improving light output for 1999 T&C?

This van is nortorious for its weak head light. Is there any way to improve
it?

Also I am wondering if the light enclosure or somewhere is aging, therefore
causing more and more complaint from my wife--she is the one driving it.
I looked at the head light componet and saw on half hemisphere shape shiny
cover/refllector in front of the light. It is no longer shining as compared
to its new condition. Should I replace it and expecing better light
output?

Any service manual detailing the procedures for disassemling?
Thanks

Harry

 

There is some plastic polish out there for cleaning these up, check with an
auto parts store. To increase light output you can install Phillips 9005HV
(High Visibility) in the high-beams.

The plastic is coated at the factory to prevent it from degrading, once the
coating is gone they start to go. After polishing you can wax it.

Ted

 

Ted,

The local parts store does not carry Philips, any idea where I can get it or
any other replacement?
Did you say putting the Phillips 9005 in the "high-beams"? Will that
"improve" the visibility while I am using low beam most of the time?

Thanks

Harry

 

Most of the replacement bulbs on the market that promise improved
performance are lying. In a nutshell, if it has any kind of coloration to
the bulb glass (blue or purple) and advertises as "Blue", "White",
"Silver", "5000K", "Hyper", "Hiper", or any variant of these, it's
crapola. There's also no bulb swap that will magically make your bad
headlamps into good ones. The Sylvania Xtravision, Philips High
Visibility, Wagner BriteLite or Candlepower Bright Light bulbs would give
a minor incremental improvement, but there's no such upgrade for the
9005XS (straight-base) bulbs used in your low beams.

The only way to get *good* headlamp performance in the '96-'00 Chrysler
minivans is this setup from Germany:

http://www.vmaxx.de/haupts/voyext_gs.html (click the picture at the top
showing the minivan with the double headlamps).

DS

 

This version of the van ('99-'00 Town and Country) had the "premium" or
"upgraded" headlamps -- they are slightly less dangerously bad than the
Dodge/Plymouth and pre-'99 Chrysler version of this van. Scary, eh?

See my other post in this thread: There is no magic bulb that makes bad
headlamps into good ones.

If the headlamp itself has obviously and badly deteriorated (very cloudy
front lens, peeling or dull reflector, water inside the unit) then yes,
there will be a correspondingly serious drop in output.

No, that's just the bulb shield. It discolors with the heat of the bulb,
but this does not affect the lamp's output.

The headlamp assemblies cannot be disassembled unless you never want to
put them back together again.

DS

 

DS,

Where can I buy it in US?
Any info available in English?

 

You can't -- but Vmaxx accepts international orders. Send me an e-mail
(instructions below) and I'll see if I can dig up the guy's name to
contact over there.

Not on their website, no. What do you need translated?

--Daniel

TO WRITE TO ME: Remove the headlamp from my return address.

 

Turning on high beams will improve visibility. (I know, cheap joke)

You might also want to check the aiming of the headlights. In Oregon where
I live the DMV has a headlight aiming pamphlet that explains how to adjust
them, the car must be so many feet back, the bright spot must be so many
feet
high and so many feet to the right, etc.

Ted

 

Given what is written in the ORS regarding light aiming, I'd love to see
that brochure. Probably worth a few belly laughs. Care to scan it in?

DS

 

Sure, the brochure is titled "Lighting The Way" and is a joint publication
between
Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) and the Department of Motor
Vehicles (DMV)
I'll scan it in and post a URL later tonight.

However, it's probably amusement value only. The publication dates from the
80's and
when I tried finding it online on the DMV website I could not. So I went
and dug up the
current regulations and I think that there's been a change in the last
couple years in ORS
on this topic, to bring ORS inline with current standards, and which I'm
sure has superseded
this brochure. Here's what I have found that may be of interest to you:

ORS Chapter 816 - Vehicle Equipment Lights.

http://www.leg.state.or.us/ors/816.html

Note the operative paragraph, 816.010:

"...The Department of Transportation shall... Approve or disapprove and
issue and enforce rules establishing standards and specifications for the
approval of any vehicle lighting equipment of a type on which department
approval is required under ORS 816.040 to 816.290 including their
installation, adjustment and aiming and their adjustment when in use on
motor vehicles..."

In short, the Oregon Legislature as of year 2001 is apparently getting
itself out of the business of setting
lighting standards, and now is referring the entire matter over to ODOT.
This is enforced by 816.040 which
states:

"...Any standard provided for a piece of lighting equipment under ORS
816.040 to 816.290 is subject to being superseded by a rule adopted by the
Department of Transportation...."

Now, one interesting bit in there is ORS 816.050 which states (among other
things):

"...Headlights shall show a white light..."

Which means all blue-coated bulbs are illegal for use in headlights in
Oregon.

Now, going to ODOT's website here:

http://www.odot.state.or.us/

There's a link off the front titled "Transportation Safety", click on that
and you get this link:

http://www.odot.state.or.us/transafety/

Select the menu item "Safety Programs" then the submenu "Vehicle Equipment
Standards" and
you get this URL:

http://www.odot.state.or.us/transafety/Veh_Equipment.htm

One of the first links off of there is titled: "2003 So you want to
customize your vehicle facts" which
goes to the following link:

http://www.odot.state.or.us/transafety/Vehicle_Safety_Standards/Oregon_Equipment_Handout.pdf

and buried in THAT is the statement:

"Oregon adopted FMVSS 108"

Plus a whole list of illegal things, such as use of blue headlights, neon
outlines on license plates,
winshield washer lights, valve stem lights, etc. etc. I don't know if ODOT
is creatively interpreting
FMVSS 108 but their list of illegal lighting they are justifying by saying
that FMVSS 108 prohibits it.
And their list appears to be just about everything that the typical "ricer"
likes to hang on his vehicle.

THIS brochure is dated August 2003, I'm going to have some fun printing this
out and
distributing it to a lot of the local auto parts places I think.

Also, going back to the Transportation Safety homepage of ODOT, there's a
second link
to FMVSS 108, pointing here:

http://fmvss108.tripod.com/

It is actually facinating to see this as the above URL is not the official
site of the FMVSS #108
and it's quite surprising to see ODOT essentially referring rulemaking
authority to an interpretation of
a standard by a private individual!

So it's pretty clear that the legal law of the land in Oregon now regarding
vehicle lighting
is under ODOT's authority, and ODOT intends it to be FMVSS 108. I assume
that FMVSS 108 is
a controlled publication of some kind and copyright restrictions prevent it
being published
in the ODOT online archives.

Whether this is a good thing, I have no idea.

Ted

 

Can't wait...

This, I believe, is the location of the bit of Oregon Legislative whimsy
that says "Low beam headlamps shall be deemed to comply with the
requirement not to produce glare, regardless of the loading of the
vehicle".

....which, in turn, adopted US Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard 108.

No, just the ones that don't emit legally "white" light. The "white" color
standard is huge (excessively so) and there's lots of room for blue bulbs.
They don't help anyone see better, and they cause more glare, but the ones
from the major makers are legal.

I know that website well. I'm not convinced the site owner is as "private"
as he intends visitors to assume. There is no official website of FMVSS
108, but this is damn close and adheres *rigidly* to the text and official
(NHTSA) interpretations of 108.

Not at all! The full text of FMVSS 108 is widely available. Its location
in the Code of Federal Regulations is 49CFR571.108. The full text is also
available on the website you mention above.

Mostly good, yes. It gives Oregon teeth to enforce against unsafe ricer
lighting, but it did delete Oregon's previous explicit permission for
European ECE headlamps. Washington kept theirs.

DS

 

Here you are:

http://www.ipinc.net/~tedm/lghtway1.gif
http://www.ipinc.net/~tedm/lghtway2.gif
http://www.ipinc.net/~tedm/lghtway3.gif
http://www.ipinc.net/~tedm/lghtway4.gif

If your using Internet Explorer, go to Tools, Internet Options, Advanced,
Multimedia, then uncheck
Enable Automatic Image Resizing

Heh. It probably was. But that statement is no longer in there. That was
probably in
816.050. What's there now is:

"...Headlights shall be aimed in accordance with rules adopted by the
department. If headlights provide only a single distribution of light and
are not supplemented by auxiliary lights, the single beam headlights shall
be so aimed that when the vehicle is not loaded, none of the high intensity
portion of the light shall, at a distance of 25 feet ahead of the vehicle,
project higher than five inches below the level of the center of the lamp
from which it comes, or higher than 42 inches above the level on which the
vehicle stands at a distance of 75 feet ahead of the vehicle..."

However, that's superceded as stated in ORS 816.040, to whit:

"...Any standard provided for a piece of lighting equipment under ORS
816.040 to 816.290 is subject to being superseded by a rule adopted by the
Department of Transportation..."

Not exactly. The actual law - 816.050 - states:

"...The Department of Transportation shall adopt and enforce rules
establishing minimum standards and specifications for headlights. The rules
shall conform, insofar as practicable, to safety standards and
specifications for vehicle lighting issued by the federal government and, to
the extent there are no such federal standards, to standards and
recommendations promulgated by the Society of Automotive Engineers..."

That "insofar as practicable" lets them off the hook. All ODOT has to say
is that either FMVSS or
SAE has an "unpracticable" rule, and they can make whatever rule they want
to replace it.

Ah, but there are three interesting bits to add to this. The first is that
ORS 816
does not refer to a standard for what they define as white light. Meaning
that since
they are allowing ODOT to supersede 816, legally all ODOT has to do is say
that
any bulb that has a color coating of any kind is not "white" It doesen't
have to
be christmas-tree color blue. In short, ODOT can define what "white" is,
outside
FMVSS 108

I cannot find anything on ODOT's published materials that claims that they
are
restricted to FMVSS 108. They say they adopted it, but what does that mean?
The law seems to allow ODOT to pick and choose from either SAE or FMVSS 108
unless they don't like either, then they can do what they want.

The second interesting bit is in ODOT's "customize vehicle" FAQ. In the
question
titled "are colored (blue, green etc.) headlight BULBS permitted?" they say
the
following:

all headlamps must be "white in color as defined by Society of Automotive
Engineers"
amd FMVS 108. FMVSS 108 disallows any color coating on headlights and/or
headlight bulbs"

Now, if as you say FMVSS 108 permits blue coated bulbs, then ODOT's
statement
in the FAQ regarding FMVS 108 is wrong. What is even more telling is that
among
the rationale cited in the FAQ for this rule is the statement: "colored
bulbs give a distorted
headlamp pattern which may prevent the driver from seeing a person at road
edge"

It sounds like ODOT is being deliberately misleading in the FAQ. They must
know that
the blue-coated bulbs are legally white, but they are taking pains to write
the FAQ to
specifically refer to bulbs, not simply headlamp assemblies, and they are
claiming FMVSS
disallows any color coating. All that it would take is a simple
administrative rule from ODOT
defining all the blue-coated bulbs, "ie: cool-blue, silverstar, etc." as not
being legally "white"
regardless of FMVSS 108 - which ORS permits them to do - and instantly those
bulbs
become illegal in Oregon, despite whatever FMVSS or SAE's "white standard"
is.

And the last bit that is much more interesting is this. ODOT runs a
research think tank,
which has a website here:

http://www.odot.state.or.us/tddresearch/

This unit has apparently been considering this blue-headlight problem. See
the following:

http://www.odot.state.or.us/tddresearch/traffic_prob_stat/headlight_glare .pdf

Knowing how vehicle laws seem to be enforced in Oregon my guess is what is
going on is there's a bureaucrat buried in ODOT that wants to get rid of the
blue
lights, but isn't going to do anything to provoke a showdown with the likes
of
Sylvania, Phillips, espically when NHTSA has investigations going with those
makers over this issue. So they aren't going to outright ban them. Instead
they
are going to build a set of administrative rules that are interpretable
enough so
that any police officer can write tickets.

Right now I can say with conviction that ORS is vague enough so that a cop
could, if he wanted to, start writing tickets on these. The way that the
Oregon
courts have always handled these "vehicle non-compliance" tickets is that
you show up to the judge and produce some kind of documentation saying the
problem is fixed, then they dismiss the ticket. In short, show up with a
copy of
an auto parts store receipt for $20 for 2 new headlight bulbs and they
dismiss
the $200 ticket. In fact the cops will even tell you this when they write
these
kinds of tickets. So, if they just started writing tickets now on these,
nobody would
mount a legal challenge since they can get the ticket dismissed for $20.
Instead,
it's one of those nuisance tickets that for most people, it's easier to just
do what
they want you to do instead of getting hassled.

True, but with these administrative rulemaking bodies like ODOT, they would
have to make an explicit rule disallowing European ECE headlamps before
it would become illegal. And even if they had kept the explicit permission
in
ORS, since ORS now defers to ODOT, the explicit permission would have been
pointless unless it had been rewritten to exclude it from ODOT's control.

Ted

 

Gee, not bad...I didn't find much in the way of nits to pick. Of course,
as you mention, this brochure is very old, but their aiming instructions
are fairly good.

I found it here:

http://www.leg.state.or.us/ors/811.html

811.515 (6) (a):

Whenever the driver of a vehicle approaches an oncoming vehicle within 500
feet, the driver must use a distribution of light or composite beam so
aimed that the glaring rays are not projected into the eyes of the
oncoming driver. >>>The use of the low beams of the vehicle headlight
system is in compliance with this paragraph at all times regardless of
road contour and loading of the vehicle.<<< [emphasis added]

....except that Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards preempt any State
standards that differ in any respect from the Federal standard. So, for
example, Oregon could pass a law requiring all vehicles to have amber (not
red) rear turn signals, but the Federal preemption would make the law moot
-- automakers would still be allowed to sell cars with red rear turn
signals in Oregon.

....but then along comes Sylvania (Wagner, GE, Philips, PIAA...) and says
"This bulb complies with all applicable requirements contained in FMVSS
108", and then an interesting legal battle ensues. I honestly can't say
how that would play out. Any bulb that's legal under the Federal standard
is, perforce, legal in every state. Nevertheless, it would not be the
first time Oregon has raised a middle finger to some aspect of the Federal
lighting laws. In the 1970s, they did so with respect to FMVSS prohibition
of European ECE headlamps. NHTSA (then under Joan Claybrook) went
ballistic:

http://www.nhtsa.dot.gov/cars/rules/interps/gm/77/77-3.32.html

and reacted similarly to Washington's identical move:

http://www.nhtsa.dot.gov/cars/rules/interps/aiam/aiam2629.html

Oregon (and Washington) told the Feds to go pound sand (or, to be more
exact, "We will not enforce against European headlamps. If you want to
send your own cops up here to enforce, be our guests.")

That's not quite true yet, though it looks as though we're moving in that
direction slowly (and finally!).

See above -- any item of motor vehicle equipment Federally legal is legal.

Looks more to me like they're trying to figure out a way for cops to tell
if headlamps are misaimed (too high), which is briefly described as a
growing problem especially given the "Blue-white very bright headlamps
that blind oncoming drivers" -- a common lay description of HID headlamps.

I do like that Oregon says:

"Fog lights may be either white or amber (yellow). They may not be blue,
bluish or any other color than white or amber."

DS

 

Being an authority on lighting regulations, do you happen to know the prevailing legal
interpretation of the phrase "or importing into the United States through the State of
[x]...", i.e. just what is considered illegal importation? Does it have to be for
resale or commercial purposes?

--Aardwolf.

 

nonconforming items of motor vehicle equipment subject to Federal Motor
Vehicle Safety Standards or other US regulations may be legally imported
only if:

-They are to be used for research and development, testing and/or display
-They are for export only (must be marked as such on items and packaging)
-They are not capable of being installed on any vehicle certified as
conforming to Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards.

DS

 

Now, that is something I don't understand why this is. Take emissions
regulations,
it seems clear that *more restrictive* state regulations on vehicle
emissions are
allowed, for example California emissions cars. Why are lighting
regulations the
opposite?

Is there a quick and dirty way to tell this?

Ted

 

New York State banned Chrysler's new technology "driving lights" about 25
years ago because they were "blue", and NYS had reserved blue for emergency
vehicles. Chrysler pulled this option since each state had a different view
on this issue. Later the feds preempted the states in this area of vehicle
lighting. This is good, but too bad the feds then dropped the ball on
adequately regulating lighting.

Richard.

 

The Clean Air Act specifically lets CA adopt more stringent standards (and
lets other states adopt CA's standards too). I'd guess the law(s) governing
lights make no such provision.

 

Because it's the only way to make sure that automakers can produce a
vehicle legal for sale and use in every state.

California's special emission requirements are just that: Special. The
State of California argued -- successfully, though not necessarily
correctly -- that they had such unique environmental conditions that the
Federal standards could not possibly address them. They were therefore
specifically allowed by the EPA to set their own, different vehicular
emission standards.

With US headlamps? No, not really.

DS

 

Emissions regulation was 'trendy' while lighting standards have never
been. The closest they ever got was the 1940 changeover to sealed
beams - or the 1975 beginnings of *rectangular* lights. Even then,
hardly anyone noticed or gave a shit (aside from those few lighting
anal retentives like my pal, Daniel).

Dragging the big pollution battles in front of the state and federal
courts involved lots of money and lots of strong opinions on both
sides. However, when it comes down to FMVSS for lighting, damn few
people, including even LEOs, care much about it. There's lots bigger
fish to fry than whether Oregon's legislatively-influenced standards
were better or worse than what the federal government will 'allow'.

I suspect the federal regulators would be shut down by Congress in
short order if they threatened to withhold federal highway funds for
such a petty reason. Even better would be the sudden appearance of a
horde of Federal Automotive Reflectance Trainees ('F.A.R.T.s', for
short) throughout the country stopping cars (like my E28 BMW's Euro
lights) for displaying 'illegal' lights.