I travel at night on unlit 2-lane country roads regularly. I have been flashed by oncoming drivers on occasions. I have LED low beams, factory aim, which is quite low. Since the cut off is very clean, I can plainly see, the oncoming driver is in the dark shadow dips, on the left side of the beams. There is no way I am blinding them. The only reason I figure, is that they get close enough to see that I have two pods lit up in each headlight, and ASSUME that I am running high beams, and feel like they have to police me some even they are not blinded. I have a friend with a Mustang GT with grille mounted fog lights, he reports the same thing when he is on low beams + fogs. Has any other Five owner observe this?
Not a Five owner, but I'm guessing with your brighter and bluish white lights (as opposed to the dimmer yellow halogens), people are assuming you have your brights on.
I have HID's on my 07 and get flashed at least once a night. Then, I blind them when I flash my hi-beams back.
That is one way to let them know the they were incorrect in flashing you (for bright lights). But if your headlights are misaimed, that is another issue......(I don't think this is the case for Jonny Zero though)
If your low-beams seem blinding to people, then they may be too bright. Blinding oncoming drivers is NOT a safe condition.
I've been told by many many people wow, your headlights are bright. This was on my 2010 and current 2012 both of which had the LED headlights. People just don't like you have good headlights and theirs suck lol.
I think the focus area on some of the new headlights is so concentrated that when there is even a slight uphill incline relative to oncoming vehicles, it can cause glare or retina burn problems. The key to facing bright headlights is to concentrate on the right side (America) of the road and not become mesmerized and blinded by looking directly into the bright lights.
I've never been flashed, and I even raised my headlights to get them to the correct cutoff. But I also don't drive on dark country roads very often.
I have a Three and even with the standard lights, I get flashed. I think it's because there's 4 clear bulbs in the front that are lit at night, and of course 4 lit lights means highbeams.
Any difference in output (beam pattern, brightness) between the 3-LED setup, and the newer 2-LED setup?
Nah, none that I can obviously notice. The 3rd led in the 2010/11 was just a flood type light to fill in area up close and to be honest they must have just made the new 2 projectors (like the old setup) a wider or taller spread of focused light to compensate for that close up area. I had a file showing the beam pattern for the 2010/11 but I forget it it showed the lit area for the flood light or just the 2 projectors. If I can find one for the redesigned 2012 led headlights maybe it would show how they refocused the beams.
If you haven't already thought of it, you might consider asking a friend to drive towards you on some such dark country road, and tell you if there's something wrong. You could also have him drive your car, and see for yourself.
