Welcome to 4Sight Automotive

Should you have an inquiry regarding a bespoke automotive lighting upgrade  please contact me on :-

enquiries@bettercarlighting.co.uk

or call us on 0121 773 7000 - If you can't get us on the landline (sometimes I have complicated enquiries), please send  an email and we will get back to you.



2024

I would love to start with an outpouring of optimism, but as most of you know, there are dark clouds on the horizon, and we clearly heading for a period of what we can only hope will be short term turmoil. The longer term challenges continue to haunt us, and the ever changing weather extremes are definately becoming the expected norm, rather than the old "Once in 50 years" situation. At times like this, constants are good and comforting, and treasuring the best of the past increases in importance. Few would argue that during the last century, many of us experience what now looks like a very good time indeed, and a big part of that was that we were able to own, drive and thoroughly enjoy some wonderful machinery, and to also enjoy the freedom of movement they gave us. As the years have passed, and the inevitable crowding of the roads and developments in safety have caused designs to become more similar, and, many would argue, far less exciting, or even interesting, I can't help feeling that we have lost something valuable and wonderful. The saving grace is that we can preserve and still enjoy, at least some of the time, the magnificent cars from those more carefree times. Every year, more parts become available to help us to keep these important machines on the road. Every year, we find new ways to make them safer and easier to live with and every year, technology helps us to make the process easier and more accessible. 3D Printed parts have made short production runs viable to produce replacements for worn out rare parts. Enthusiastic designers and developers with little regard for commercial considerations, continue to come up with ideas and then to find ways of turning those ideas in reality, to allow us to endow our favourite classic or vintage cars with the sort of safety features needed to allow them to be used on public roads and to avoid the risk of them being legislated into museums, and to do this "invisibly" to avoid ruining their character. I am no exception, and I promise that I will keep up both the pressure and the pace to bring new and better upgrades to you during the coming year.

Several of the projects that were postponed following my wife's accident in mid 2022 (her badly broken arm is still not fixed and this proves that neither is the NHS), will be continued this year. One of them is especially ambitious, and potentially extremely important. It has also proved to be very difficult to solve, throwing up unforseen consequences, meaning it is in it's redesign stage yet again, but the effort will continue, because when it is eventually right, it will transform the process of upgrading the lighting on thousands of historically important cars and reduce fitting times by around 50%.

More work will also be done in picking up the baton of the project to produce effective and easy upgrades to LED for cars originally equipped with HID Xenon headlights. Many of those systems are now failing and are currently very expensive to maintain. When I can put more time into this, all of that will change.

 
Once again I look forward to working with many of you to upgrade a car or cars that are special to you. Classic and vintage cars have always been special and exciting to me, which is how I got started in this business. 

Good news

During 2022, I was forced to stop my development programme of LED headlight upgrades for cars registered after 1986. I am still hopeful that between us all, we can persuade the DfT to re-consider their ill-advised ruling that makes these cars dangerous to drive in poor visibility, and may well shorten the life of many of them because of this. I would like to encourage as many of you as possible to write to your MP and to complain about this sily, unfair and unsafe ruling. I will be glad to supply a suggested letter to anyone who want it, as well as full information.

I will still be continuing my development of electronic control unit based LED upgrade systems for vintage and older classic cars. The only way to make it easy for owners and restoration companies alike to invisibly upgrade both the safety and the convenience of these special cars is for me to continue to find ways of building all of the necessary extra functions into one compact controller, leaving only a few cable runs and bulb swaps  to transform the indicators, sidelights and stop and tail lights. These are in their third incarnation after just one year and I have a feeling that there will be several more evolutions during this year. I am immensely grateful for the efforts early adopters have put into installing these upgrade systems and for the knowledge they fed back to enable me to make running improvements. This sort of thing has never been done before, so there has been a lot to learn, but things are moving quickly now, and the kits are becoming easier to install, with fewer "bits" to accommodate.


  To those of you who have both supported me and given me invaluable feedback, please don't stop. What I do would simply not be possible without you.
   A small but useful tip for those of you who like to keep up with developments, check out the Classic Cars section starting from the end and working backwards.

Ongoing
On Tuesday 12th January 2021, a vigilant customer made me away of actions by the Department for Transport to change the MOT test requirements with regard to car headlights yet again. In the last changes, published in April 2018, they outlawed upgrades to HID Xenon, removing the vagueness that had surrounded this issue for twenty years of argument. That was it. Full stop. Everything else was fine. I, and many others, following extensive legal consultations, then renewed efforts to produce the very best, most reliable and safe upgrade LED systems that have ever existed. For any business, this represents a great deal of work and an even greater amount of investment. Now, with effect from 1st February 2021, they have decided that upgrading from halogen to LED should result in an MOT test failure. While it is comforting to see that the DfT have found a way to distract themselves from some of the very real problems we are all facing, this is a totally illogical and backwards decision. There are stronger words I could use, but that would be pointless. Halogen bulbs were not generally fitted to cars before the mid 1960s and the technology is old and power greedy. If you follow their instructions to the letter, it means that cars made before these bulbs were fitted as standard are fine to enjoy brighter, more efficient and safer headlights, but the later, and often more powerful cars made after, cannot. If their argument is that they are reducing the risk of badly upgraded cars blinding the drivers of cars coming in the opposite direction, that is spurious, as the beam check test weeds those out. That part of the MOT is the same whether the car is a newish one, equipped with halogen, HID Xenon or LED headlights as standard, or one that has an LED upgrade fitted. There is no logical reason why the technology creating the light should make any difference. Also, many MOT testers have a very limited amount of time to fully check a car over, and are, quite rightly, more concerned about real safety features rather than blindly following some mandarin's idea of what constitutes his ideal. Is he supposed to take headlights apart to see what is producing the light?

This is a change that will create a great deal of controversy here in the UK. Most overseas customers will carry on regardless and will enjoy safer motoring as a result. Here is the UK, I have to advise customers that from 1st February next, they must think about their upgrades and know that LED ones for headlights are officially for offroad use only. Also, I advise all customers to email their insurance company stating that in an effort to make their cars as safe and visible as new cars,they are planning to upgrade their lighting to brighter and more efficient LED units and asking if their insurer has any objections. In my experience, this always  brings a positive and approving reply, and if kept on record, will protect my customers from future embarrassment.

Stop Press 2
On Monday 15th March 2021, I received a letter from Baroness Vere, forwarded to me by my hard-working local MP, Nadhim Zahawi, thanking the many of us who raised the subject of the illogical and potentially unsafe changes to the MOT regulations with regard to brighter LED headlights and other lights on classic and vintage cars. She has confirmed that she is instructing all UK MOT test centres to note that any car made on or before 1st April 1986 is exempt from these changes and should be issued with a "Pass" if their headlights conform to the beamsetter check. There is no explanation of why cars are assumed to have changed so much on that day that cars made a week or a decade later should not be submitted to the same logic, but at least we have a partial concession to common sense. I, and others will continue the fight to allow owners of later cars to enjoy safe lighting as well. I would like to thank both Nadhim Zahawi and also Nigel Griffith of the White Knight blog and website for their help and advice, as this progress would not have been made without them.

We really should not let this rest. It is too important. It is both unfair and unsafe and financially punishes those who can least afford it - those who cannot afford a new car. I ask every one of you to write to your MP and to ask for this to be changed back to how it was before the recent changes. I will happily email you a suggested letter laying out the arguments if you contact me. Just insert your name and address and send it off. If enough of us do this, it will make a difference.

2024
Since the changes were made in the advice to test stations, it appears that a certain amount of dust has settled on the subject. The testers and stations have a certain amount of autonomy and usually exercise a degree of pragmatism, common sense and sound engineering knowledge. This combination has seen the illogical advice from the DfT largely ignored as road safety and other practical considerations have taken priority. However, there are still actions that anyone considering upgrading the headlights on a car registered after April 1986 should take. First note that no new laws have been enacted. No existing laws have been changed. What has happened is that the DfT has written to all test stations asking them to look differently at headlights on post 1986 cars. Second, you should write to your insurance company, choosing your words carefully. Tell them that your are considering upgrading the lighting on your car to brighter, safer and more reliable LED. Do they have a view on this? Will it result in a discount on the premium? These words will ensure it ends up on the right desk. Then, you should get the reply that you want. Save it, just in case, and you will not then need to worry about the slight risk of invalidating your insurance. Finally, sound out your local test station to guage their views on this subject. Then you can decide whether to proceed or not.


Gil Keane.



 

Latest Products
Better Car Lighting

Shopping Basket
Your basket is empty.
0Items in cart:
£0.00Total:



Âö‡FÖÃà