce color temperatures beyond 9,000K and higher intensity. As a comparison, the normal Halogen lamps produce a color temperature of 3200K and a brightness of 900 - 1300+ lumens which produces a warmer (i.e. yellow) light. And that may explain another phenomena... people in our culture are more accustomed to "warm lights" and if you change them to a higher kelvin light, then most will say, "it's too bright!" even if it produces the same level of intensity. This may also explain why many people complain about HID types systems. And so, IMHO opinion, the problem is more about intensity (lumens, concentration, etc.) and color temperature (kelvin) than clarity. Who you calling old??? hahaha Again, that proves my point. Good intention sometimes have unforeseen consequences. I would rather save money on the car and promote better ways to clean headlight enclosures. Soft cloth and mild glass cleaner works for me. Cheers!

Cuda911

Frankly, I've never understood the point of headlight washers. Since when does anyone let their car get so dirty that the headlights won't work?

If the headlights are that filthy, so is the rest of the car. Get it washed.