Just got back from my first road trip with my new RX350. 'Bout a 200 mile trip each way. Terrific gas mileage, especially on the way home. Reached 27.4 MPG coming down off the mountain.

Anyway, HUGE problem I noticed while in the mountains (Deepcrk in Maryland). There are alot of hills and valleys and winding roads there. The HID lighting was fabulous. However, we noticed going around some winding roads almost dead spots in the lighting that I think were a result of the AFS. While going down hill, there was almost a line that was black above and light below. The problem was trying to see ahead as we were driving. I'm obviously going to chat with the dealer and service, but I wonder if any others have noticed this? I sure hope it's just an adjustment. In this particular area we have alot of deer and other critters, and I felt like I couldn't see far enough to see what might be ahead. Not because of the amount of light, but more like there was something blocking the upper portion of the lights.

 

Remember - you can turn the adaptive headlights off.

The top will still be "cut off" however, this is so you don't blind oncoming or cars in front of you.

Maybe turning the adaptive feature off and using the high beams will help next time???

-Ken

 

You can turn them off? How? Owned my '05 for 2 1/2 years now. How do you do this?

 

i agree, use your high beams in that situation.

however, many have complained that the Lexus headlights aim too low as to not blind on coming traffic. However, you can have your dealer adjust it higher, or you can do it yourself with a simple screwdriver.

you can turn it off by clicking the button near the Gas release hatch area is. Down there you will see a round button that says AFS off

 

I had a similar problem, but it was the headlights not the adaptive part. They readjusted the lights. They said I was "overdriving" the lights. It's much better now. There is a small amount of room for readjustment and still comply with regulations and not blinding others.

 

Overdriving? What the heck is that?

 

agreed, no idea.

 

I think it means driving too fast, making the range of illumination too small to see what lies beyond it in time to safely avoid something.


.

 

This is a problem that has been brought up to NHTSA. I have mentioned this to my dealer. The service advisor told me to bring it in and they will adjust the headlights.

http://www-odi.nhtsa.dot.gov/cars/pr...aintsearch.cfm

 

what the problem exactly?

 

Overdriving, in my world, has always meant that you are driving fast enough, that by the time you see something in your headlights, you won't have enough time to stop. First we had halogens to help with this problem and now we have HIDs to help.

Fwiw, my wife loves the adaptive lights - calls them here Bambi lights, just like the first commercial where the couple is driving and a baby dear shows up in the headlights.

Gary

 

The sharp falloff has nothing to do with the AFS, that's the nature of HIDs and one of the reasons they're so great. Well-designed HIDs have a nearly immediate falloff as soon as you reach the edge of the focused area. This is good because it means that properly-aimed headlights should never blind oncoming drivers with stray light. However, it sounds like yours are not properly aimed. I would look into having them adjusted.

 

I thought that the Adaptive Headlights only adjust left to right, not up and down.

 

When we experienced this, yes, we 'felt' like we were overdriving, we actually said that to each other when we noticed it. In other words, we couldn't see far enough of us to determine what might be in the road, or worse, where the road was. But, we were only driving about 25-30 MPH on this road. We know the road well enough to know to keep speed down due to all the winds and turns. The major problem was as we were driving down a hill that had an upturn directly ahead, we couldn't see the upturn part of the road. It's almost as if the lights were only pointed down and that 'line' was blocking visability to the rest of the road. When we were on a straight away, no problems. We could still see that line, but we didn't feel as if we couldn't see ahead. I did turn the brights on to compensate and that helped, but when you know you have cars in front of you you don't want to use those lights. I did figure out how to turn the AFS off so next time I'll try that. Still planning to also have them adjust it as well.

 

From what u are describing, your situation has nothing to do with AFS. If you are going down hill and there is an upturn directly ahead. All headlight will point lower. It is worst with projection lights because the beam is focus and there is no scattering.