Hello - does anyone supply stickers for xk8/r headlights to convert to LHD driving? I have found plenty of threads about the long term converter plates and some saying stickers weren't really useful as our lamps have no guidelines but I was wondering if anyone had found a good, cheap and temporary solution suitable for a 2week gaunt?

Thanks.

 

I've been going to Europe - mainly France, but also Spain and Portugal - in the XKR once or twice a year for the last 5 years, and have never been flashed whilst on my standard LH dip dipped beam. If you feel exposed, then you might as well get a pair of ordinary stick-ons, though, to make it seem ok! Personally, I would not be bothered to do anything.

Where are you headed off to? The Jaguar is a perfect car for Europe (and still will be, even after Brexit!)

 

If you are in the UK, I assume you have levelling headlights - little knob on right of switch panel to lower / raise dipped beam.

In which case - when I (occasionally) go to France - I just lower the left-beam a smidgin and put the right one up a bit with the adjusters on the back of the levelling motors - easy to reach from under the bonnet.

Bit of a hassle, and may not be 100% legal in the rest of Europe, but never been stopped or flashed - so I think it's probably OK.

But - otherwise just use that little knob to lower the beams a fauir bit and you'll have no problems.

 

Thanks both. I will try fully dipped this time.
I find the dipped headlights to be pretty poor but that might be advantageous on this trip. Off to the Dordogne for a couple of weeks and a quick gaunt down to San Sebastian via the Pyrenees if I get some accommodation sorted.

 

If you do decide to stick some beam deflectors on, make sure you put them in the correct place. I see many British cars over here with the beam deflectors on the wrong side of the headlights, as they have forgotten that the oncoming traffic will be on their left, not right as in the UK.

 

I'm another regular Continental tourer. I also didn't bother with headlamp converters a.k.a. beam benders on my XK8's and have never been flashed. Given that most French vehicles have one headlamp pointing at the road and the other pointing up in the air, no one is likely to notice .......

...... except for the Gendarmerie in the Pas de Calais who look on British driver's returning to the Channel Ports as a 'cash vache'.

I put a small piece of black insulating tape on each headlamp. Doesn't matter where - there is no EU Directive on headlamp conversion.

My XK is easier because there's a lever in the headlamp unit to switch dip direction. Brilliant idea? Yes, but you do have to remove the headlamp unit to move the lever!

Graham

 

Good suggestion, Graham. And probably the only truly affordable suggestion available to any Jaguar owner!

 

This was the Jaguar solution for the XK8/XKR:




Plastic headlamp covers incorporating black masks - the regular disguise for highway robbery.

My solution:




Available from any DIY store.

Graham

 

You know, I had forgotten that I had bought a pair of these for my previous XKR. Completely useless. The clips broke, light transmission was reduced, and I threw the second one away once the first one had fallen off and been lost.

 

Hello Graham,
Dunno whether you still monitor this thread.
As I 'm based in France and have imported a 2006 XK8 from the UK, I need to flip the headlights permanently in order to get my Controle Technique.
Do yo have more details on the above mentioned levers? Any documentation, perhaps?
Thank you in advance.
Jean-Jacques

 

I have recently been through a similar process, of importing a 2005 XKR to Portugal. This is a link to the processes I went through: Matriculating a car to Portugal. It would be interesting to know the steps you need to take.

Personally, I think that any beam conversion or adjustment is not the way to go for anything other than a short stay, but really the only appropriate step is new (or rather, good used) headlight units, costly as they are. I have a number of reasons for this, both practical and aesthetic.

The practical point is that, although to us drivers beam angles are not critical, testing stations will almost certainly take accurate measurements and if your beams are out of their parameters your vehicle will fail - perhaps now, or perhaps in later regular tests - so you might suddenly find yourself off the road and with the task of quickly trying to source correct units. And adjusting the beam down will certainly do nothing for the left-pointing dipped direction. I believe that there is or was something you could buy, purportedly to change the dip direction, but it was not always accepted by the test stations (presumably because it is not a permanent part of the car). It goes without saying that bits of black insulating tape won’t cut the mustard either! Also, from the practical perspective, even if you are able to circumvent this somehow, would you not end up with something slightly inferior?

So, to the aesthetics. We are still many years away from the need to respect originality, but is there not joy in owning a Jaguar which is nicely maintained and integrated within its own persona, as it were? Replacement headlights would be the most pleasing outcome.

 

Replacement headlights are waaaay too expensive. I only paid 15K pounds for my XK8.
I will have my mechanic remove the headlamps and flip the levers, as explained by Graham.
I don't want the local dealer to suck my blood, and I doubt used LHD units are available anywhere.

 

I'm guessing you have an X150 - the X100 doesn't have levers, just a small metal plate that can be swapped for a LHD/RHD version as appropriate. No need to change the whole headlamp assembly.

 

Hi Not necessarily, to both points. First, they are available, if you search Eu suppliers, or if you look to the US (but import duties and perhaps high delivery costs from there), and, second, you can recoup much of the cost by selling your original units.

I replaced mine last year at a total cost of 800 pounds. The current ebay prices for single units is about 300, suggesting that the net cost would have been about 200, had I chosen to sell the old ones. In my case I decided to keep them against the possibility of eventual car repatriation to the UK. Worth exploring in any case, I would have thought.

 

Getting off topic here. The thread is about temporary beam conversion for driving a RHD in Europe and not permanent conversion.

Here's two permanent conversion threads:
https://www.jaguarforums.com/forum/x...-lh-dip-65711/
https://www.jaguarforums.com/forum/x...-change-68469/

If anyone goes the replacement method and sources LHD headlights, Diddion is absolutely right - the RHD ones are sought after in the UK.

Graham

 

Hi Graham,
Sorry for getting off -topic, but I don't see why your suggestion to simply flip a lever on an X150is not permanently applicable. Plus I don 't know how to source reasonably cheap headlights in Europe (in spite of intensive Internet searches).

 

This is X100 forum for the 1996 - 2005 XK8/XKR which does NOT have the beam adjustment lever. The lever is only on the RHD versions of the X150 from 2006 - 2011. After that the headlight design was changed to make conversion unnecessary. My 2007 XK had the lever headlights; my 2014 XK doesn't.

Graham

 

Sorry again for being totally off-topic, but is this documented anywhere?

 

Not really. It's two different Jaguar models. The original steel bodied X100 (XK8/XKR 1996-2005) .......




....... and the later aluminium bodied X150 (XK/XKR 2006-2014).




These models shared the 4.2 engine and transmission but were otherwise completely different.

The facelift XK 5.0 litre further updated the headlights which no longer need any dip beam adjustment for LHD or RHD.





Graham

 

Sorry again and again for my lack of clarity.
My car is a 2006 X150.
My question really was this: does there exist a document, a drawing perhaps, illustrating the position of the lever?
Many thanks for your help so far.
Jean-Jacques