SOT: Nissan Micra headlights

When you say “too close” do you mean the beams are hitting the ground too close to the front of the car?

Does a Micro of the age have manual beam levellers to compensate for a heavy load? It’s not uncommon for folk to not realise that there’s a switch/dial for this as it’s often a bit tucked away.

If there really isn’t one then it sounds like the adjusters are broken or possibly the wrong bulbs have been fitted.

Tim

Thank you. The beams (both dipped and full beam) are hitting the ground too close to the front of the car. There is an adjustment for this but it makes little difference. The bulbs theory would explain why both headlights seem to have developed the same fault, which I would not have noticed during the summer months.

I will take this wisdom to the garage next week.

There seem to be two adjustments, one in the cabin and one behind the headlight. Have you tried them both:

Presumably the car is still level! Front suspension not sagging? Not taken some weight out of the boot?

nib

If you have a control in the dashboard, this is what it should look like.

Good find! For anyone averse to watching videos for basic info,

I didn't realise there was one behind the headlight - good to know. I will look in daylight tomorrow.The garage man said he had adjusted as far as he could, so I can ask him to show me what and where adjustment took place.

Boot pretty much empty and only one person (driver) in the car. Asking about the suspension is a very good idea, thanks. Is there an easy way for me to check it?

On 25 Nov 2025 17:45:38 GMT, Tim+ snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.co.youkay> wrote: [snip]

Unfortunately, this makes very little difference. Are there motors involved? How can one control adjust two headlights?

When my Mazda had a spring fail, the only obvious indication was that the vertical distance between road and apex of wheel arch was less by several mm on one side than on the other side.

nib

If you have that knob, then yes, there should be motors. Does it make any difference at all? If it does it may be that the mechanism is sticking.

Tim

It does make a difference but not enough. I suspect that further investigative work will be needed which on a bad day could cost more than the value of the car.

I am very grateful to everyone here for the knowledge and insights.

Easy to check, with just fingers, offered in between wheel arch and top of tyre gap. Number of finger which will go in, should be identicle.

Thank you very much. I shall carry out this this complex technical process after the Budget :-)

I think those would normally be additional full beam, and even if legal you would still need the standard ones to work as dipped and full.

I'd not be too hasty to scrap the car for such a simple fault like this. Have a look yourself and see what you can do with the adjuster behind the headlight as shown on the video I linked. If you park the car in front of a wall, you can stick tape on the wall to indicate where the beam is landing and how it moves when you adjust it. The chap in the video shows where the beam is supposed to land.

If you really get nowhere, is there any way to tweak the angle of the bulbs in the headlight assembly? Is the headlight bracket broken so it's not mounting where it should? Could you add washers to angle it slightly differently?

Also worth checking the bulbs in case somebody has put the wrong kind in. (not sure what kind of bulbs have the wrong beam angle, but a new set of bulbs is a cheap thing to try)

A replacement pair of headlights can be bought on ebay - worst case you could modify them to change the beam angle.

Theo

Thanks. I was being a bit flippant in my comment about the value of the car :-)