Hi Guys,

I recently just got my 94 Accord, and while I was driving at night I cannot see the lines between each road and the glare from other cars makes it impossible. I usually have to have my High Beam on to get a bit of visibility, but it's not enough.

I recently just got my license, so please help me. It makes me not want to drive at night.

Also, should I just get an HID kit? It's quite expensive but I'm willing to make the sacrifice for my safety.

 

If it is your headlights that are making it impossible to see then I would say get new headlight bulbs, the ones at walmart work fine, but if it is just because you are not used to driving at night then I say practice. A helpful hint is when a car is coming at you at night expecually if its raining just look at the white line on the right side of the road, thats what I do.

 

Increasing the output of your headlights won't make you safer, they will blind oncoming traffic and get you hurt or killed.

If your headlight lenses aren't clouded up preventing light from passing through to the road, the bulbs are the correct wattage and the headlight aim is correct, there is nothing more you can do but train your eyes for driving at night.

 

Don't forget to check your electrical system. Verify that your battery is fully charged, the charging system is working properly, and that all wires and cables to and from the battery are clean, tight, and making a proper connection. Back probe the headlights while they are on and check the voltage. Preferably, there shouldn't be more than .5V difference from batt to headlight terminal. But as these vehicles age parts break down, connections corrode and loosen. Check the voltage drop with the engine running. Take note of battery voltage with the car off, on, engine running with the lights off and on.

A fully charged battery should be 12.6V. Anything less the battery is possibly on its way out. A battery when fully charged and only reads 12Volts is usually considered 'dead'. With the engine on the voltage will increase to 13.8-14.4V. If the battery holds a 12.6V charge and with the car on the voltage is below 13.8 there is possibly a problem with the alternator/charging circuit.

Low voltage or high resistance in the circuits will prevent the headlights from correctly illuminating the road ahead.

http://www.popularmechanics.com/cars...repair/1347221
Check this link on how to check your headlight alignment, not the best, but it should help you verify if your headlights are aimed correctly.

 

Make sure your lights are aimed properly.

 

Hey, do what I did, put high beam bulbs in the low beam sockets. The socket is the same shape, you just have to shave off the two small ridges inside the plug of the high beam bulb. If you look inside where it plugs in the low and high beam you'll see what I'm talking about. I use the regular basic high beam bulbs in the low beam sockets to avoid people flashing me on the road.

 

Fix your eyes first.

 

Don't drive around with high beams in your low beam connectors and have them on all the time..... If you do that your a f#@king asshat and should have your license revoked! It is not safe to drive with high beams on all the time. Think of all the others that you are blinding just so you can see. If you need to have your high beams on all the time while driving at night. You should have your headlights replaced or your eyes tested.

OP,
Check your battery voltage
Clean your headlight lenses with a buffing compound (Buff out the yellow/haze so they are clear)
Buy new brighter replacement bulbs (not the crazy HIDs)

If none of this works you may need to have your eyes tested for an astigmatism.

 

Check your headlight aim.

Here are general instructions for how to aim headlights. These are specifically for '92-'00 Civics, but you can follow it all except for what actual parts you might need to touch on the car.

This thread and this thread explain what you need to do on your car to adjust your lights.

If your headlights are foggy or yellowed then that might be a problem as well.

Headlight bulbs do put out slightly less light as they age, so replacing lights might help as well, though I suspect this has less to do with the light output of your lightbulbs and more to do with where the light is pointing. New bulbs in misaligned housings will still not show the road well.

 

I would clean the lenses, use a kit to sand and polish them. Check the aiming. Then try Silverstar Ultra's or newer Silverstar Zxe's. I have the Ultra's and they are pretty darn good.

I am wondering if you aftermarket lights, the cheap ones are terrible with light dispersant.

 

the ultras are crap and highly overpriced....
Trust me, you can do MUCH better for that price... But really, a whiter bulb is the least of his worries...

 

And if the lights are not producing the proper output, it wouldn't hurt to clean the grounds...attached is for the pass side location, drivers is the same, just on the other side.

Are you having this issue when you drive a different car? Have you had someone else drive the car at night and report the same issue?

 

Even low light should reflect the lines on the road.

 

You must live in a good town, some of us in the "sticks" get the cheap version of the paint used on the roads.......and don't go there with me, I rarely if ever use my high beams but I can tell the difference of the road lines when I get out of the "city" and get closer to home,,,,,,middle of nowwhere.

 

hid are expensive but worth it for sure check the aim of the headlight and adjust them i used to have a 95 accord and had the same problem and most likely if not an adjustment than for sure the bulbs.

 

I'm in the Puget Sound now and used to live in Delaware.

Both of these locations use approximately the same sort of paint. Older paint is less likely to be reflective it seems, but in the middle of nowhere they just don't use any road paint.

I've driven cross country three times and this seems pretty standard for the middle of nowhere to not use paint.

There's probably only so many suppliers and manufacturers of road paint. I was under the impression that the state painted the roads, not the city.

 

hey, we're cool....I don't know who pays for the paint, I do know that it can be different....even in the same county on county roads...state or fed (US) roads are a different story-seem to be more consistant......they just put a new surface on a local road, it is smoother, however the lines are harder to see at night than they were before????????? Have a good day, Sir/Mam

 

Something ghostaccord maybe hasn't considered is that the stock headlamp for these cars has a cone over the low beam bulb and running a high beam in the low beam doesn't provide the brightness of a high beam in the high beam. I would know, I've been running them for over 100,000 miles this way. In that time I've been in cars that were followed by other people driving my accord, I've also passed my own car at night. They are bright but they aren't blinding anyone. Not like the hid swaps many here probably do. I would bet that they are comparable to the 100watt Silverstars that people pay 3x more for. I've driven plenty of miles behind police and they didn't see a reason to pull me over. Now if I had some illegal blue lights in the front I would be much more self conscious.

 

thanks for the response guys. I bought the car to a local honda dealership and they told me that I need to get the light cleaned because the lens is dirty. Also they told me that the lights were not aligned properly.

I've done both, got the lens cleaner at Canadian Tire and got someone from Honda to to the Allignment for $20.

I'm seeing the road much better now, and I have a lot of confidence in driving at night. Thanks :D

 

Also, does anyone know how to turn the Fog Lights on for a 1994 Accord Ex 4 DR. Or how to change the bulb if it's not out.

 

Also, instead of buying HID's for the vehicle, check out like SilverStars or their XtraVision bulbs for better visibility at night. I installed XtraVision for my mom's minivan and Silverstar's in my sister's Civic. Both make a noticeable improvement over the stock Sylvanias. Keep in mind those brighter burning bulbs do so at a loss in lifetime of the bulb.

 

Just a helpful tip for everyone. Don't ever buy GE(general electric) headlight bulbs. I had two independently burn out it 2 months.

The best bulbs I have ever had were Nokya artic purple. They lasted a long time and had nice white output.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/NOKYA-9006XS...item41521cf674

I had no luck with Sylvania silverstars. Unless they changed in the last few years. They only lasted 3 month or so.

 

Post a photo of your headlights. The lenses should be entirely clear. A lot of the time people only clean headlights with polish and it just plain does not work.
From searching around it sounds like you might need to remove the front bumper in order to access some screws to take the foglights off of 1994-1995 Accords. This is likely true for changing bulbs too, I'd imagine. I'm not sure though.

As for the switch, this is a replica switch, but the symbol is universal for "fog lights". Your switch should have the same symbol on it as well.

http://i80.photobucket.com/albums/j1...3/100_1170.jpg

Also, if you go into Honda they can print off the instructions for installing the OE optional fog lights. It's free.
We've had GE Nighthawks here that lasted plenty long. In fact, the car we had them on, they never blew out. The car got sold with the bulbs still working several years.

I've honestly only ever had headlight bulbs burn out on my Civic probably twice in the nine years I've owned it and one of those sets were APC bulbs, which seemed to be SilverStar knockoffs, but lasted longer.

I've had alarmingly bad luck with Optima batteries. Turns out my car probably has some sort of parasitic draw that has only gotten worse since I parked it (after the Optima issues).

 

Silverstar Ultras are pretty good, not reg ones.

There is a new Silverstar zxe's I have not tried them yet.

I did try Hella's and they were terrible.