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Old 04-24-2012, 08:41 PM   #1
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poor lighting with headlights - thor outlaw

I bought a 2012 Thor outlaw toyhauler in January which I'll use a couple of weekend a month. When I first got it one of the headlights was terribly misaligned (driverside pointing to the right of the passenger side). I took it and had it realigned under the warranty.

This past weekend was the first time I've driven it in the dark since the headlights were realigned. (and only the 2nd time I've driven it in the dark since I bought it) The illumination of the road in front of me is very poor when I'm on a dark road with no streetlights. I was driving through the mountains in West Virginia and was not even keeping minimum interstate speeds becasue I could barely see far enough in front of the vehicle to see where the twisting road was going.

Any suggestions? Is the a common problem with a class A with the drivers seat being so much higher than I'm used to in a car? Should I adjust the headlights upward or add fog lights or something?
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Old 04-24-2012, 09:00 PM   #2
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Time to start adding more lights. I live in the desert, and there are lots of empty roads, and pitch black. I've found the vehicles with the 4 headlite systems give more lite on hi-beams than 2 lite systems.

I've had to ad driving lites to many vehicles so I could see good at nite.

You need to place them close to the heighth of the factory lites so they are pointing downward a bit. Bumper high lites are pretty useless.

Talk to your local off-road dealer about it.
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Old 04-25-2012, 06:46 AM   #3
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Quote:
Originally Posted by neddy191 View Post
I bought a 2012 Thor outlaw toyhauler in January which I'll use a couple of weekend a month. When I first got it one of the headlights was terribly misaligned (driverside pointing to the right of the passenger side). I took it and had it realigned under the warranty.

This past weekend was the first time I've driven it in the dark since the headlights were realigned. (and only the 2nd time I've driven it in the dark since I bought it) The illumination of the road in front of me is very poor when I'm on a dark road with no streetlights. I was driving through the mountains in West Virginia and was not even keeping minimum interstate speeds becasue I could barely see far enough in front of the vehicle to see where the twisting road was going.

Any suggestions? Is the a common problem with a class A with the drivers seat being so much higher than I'm used to in a car? Should I adjust the headlights upward or add fog lights or something?
Most of the Outlaw owners (the ones I know anyway) have had this problem at one time or another. And, there are a lot of owners on this forum.

I added driving lights to the front of mine when I had this issue crop up, and that combined with adjusting the headlights properly, seems to solve it for me. CLick on the blog link below, or drop me a note and I can try to answer any question you may have that's not answered there.

Last, check some of the other Outlaw posters here through the search function. . .I think you'll be happy with the information that's available.

Best of luck, and welcome to the Outlaw family!
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Old 04-25-2012, 07:42 PM   #4
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its not just the outlaw
our tuscany is horrible at night, between glare, headlights not reaching out or any side lighting its a slow drive
i thought about adding some on the roof to light up the road ahead....

but never found any low profile lights that wouldn't detract from the roof line
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Old 04-26-2012, 07:15 AM   #5
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I think that bad headlight problems are about across the board. Thought our lights were great til this last weekend when we left early morning while it was getting light. Couldn't see where they were pointed.

powerboatr
Think that might be illegal in some states.
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Old 04-26-2012, 07:13 PM   #6
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I think poor headlights is a very common complaint in all the brands. I sometimes wonder if the manufacturers assume that long before night fall we'll all be parked for the night?
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Old 04-26-2012, 10:12 PM   #7
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See this thread for a very effective fix for port headlight illumination

http://www.irv2.com/forums/f258/impr...on-112938.html
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Old 04-26-2012, 11:10 PM   #8
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I'm going to check tomorrow on voltage at bulbs. I thought they were on a relay already. And battery is 4ft. from lights.




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Old 04-26-2012, 11:30 PM   #9
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One thing is that in a MH you're up higher and not in as close and alignment with the headlight beams.
Then there's the voltage drop. And, maybe the reflectors aren't a high quality. Newmar got stuck with non-DOT approved reflectors and there were lots of complaints. The reflectors said they were approved but they were cheap Chinese copies.
We used to do a lot of night driving to get to shows, early on I replaced the bulbs with Silverstars. Did that on the Odyssey too.
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Old 04-27-2012, 09:44 AM   #10
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We went with HID lights & the result is fantastic. $60.00 for the kit & $40.00 for the install by a certified automotive mechanic (its a complicated install involving rewiring). Now I can see the road at night.
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