can someone do me a favour and check what E marking you have on your headlights please.

my indy failed sva on the headlights being a left hand drive item and thus kicking the wrong way, sva bloke said they should be E11 marked for uk spec but mine were E10.

sent my dad up to MK saturday morning to change mine for some proper RHD lights and they are still E10 marked

i'm hoping for retest early next week and am starting to get in a bit of a panic now as i don't want to go back and fail on the same thing again!!

thankyou please in advance!

the ones on my finished locost are E11. The other pair in the garage are marked E9, and ive just checked, they seem to dip the wrong way these also say 'espana' on them

Cant remember where i got them from, but im fairly sure it was one of the online light suppliers

[Edited on 30/8/05 by JoelP]

Confusingly the lights on the seven are marked E10 as below, on the Beetle E1 and on a spare light for the seven E11. All dip left!
Rescued attachment lights.jpg

It's important we're talking about the 'Lens' here not the bulb.

I've just found a website with lots of information regarding the laws and compliance of lenses for UK roads. Apparently there is only one E number legal for UK roads (as I read it) and that is E11

CLICK ME TO GO TO THE SITE

There are lots of lamps on the market right now which are not SVA compliant but would probably pass the MOT. We had a problem with some smaller diameter one's - they were designed for motorbike use abroad... so when on main beam and ahead they were ok when dipped they went to the right and had a square beam pattern IIRC

deffinately talking about the lense here. and they deffinately have E10 clearly marked on them twice!!

not sure who it was my dad spoke to up there (think he mentioned it being phil) but he assured him these are the lights they always use and went through a whole box of them and they were all marked E10.

re-test is booked for next tuesday at noon. what should i do folks?! is there anywhere that i can get some E11 marked headlight from? not bothered if i have to change the whole unit cases etc i just don't want it to fail again!!!

i've got this week and next off work so i've got time to get things sorted!

If you can turn the lens in the bezel 30 degrees this may be a way of getting around it... so I've heard. Not sure of the success of it though - good luck for the next SVA!

My headlight lenses say E10 and have the arrow on them pointing ---> when you look at them, i.e. to the left in the direction of travel. I hope they are OK as Mac#1 sold them to me on the basis that they use them as SVA compatible...

Just looked in the SVA Manual and in the Approval Mark column for headlights it says

For Dipped Beam:

C
(S - Sealed Beam
H - Halogen)
with --> or <-->
or BS AU40

For Main Beam:

R
(S - Sealed Beam
H - Halogen)
or BS AU40

It doesn't seem to mention E10 or E11 ???

Also, I just read the article referred to and it says "Under ECE and EEC regulations, an item of motor vehicle equipment type approved in any ECE or EEC member country is acceptable for use in any other country that permits or requires vehicles and vehicle components conforming to ECE or EEC safety regulations" - to me that means that any of the numbers are OK? In "E10", "E" just emans it is manufactured to European Legislation, and "10" means it is manifactured in Yugoslavia...

[Edited on 30.08.2005 by Humbug]

gonna try and get it down the workshop this week get it on the beam tester, if the beam patern looks right then i'm gonna risk it.

The "E" mark number simply refers to the country where the test was carried out, not the country where the light is to be used, hence Wipac lights made in England are marked E11, and Hella lights made in Germany are marked E1. Lights that are made outside the EC are marked generally for the country who quotes the least to do the test!

I have noticed that a number of companies are trying to sell RH dipping lights to the UK car builders. These are not legal and should not pass SVA or Mot (you could get through Mot if you fit the beam blanking mods you get for UK lights when travelliung abroad, but SVA forbids this. They would have to be mirror image to the ones sold for UK cars).

On dip the headlight should have a clean flat topped beam pattern. At the far left of the beam the light should "kick up" at an angle of 15 degrees. The beam is also angled downwards AND towards the pavement to reduce dazzle for on coming traffic..

If your headlight has an arrow pointing to the left when looking from behind the lens, it is a UK specification and will dip to the left. If it has no arrow IT WILL DIP TO THE RIGHT.
If it has an arrow pointing both ways (Hella 90 mm dip lights for instance) you can adjust the light to dip left or right!

OK - so far so good. However I'm sure that if you have a continental RH dipping light, you can't get it to dip to the left by turning the lens a bit in the headlight. All you do is to get the small "kick up" area of the dip beam to be horizontal, and the wider part to become the 15 deg "kick up". BUT, and there has to be a big but, your lights will still dip to the right, they can't help it as that is how they were designed.

So, if you want UK legal lights that allow you so see the kerb on dip (and those of you who have driven distances on the Continent with UK headlights that have the dip section blanked of will know that you now can't see the kerb), look for the arrow pointing in the direction of the dip. That way you will have a fully legal car and if you are unfortunate enough to have an accident in the hours of darkness, your insurance company will not be able to say the car was not UK road legal, and so not covered.

Sorry to go on a bit !

All the best
Steve @ sVc

Slightly off subject, but I've just stolen this from another site.........

How many list members does it take to change a light bulb?


One to change the light bulb and to post that the light bulb has been changed.

Fourteen to share similar experiences of changing light bulbs and how the light bulb could have been changed differently.

Seven to caution about the dangers of changing light bulbs.

Seven more to point out spelling/grammar errors in posts about changing light bulbs.

Five to flame the spell checkers.

Three to correct spelling/grammar flames.

Six to argue over whether it's "lightbulb" or "light bulb" ... another six to condemn those six as stupid.

Fifteen to claim experience in the lighting industry and give the correct spelling.

Nineteen to post that this group is not about light bulbs and to please take this discussion to a lightbulb (or light bulb) forum.

Eleven to defend the posting to the group saying that we all use light bulbs and there fore the posts are relevant to this group.

Thirty six to debate which method of changing light bulbs is superior, where to buy the best light bulbs, what brand of light bulbs work best for this technique and what brands are faulty

Seven to post URLs where one can see examples of different light bulbs.

Four to post that the URLs were posted incorrectly and then post the corrected URL.

Three to post about links they found from the URLs that are relevant to this group which makes light bulbs relevant to this group.

Thirteen to link all posts to date, quote them in their entirety including all headers and signatures, and add "Me too"

Five to post to the group that they will no longer post because they cannot handle the light bulb controversy.

Four to say "didn't we go through this already a short time ago?"

Thirteen to say "do a Google search on light bulbs before posting questions about light bulbs"

Three to tell a funny story about their show dog and a light bulb.

AND



One group lurker to respond to the original post 6 months from now and start it all over again.