Talk Morgan Forums Morgan Sports Cars Maintenance & Servicing Latest MOT change - headlamps

I know it makes no logical sense but your old headlamps are OK with LED bulbs or HID upgrades as long as your car was first used before 1st April 1986. Yes i know a 1985 7' headlight is the same as a 1995 one, or indeed a 2019 one on a Morgan but the powers that be have decided before 1st April 1985 you can fit whatever you like as long as aim is ok etc. After that date, its still No!.

Make the rules look slightly silly really in my personal view. I'd imagine as long as the beam image is ok, few testers are likely to be too concerned about the light source type.

That really is daft.

Regulations seem to be written by people with little sense of reality and who have forgotten the original purpose of the regulation.

The MOT was introduced 1960 with the intention of getting a lot of old, some pre-war cars off the road if they were not safe. Dad had a Standard 8 that failed its first MOT because the body wasn't securely fastened to the chassis due to rust.
Cars are so much better engineered today than in the 50s that all the MOT needs to do today is check safety critical items. I do not see that changing an H4 bulb to a LED equivalent is safety critical.

But it would be safety critical if it was blinding other road users.

I know other light sources can have the same effect if badly adjusted but the brightness of the LEDs and the poor pattern of some of the cheap imports can exacerbate the problem.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
The higher light intensity of LED’s means light setting is crucial to minimise dazzling. Even a correctly aligned light emits much more intense light into the field of vision of oncoming drivers. Controlling the beam pattern then becomes more important. Another factor that influences the beam are height. Lights have to conform to design regs for location so the higher they are within the limits the more potential there is to dazzle. Add in the beam pattern that limits and spreads the light and it becomes more complex.
The laws re using age as a decider are ridiculous as car design isn’t that precise.
Disc brakes versus drums?
Cross ply versus radials ( and mixtures)?
Seatbelts?

Well, mine are staying fitted to the classic '67 Mini then, incidentally it passed an MOT beam test the day after fitting (the tester even tweaked the aim up a bit)

I still don't think it's an MOT issue, it's a regulations issue and the regulations have failed to keep up with technology.

Strictly it appears illegal to fit LEDs on vehicles first used after 1 April 1986. The rules were not made retrospective and therefore don't apply to older vehicles.

The MOT rules are only following the law (I think...)

I recall from importing my Ford GT that the rules said that headlamp washers must be fitted due to halogen bulbs. I absolutely did not want a wash wipe system fitted - so we swapped the bulbs out, passed the import rule thing, and put the bulbs back. From memory the only night driving I did was on a race track - there wasn't anything coming the other way.

I raised this with my MP. Here is the blah blah response. Still I tried.

Dear ,

Thank you for contacting the office of Dr Thérèse Coffey MP. I would like to offer my apologies for the delay in responding to you.

Your concerns will be raised with officials at the Department for Transport in order to bring this matter to their attention. Once we’ve received a response, I will share this with you directly.

Kind regards,
Luke


Luke Watson
Parliamentary Assistant to Rt Hon Dr Thérèse Coffey MP
Suffolk Coastal and Secretary of State
at the Department for Work & Pensions
House of Commons, Westminster, London, SW1A 0AA
0207 219 7164


________________________________________
From:
Sent: 21 March 2021 10:36
To: COFFEY, Therese
Subject: Mad MOT rules over LED headlight bulbs

Therese,

I own a Morgan sports car. It shape hasn't changed signifcantly since the 50s. My model is from 2014. The headlights are the old round 7 inch units you see on a Morris Minor & the factory fit bulbs are halogen H4. This is the same as the cars from the 60s when H4 bulbs came in.

The majority of owners upgraded to LED bulbs as that gives better lighting at night and thus were safer for all road users. They regularly passed the MOT without comment.

In January the MOT regulations were changed by your government to ban LED bulbs in halogen bowls.

I and many others therefore went back to the H4 bulbs complete with inferior lighting and a risk to our & other roads users safety so as to meet the law & not void our insurance.

This week the MOT regulations changed again. Now if your car is pre 1986 you can legally fit LED bulbs in H4 bowls, but if like me you own a post
86 car you cannot. These are basically the same car design with the same headlight bowl. Where is the logic?

Surely your government should be practical & pragmatic and allow MOT centres to test the LED bulb alignment & cut off to see they are road legal and allow them to be used on all cars to increase all road user safety.

I would appreciate if you could raise a question in the house on this & get me a formal response from the Minestry of Transport.

John, well done & thanks for taking the time to officially query this, I wonder what the response will be

Don't hold your breath.