Car lights with Hove MOT
I think lights pretty much speak for themselves but it still astonishes me how often cars are presented for an MOT test with either lights not working at all or with wiring faults that make the wrong lights illuminate, also very common.
One of the most common MOT fails is light alignment, this only applies to the headlights, it’s when the angle of the headlight unit is set incorrectly so that it looks as if you’re either driving with full beam on all of the time or they are pointing too far to the left or right or they are so low that the driver cannot see far enough ahead.
All MOT test centres are equipped with a calibrated light alignment system:
This diagram shows that there are acceptable tolerances for both high and low beam settings.
Indicator lights must be yellow/orange, this used to mean that the actual lense was coloured but these days they are generally fitted with a coloured bulb, this certainly makes replacing the unit cheaper but the coloured paint on the bulb often flakes off leaving white light so the bulb needs replacing more often.
Many modern cars are now fitted with two low level brake lights and one high level central brake light, current VOSA legislation states that only two of the three need to be working to pass an MOT test, however, if three are fitted then common sense says they should all be working.