Kielbasa

Hi guys, this is Kielbasa. I am new to the forum so I would like to say hello to everyone. If and when need be, I will be posting threads and asking questions for my dad. He is the one with the Lexus, but he is not too Forum experienced, so I said that I would do everything for him.

A little information on his Lexis ES330. He bought it a year ago from a dealer. 19,700 miles on it. It needed a cleaning and then a good detailing. I took care of all of that. It now looks as brand new as you can get. Why the dealer didn't do this is beyond me.

So what our situation is, the headlights are aimed way... too low. They have to come up a pretty good amount. When my dad asked at the dealer, they said that his car is not able to be aligned. I find this very hard to believe.

Can anyone help us on how to adjust them?

Thanks, Kielbasa

mmatheny

Welcome to the greatest Lexus forum on the planet. A 2004 with 19k on it - WOW what a find. How much did he pay??
Sorry, I don't have an answer for the headlight aiming ;-)

DRACO A5OG

Here you go:

At night of course

From your garage door or parking lot wall, measure off 25 feet. Place tape there for reference.

Now drive up to the wall/door maybe couple of inches away, and place tape where the beam break is, on my cars it is like this ___/___/.

Drive straight back then adjust accordingly.

Take a drive to insure it is not blinding anyone.

To insure the light are level or slightly rake forward. Park next to a wall of a parking lot and look at the beam to see how it is angled.

Adjust as needed.

Hope that helps.

For high beams set, it at the end of the break / pattern on top.

Fogs go below the ___ pattern

Kielbasa

Hello Draco A50G,
Thank you for the information, but I guess I should have been more specific. My fault. What I wanted to know is... where do you adjust them from? Where is the screw or bolt that lets you adjust them? All I see on the back side of the light assembly is a silver colored bolt that has a washer like back with some teeth on the outer side. Could these be the adjustment bolts?

Thanks, Kielbasa

DRACO A5OG

Yes, To test, turn either direction and watch the beam it should go up or down

There should be another one for the hi-beams

Kielbasa

Hi guys. I finally had some time to post an update.

For years if not decades, we have been adjusting our headlights at a school around the corner from us. The school is made of brick, so it gives a real good and precise measurement of adjustment when lowering and raising the beam.

Before I even backed out of the garage, I turned each screw/bolt, 50 turns each. (Not full turns, just turns of the screwdriver) On the way over to the school, I thought the beam might have been too high. So after getting the car lined up, I lowed them about 25 turns. When I backed away from the school I got a general idea of where the lights were. They were a bit too low. So I raised them maybe about 2 bricks. I think I got about 4-6 turns in each brick. (Yes it might sound a little silly, but it works for us)

When I finally got them to where I thought they might be okay and not too high, I took her for a ride on the highway and back roads. Obviously it was a lot better than where I started, but I couldn't get a true reading because of all of the cars on the highway. But while I was driving home from Mohegan Sun last Friday evening, I did get a good idea of the lights. It seemed that at the level where my eyes wanted to focus, the beam seemed to be just below that. So I will have to raise them up just... a little bit more and I think we will be fine.

I did happen to catch a news story on car headlights this past week where they say that our head light beams should reach some where in the area of 366' down the road. Most cars did terrible, especially the new BMW. One of the Toyota's did the best.

I do like the way the headlight beams spread the light very evenly across the road from left to right and not brighter just in front of the car. My only negative would be that I think the brightness of the beams could be brighter. Maybe a different bulb can take care of this.

DrArnold

Did you ever find out which screw adjust vertical and which horizontal?