Halfords Extreme Brilliance bulbs = MOT failure!!

ESP

Senior member
 Braintree
About 3 weeks ago i fitted 2 Halfords Extreme Brilliance H7 bulbs to my other half's Mini Cooper, as 1 bulb had gone and they where on BOGOF offer ( at £19). They look really bright and i had intended on getting some myself for the Z4 and getting Halfords to fit them as its not such a straight forward job and they only charge £6 each.

The Mini was MOT'd this morning and It failed because the headlights "emitted a light to bright & didn't form the legal pattern". They then fitted new ones for only £4 and passed the car.
The lamps Halfords Extreme Brilliance Bulbs which state they are 90% brighter but also Road Legal (E Marked).
Unfortunately i'm no longer in possession of all the original packageing, but I will be heading off to Halfords latter to moan.

Are these lamps illegal or is Mr MOT being a tad over zealous?
Has anyone else come across this or have upgraded to Halfords Extreme Brilliance Bulbs??

:?
 
i have them fitted and took the car to a council mot center (as they will not find work as they do not do repairs) and it passed no problem.
 
At least it was a cheap fix. I would put the brighter bulbs back in now


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That is nonsense... Hids's will no doubt be twice as bright, and with longer bulbs will change the beam pattern... Yet they pass, while brighter standard length bulbs dont!




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AFAIK there is no part of the MOT that specifies 'brightness' of bulbs.

The pattern coul dhave been thrown off simply due to mis-fitting of the bulbs, which would skew the pattern slightly.
 
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

This..........

"Brightness" is not tested at MOT time... Ask the tester how he determined how bright the headlight was??

However beam pattern is,i dare say the bulb fitment was incorrect..
 
Fitting an H7 light wrongly is almost impossible with the clips and the one fit holder though?
 
Brightness is not a failure ... unless HIDs are retrofitted to a car without the relevant washers and automatic stabilisation. What I found at my last mot was that when I had replaced my bulbs with Nightbreaker+ H7 build was that the aim was slightly off. The tester explained that this can happen any time you change the bulbs as the different manufacturers can alter the design of the elements within the bulbs and this changes the aim of headlamps. Projects suffer more from this than regular reflector lamps.

IMHO your tester is taking the pee.
This isn't the first case I've heard where a testing station has found problems with headlamps that magically appear only after they have their hands on the car and the charge for replacing bulbs. You are lucky, one guy in mr2roc was recently charged £24 for a bulb replacement at an mot station. :roll:
 
pvr said:
Fitting an H7 light wrongly is almost impossible with the clips and the one fit holder though?


Yea...........Almost although you would be suprised how many times i see it..
 
Z4M-2006 said:
pvr said:
Fitting an H7 light wrongly is almost impossible with the clips and the one fit holder though?


Yea...........Almost although you would be suprised how many times i see it..

I know how to fit a bulb thankyou!
 
deka said:
i have them fitted and took the car to a council mot center (as they will not find work as they do not do repairs) and it passed no problem.

Are you pleased with the bulbs.I find the dipped beam on mine too dim with these darker nights now.You need all the light you can get during the winter months.
 
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