headlight deflectors

Honest John Back Room » Motoring discussion
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Tue 7 Dec 2004 15:27
headlight deflectors - Joe 90
As someone who is fortunate enough to drive to Europe several times a year, I am a bit gutted about paying £8 for a set of headlight deflectors every time, is there any other way of achieving the same job without the expense? (no shoplifting please)
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Tue 7 Dec 2004 16:09
headlight deflectors - John R @ Work {P}
Joe,

assuming that your car is the same one for each journey,
when you buy the next set of sticky masks for your headlights, trace using tracing paper or Izal or copy the shape using a pantograph (set to copy at 1 to 1) of the masks.

Then nip down to your local hardware or decorating shop for some 'sticky back plastic' (Fablon) preferably in black (though teak/pine or a nice floral design could be interesting) and cut as many masks as you need.

Here's some I made earlier... (ex Blue Peter watcher)


Regards,
John R @ Work :¬)
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Tue 7 Dec 2004 16:24
headlight deflectors - cabsmanuk
Why bother? I've yet to see any car arriving from the continent with deflectors on their headlamps. I think it's purely a British thing.
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Tue 7 Dec 2004 16:47
headlight deflectors - NeilB
A good site for doing your own headlamp deflectors.

www.aer-net.co.uk/edr/headlampsnf.htm
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Tue 7 Dec 2004 16:48
headlight deflectors - blue_haddock
Why bother? I've yet to see any car arriving from the
continent with deflectors on their headlamps. I think it's purely a
British thing.


I think it's more likely that a british car with no deflectors on will get pulled by police in france than a french car with no deflectors on will get pulled in britain.
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Tue 7 Dec 2004 17:14
headlight deflectors - artful dodger {P}
If you are only having a day trips to France, it seems most UK drivers do not bother to have the headlight deflectors. This was my observation a couple of weeks ago at Citie Europe when I looked at all British registered cars.

I was one of the very few to have fitted the deflectors.

Another big problem I found was that a large number of cars using the M20 towards London had very badly adjusted dipped headlight beams due to the weight in the boot. It is such a shame all cars do not come fitted with headlight adjusters (manual or self leveling) to accomadate heavy loads.
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Tue 7 Dec 2004 17:45
headlight deflectors - patently
I went to France for a weekend a short while back, and couldn't find the little lever in my headlights that was meant to flatten the pattern to one that is ok everywhere. So I dropped in to the dealership for help.

He showed me the lever but said that new EU regs are that it is not necessary unless you are going to be there for 6 months.

Sounds cuckoo to me, but there you are.
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