Adaptive Bi-Xenon HID - 2014 Mazda Mazda3 S Long-Term Road Test

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Adaptive Bi-Xenon HID - 2014 Mazda Mazda3 S Long-Term Road Test

A winding mountain road is the perfect place to try the Adaptive Bi-Xenon HID headlights in the 2014 Mazda 3.

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jeepsrt

After having adaptive headlights in our M3 I notice the lack of it in my Raptor with basic HID's, makes a huge difference in lighting around corners.

schen72

Once you have HIDs or LEDs, it's so hard going back to a car with only halogen lights.

victorminator

The AFLS in this system is VERY noticeable compared to other cars' systems. I like that but some may indeed find it unsettling. The auto-levelling is very subtle and I only noticed it happening by purposefully moving back and forth a slight street bump. This is also the first car I've seen that doesn't do a levelling self-check "sweep" when you turn it on. It only does the left-right sweep.
I kinda wanted the levelling sweep haha.

mlin32

This is my biggest problem with the Mazda 3: The high beams simply do not have the reach or output of what is expected. I knew something was amiss when I felt like I was overdriving my high beams on some sections of road at night so I parked it next to my parents VW (halogen) and BMW (bi-xenon). While their high beam settings nearly doubled the reach of the lighting, the Mazda only added about 30-40% more reach. No wonder I feel like I'm overdriving my headlights on undulating roads or on rural freeways.

I was surprised because I thought all xenon-equipped headlights were the same........guess not. I think Mazda (or Mitsubishi, the supplier) was being a bit conservative on the high beam output, at least for the US/Canadian headlights.

agentorange

schen72 said:

Once you have HIDs or LEDs, it's so hard going back to a car with only DOT STANDARD halogen lights.

I fixed it for you. Anybody that has driven in a car with a decent Euro spec H4 light will know what I mean.

agentorange

mlin32 said:

While their high beam settings nearly doubled the reach of the lighting, the Mazda only added about 30-40% more reach. .

That's not too unusual with bi-xenons that use one housing for low and high beams. Most are lacking in range compared to the 1988 3-Series I owned in the UK with a four headlamp system with dedicated high beam lamps. The DoT standard is shockingly restrictive and out of date, IMHO.

quadricycle

@agentorange: You do know that FMVSS 108 doesn't stop anyone from making a good light, right? It is actually quite the opposite, it provides regulations that only allow compliant lights to pass. Any company can make an excellent headlight at any time, if they want to. The reason the U.S. gave itself a bad reputation for headlights was because we as consumers told car manufacturers (with our dollars) that we wanted cheap, not good, headlights. We still pretty much do, see long-life bulbs.