I was thinking about getting some ecodes for my Volvo 240 from FCP Groton. But I was wondering...do they put out so much light would I be angering cars in front of me and taking a risk of getting pulled over by police?

 

It isn't the amount of light produced that blinds oncoming traffic, it is errant light beams rising too high and striking the drivers eyes. In Europe, overhead highway signs are lit...in the US, DOT requires that US spec headlights have a certain amount of light directed upwards to light the signs. Point of fact, all of these interstate type signs are lit now anyway. If you can find a good picture of the e-code lens, you would see an angled line in the lens. If sitting behind the wheel, lhd sets have the beam low on the left and higher on the right. This keeps light out of the oncoming drivers eyes but lights the right hand side of the shoulder marvelously. The light cut off w/ e-codes is astonishing; when I would pull up to the garage door w/ my 240 at night, you could almost draw a line where below there's light...above there is nearly none. Proper headlight adjustment is crucial of course...I spent 20 minutes tweaking mine when I got the first set. I couldn't convince myself that I wasn't blinding people. Had my wife follow me to a parking light where I could approach the 245 as if we were on a 2 lane road...hopped out, tweaked 'em a bit more. You can even more light output by re-wiring w/ relays so that each headlamp draws its power directly from the battery by installing relays. Daniel Stern has an excellent site to learn about headlamp ins and outs.......http://www.danielsternlighting.com/t...ys/relays.html

 

I have E codes on my 740 wagon, it came from the factory with them being a RHD car.
The thing with E code lights is, they cut the beam off at a certain height on the right side of the car and allow the beam to taper higher on the left side of the car.
This is so you can see further up your lane, and the edges of the road, on your side on a normal RHD car, but not blind oncoming traffic.
Of course, on an LHD car, this beam pattern puts the tapered part right into oncoming traffic.....
The tapering is quite noticeable parked against a wall.
You will often notice in photos, British cars being driven in Europe with part of the headlight lens taped off, to prevent this exact thing happening.

Regards, Andrew.

 

Fortunately, for most everywhere but the UK and Australia, the lenses are the direct opposite, cut off on the left and flaring up to the right for LHD cars. I presume one might see European autos driving in England with the headlamps taped as well. It would be prudent to mention to a US resident contemplating the purchase of new headlamps from one of our sponsors, FCP, that he would not receive UK RHD lenses but rather appropriate LHD lenses for use in the vast majority of countries no longer concerned with sword play with oncoming horsemen.