m1bjr

You can pop the lever off - its a small balljoint (cant recall if there is a spring pin through it) a bit like the gas ram on a bootlid
Then you can manipulate that. Probably easier.

m1bjr

Its easier to pop the balljoint off the N/S/R suspension arm and pull it around.
Unless badly seized.
You get to see if the potentiomenter is OK too, you can disconnect it and put an ohmmeter across it,
The arm can move, the cam above can move, but the pot may be knackered...
Steve

Mike RT4

My car went in for a service last week and they wanted to charge nearly £700 to replace the headlight self levelling module, as they said the arm was bent and the potentiometer siezed. To say I nearly fell over was an understatement. The following day I then queried this with a mate that works in the parts department and was advise that the whole piece was only just over £300 + ½ hour labour to fit. When I quizzed him on why I was quoted £700 they discovered an error on the Honda system where it says two are needed . So he has filled out the necessary paperwork to get this corrected.

Obviously the re-quoted price is better - and had I been quoted that in the first place, I would have probably told them to do it. Good job I didn't as I then searched the forum, found numerous threads on this and decided to have a look myself. Sure enough the arm was bent as described and this meant that it was unable to operate correctly. I stripped everything off (15 mins), took the arm into work the following day, straightened it, took it home, put everything back together (7 mins) and checked the operation by moving the wishbone up and down using the jack - perfect operation .

All I need to do now is set the headlights as they are over a foot lower than they should be at 7.5m (basically only illuminating 25m in front of the car). However, I couldn't find the adjuster in the dark, so will do that over the weekend .

Cost: Zero apart from 25 mins of my time. This forum rocks!

martin j

Took the car into work today and checked the lights on the mot ramp, the pattern is too low and would fail an mot, tried a weight in the boot so that the pattern lifted as the erase of the car lowered but the adjuster did nothing, although it did move, so back to Honda for them to try again. Unfortunately the dealer is quite new and I have no idea how experienced the techs are!

noodels

Why did you not adjust them,so to put the potentiometer <motor> within the range of its small adjustment capability,.
need a long screwdriver to do this and would think its the problem.

martin j

I didn't have a lot of time on the mot bay this morning as the techs were ready to start work, and thought that the problem wth the pot had pulled both lamps down to this level which still needs sorting as these does not appear to be working.

Just thought, if the potentiometer has failed would it resort to mode that sets the lights to their lowest position in order not blind oncoming drivers?

noodels

Doubt the system would act like that,
it would prob just stop working where it was
Would call it a servo though tbh

tozerman

The adjustment rod on the NSR on my car is also bent (curved) and my alignment is spot on! I thought that's how they are..

m1bjr

Guys, I expect some dubious owners have bent them, or they bottomed out and bent, if the car was lowered. Are your cars lowered?
If they have seized, same thing - pot stuck solid, wishbone moves up and -wham- bent.

On failure who knows, pots would generally fail to zero resistance, so its likely that the lamps would indeed motor fully to one end of the adjustment and stay there.
You can pull the connector off you know, and pop a meter on it to see if the adjuster works as said previously (N/S/R wishbone area)

Good luck guys - all part of the fun!

martin j

After an day of extensive testing! The dealer has decided that the switch is to blame, after telling me the rod was seized! Anyway, new switch ordered via warranty but unfortunately it is on back order and may arrive in March, dealer asked if I could rest the headlight alignment at my work as they don't have a beam setting machine! I did of course decline, turns out that the main dealer doesn't do its own mots and don't need one, farce. Once this is all sorted a call to customer services seems in order.