Irrational Recall of VW Headlights

[-Virgil-]

1. There was a period of time when BMW and one or two other German automakers were putting VOA headlamps with illegal horizontal aim adjustability on US-model vehicles. One excuse they made (with a straight face, which is quite an achievement) was that it wasn't really a horizontal aim adjuster, it was a second vertical aim adjuster. Some of their headlamps had the adjusters identified as "V1" and "V2". Some of these "V2" adjusters did actually adjust the horizontal orientation of the beam, others sort of didn't, but BMW (for one) steadfastly maintained their US-model cars did not have horizontal aim adjustability. Eventually NHTSA got around to swatting them and saying "Cut it out and count yourself lucky we didn't force you to recall them".

2. Some horizontal aim adjusters are disabled more fully and permanently than others.

 

[SubLGT]

Some other VW headlight news:

https://www.iihs.org/news/detail/volkswagen-tiguan-earns-safety-award-with-improved-headlights

...A new good headlight rating helps the 2019 Volkswagen Tiguan earn the highest safety award from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.......when equipped with specific headlights and an optional front crash prevention system.

...Models built after June [2019] and equipped with curve-adaptive LED headlights with high-beam assist earn a good headlight rating. Earlier models with the same headlights earn only a marginal rating and therefore don't qualify for an award. The Tiguan's base halogen reflector headlights earn a poor rating.

IIHS does not elaborate as to why the "same" LED headlights now gets a good rating. Is it because of better headlight aim, or an enhanced LED headlight design? They did mention that for the "good" LED headlights "the low beams created some glare".

 

[-Virgil-]

A ratings change like this is virtually always because of better headlamp aim.